The Court of a Thousand Suns by Chris Bunch; Allan Cole Page B

Attendance At a Dinner Reception for
    KAI HAKONE RSVP Guest
    Perplexed, Sten stared at the invitation. Of course he knew Marr and Senn as the Imperial caterers and unofficial social arbiters at Court. The brief meetings he'd had with them had been purely official, even though he was personally intrigued by their bitchy humor and warmth. He wondered why they'd invite a lowly captain, regardless of position, to what must be a Major Social Event.
    The third piece of paper, also hand-written, explained it. The card said simply, "It's time for old friends to meet again," and was signed Sofia.
    Umm. Sten knew that the woman he'd had a brief but very passionate affair with during a previous assignment was on Prime World—he'd been responsible for getting Sofia off Nebta before the shooting started—but had semideliberately not looked her up, having no idea any longer what he felt toward her.
    Sten decided he needed some advice. In the Imperial Household, unofficial advice for officers was the province of the Grand Chamberlain. His offices were only a few hundred meters from the Emperor's own business suite.
    The Grand Chamberlain, Fleet Admiral Mik Ledoh (Ret.), looked like everyone's favorite grandsire.
    Sten, however, had looked up the admiral's record as part of his routine security check while settling into the job.
    A hundred years before, Ledoh had been a fireball. Literally. During the Palafox rising, his tacship flight was ordered to provide cover for a small planetary landing. Unfortunately, intelligence had erred, and the planet was strongly defended by hardened orbital satellites.
    Ledoh had supervised the conversion of the tacships into pilot-aimed nuclear missiles, and then led the strike himself. He and three other pilots managed to jettison their capsules successfully.
    Then, over the next decades, he'd become the Imperial fleet's prime specialist in planetary assaults.
    Promotion came rapidly for a man who, basically, specialized in logistics. By the time of the Mueller Wars, Ledoh was a fleet admiral.
    The Mueller Wars were one of the more confusing conflicts of the Empire, since the battles were fought near-simultaneously on dozens of different worlds. During the wars, Ledoh commanded the landings in the Crais System, and in a war noted for its bloodiness and ineptness, took the system with minimal losses—minimal, at least, compared to the fifty to seventy percent casualties the war's other battles produced.
    After peace was signed, Ledoh retired for some years, then emigrated to Prime World. When the previous Grand Chamberlain died in office following an unfortunate surfeit of smoked eels, Ledoh, with his combat record and, more important, logistical ability, was a natural for the job.
    Sten could never figure out how Ledoh managed to juggle the various official and unofficial requirements of a household the size of a medium city and still maintain benevolence. Sten was very grateful that he had nothing more to worry about than keeping the Emperor alive, and the welfare of 150 Gurkhas.
    Sten stepped inside Ledoh's office and paused.
    Ledoh, Colonel Fohlee, CO of the Praetorians, and Arbogast, the Imperial Household's paymