FIC: Black Hearts, Part One
Feb. 3rd, 2007 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jeriendhalTags: Vorkosiverse, Miles, Aral, Cordelia, Sergyar, PG-13 for language.
The sharp rap at the door was enough to shoot Miles straight out of his deep and comfortable sleep and direct to panicked wakefulness. In his experience, knocking on someone's bedroom door in the middle of the night never was a good thing, particularly in the context of Barrayaran history.
“Milord?” Pym called out, opening the door. “The Viceroy and Vicerine request and require your presence in the main briefing room immediately.
“Thank you, Pym.” He slipped out of bed, feeling his heart slow down marginally as Ekaterine let out a muzzy, Miles... what...? The Count his father, Aral Vorkosigan, was alive and well, and so was his mother, which eliminated at least half of his reasons to panic. He went rapidly down the list of other concerns that would require his attention immediately. Little Aral and his sister were safely asleep in the adjoining room. Mark and Kareen were due to arrive in orbit sometime in the morning, traveling on a commercial liner. The Cetagandans had been quiescent for over a decade, content on a complex internal reorganization of which Miles himself was in no small part responsible for thanks to various exploits as Admiral Naismith and very briefly as Gregor's representative during the mourning period of the late Empress Dowager nearly twenty years ago. Which left...
Gregor. Shit!
Miles more or less teleported out of the Viceroy Residence's private living chambers, down the stairs, and into the briefing room where his father and mother waited, rapidly dressing on the fly with the clothes Pym had handed to him as he flew out the door. He tucked in the flap of his shirt lopsidedly into his pants as he entered, searching his parents' faces for clues as to what the current crisis was.
“Gregor is just fine, Miles,” his father said gravely, speaking with the sort of telepathic authority that came with having dealt with the pivot point of Barrayar's power structure since well before Miles was born, “But we've had an... incident... in Sergyar's defensive sphere.”
“Ah? What?” he panted, taking in a deep breath. He looked his father over carefully, checking for signs of fatigue or stress. This little family visit, nominally a vacation for Gregor's busiest Imperial Auditor and his family, had a slightly more desperate air than such a happy reunion ought to. Having been warned by his mother, Lady Cordelia, in a private communication, Miles had not allowed himself to show the shock he'd felt to see his father arrive to greet them at the spaceport, leaning on a cane and looking as gray as when Miles had first seen him after returning from his final adventure as Admiral Naismith. I can't convince him to come home, Miles. For Aral to stop working would be as sure a death as anything else his failing body can threaten him with, her message had read, But with you, Mark, and all your families around him, I might at least have a chance at convincing him to slow down.
His mother touched a control at the briefing table console, saving the Count from having to reach for it himself. A globular holographic image sprang to life over the table's center, diagramming the Sergyar system's planetary orbits, vital wormhole jump points, and the defensive stations and ships that protected them. She touched another control and the view expanded, detailing the area around the system's fourth jump point, the one with the closest connection to Komarr, the vital economic center of the Barrayar's three planet empire. “Fourteen hours ago the Komarran passenger liner carrying your brother Mark and Kareen emerged from its jump point and began maneuvering to make orbit around Sergyar, with an intended ETA of some six hours from now.”
“Intended?” Miles asked, feeling his heart race again.
“Seven hours after emerging from the jump point, it was set upon by pirates,” his father said.
“Pirates, here?” he exclaimed. “That doesn't make any sense.” Sergyar's economy, Miles knew, was based around colonization and raw materials exports. It didn't export the high-value, low bulk goods pirates wanted. Unless they were specifically going after hostages for ransom. “Was Mark's ship specifically targeted?”
“We don't believe so,” the Count his father said. “This is where things get complex. The defense patrol that responded to the liner's brief distress call had the same thought that I'm sure is running through your mind. How could any pirate ship, or other armed force, enter Sergyar's system without being detected? Unless of course that they discovered a new wormhole.”
“They must have,” Miles said. “There's no other way for a ship to get here.”
“There wasn't any other way,” his mother said. “Here's what we saw when we reviewed the sensor logs from the nearest jump point station." She touched another control. An icon representing the Komarran liner appeared in the hologram. Then two other ships blinked into existence in close proximity. One was a warship, Miles guessed, judging from the power curve in the block of vital statistics that appeared next to it. The other was much smaller, a fighter or scoutship of some sort.
“Were they stealthed?” he asked.
“No,” his father said. “They simply appeared, from our perspective. A further review revealed that they were actually traveling in excess of 30 C just prior to decelerating next to the liner.”
“30 C? But that would mean...”
“A true faster than light drive, yes,” Cordelia said. “The dream of every interstellar government since the beginning of the jump drive era.”
TBC
The sharp rap at the door was enough to shoot Miles straight out of his deep and comfortable sleep and direct to panicked wakefulness. In his experience, knocking on someone's bedroom door in the middle of the night never was a good thing, particularly in the context of Barrayaran history.
“Milord?” Pym called out, opening the door. “The Viceroy and Vicerine request and require your presence in the main briefing room immediately.
“Thank you, Pym.” He slipped out of bed, feeling his heart slow down marginally as Ekaterine let out a muzzy, Miles... what...? The Count his father, Aral Vorkosigan, was alive and well, and so was his mother, which eliminated at least half of his reasons to panic. He went rapidly down the list of other concerns that would require his attention immediately. Little Aral and his sister were safely asleep in the adjoining room. Mark and Kareen were due to arrive in orbit sometime in the morning, traveling on a commercial liner. The Cetagandans had been quiescent for over a decade, content on a complex internal reorganization of which Miles himself was in no small part responsible for thanks to various exploits as Admiral Naismith and very briefly as Gregor's representative during the mourning period of the late Empress Dowager nearly twenty years ago. Which left...
Gregor. Shit!
Miles more or less teleported out of the Viceroy Residence's private living chambers, down the stairs, and into the briefing room where his father and mother waited, rapidly dressing on the fly with the clothes Pym had handed to him as he flew out the door. He tucked in the flap of his shirt lopsidedly into his pants as he entered, searching his parents' faces for clues as to what the current crisis was.
“Gregor is just fine, Miles,” his father said gravely, speaking with the sort of telepathic authority that came with having dealt with the pivot point of Barrayar's power structure since well before Miles was born, “But we've had an... incident... in Sergyar's defensive sphere.”
“Ah? What?” he panted, taking in a deep breath. He looked his father over carefully, checking for signs of fatigue or stress. This little family visit, nominally a vacation for Gregor's busiest Imperial Auditor and his family, had a slightly more desperate air than such a happy reunion ought to. Having been warned by his mother, Lady Cordelia, in a private communication, Miles had not allowed himself to show the shock he'd felt to see his father arrive to greet them at the spaceport, leaning on a cane and looking as gray as when Miles had first seen him after returning from his final adventure as Admiral Naismith. I can't convince him to come home, Miles. For Aral to stop working would be as sure a death as anything else his failing body can threaten him with, her message had read, But with you, Mark, and all your families around him, I might at least have a chance at convincing him to slow down.
His mother touched a control at the briefing table console, saving the Count from having to reach for it himself. A globular holographic image sprang to life over the table's center, diagramming the Sergyar system's planetary orbits, vital wormhole jump points, and the defensive stations and ships that protected them. She touched another control and the view expanded, detailing the area around the system's fourth jump point, the one with the closest connection to Komarr, the vital economic center of the Barrayar's three planet empire. “Fourteen hours ago the Komarran passenger liner carrying your brother Mark and Kareen emerged from its jump point and began maneuvering to make orbit around Sergyar, with an intended ETA of some six hours from now.”
“Intended?” Miles asked, feeling his heart race again.
“Seven hours after emerging from the jump point, it was set upon by pirates,” his father said.
“Pirates, here?” he exclaimed. “That doesn't make any sense.” Sergyar's economy, Miles knew, was based around colonization and raw materials exports. It didn't export the high-value, low bulk goods pirates wanted. Unless they were specifically going after hostages for ransom. “Was Mark's ship specifically targeted?”
“We don't believe so,” the Count his father said. “This is where things get complex. The defense patrol that responded to the liner's brief distress call had the same thought that I'm sure is running through your mind. How could any pirate ship, or other armed force, enter Sergyar's system without being detected? Unless of course that they discovered a new wormhole.”
“They must have,” Miles said. “There's no other way for a ship to get here.”
“There wasn't any other way,” his mother said. “Here's what we saw when we reviewed the sensor logs from the nearest jump point station." She touched another control. An icon representing the Komarran liner appeared in the hologram. Then two other ships blinked into existence in close proximity. One was a warship, Miles guessed, judging from the power curve in the block of vital statistics that appeared next to it. The other was much smaller, a fighter or scoutship of some sort.
“Were they stealthed?” he asked.
“No,” his father said. “They simply appeared, from our perspective. A further review revealed that they were actually traveling in excess of 30 C just prior to decelerating next to the liner.”
“30 C? But that would mean...”
“A true faster than light drive, yes,” Cordelia said. “The dream of every interstellar government since the beginning of the jump drive era.”
TBC
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-02-04 01:24 am (UTC):<}
Good start!
no subject
Date: 2007-02-04 02:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-04 10:29 am (UTC)Is this going to be a cross-over>? - Yep. Though its with a universe you've likely never heard of, so hopefully it'll seem fresh.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-04 03:22 am (UTC)Mark and Kareen in trouble? oh, oh.
Miles freaking out? Well, that's pretty normal.
But Cordelia? And Aral? OH...OH!
Hints of a crossover? Hmmmmmmm.
Okay, enough torture...where's Part Two already?
no subject
Date: 2007-02-04 06:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-04 12:13 pm (UTC)SQUEEEEEE and now I have even more of your work to look forward to! :)) which I love!
A jump start, as it were... *hopes Mark and Kareen end up, eventually, OK* hmm... but I'm looking forward to Aral's reasoning that the ship wasn't targeted.
Poor Aral. Poor Cordelia and Miles... having to work around that. *sighs*
Nice, thank you!
(as I recently re-entered beta mode, Aral and his sister *were* sleeping, not was?)
no subject
Date: 2007-02-04 06:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-04 06:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-04 07:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-05 05:54 pm (UTC)So far so good.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-05 06:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-07 12:47 am (UTC)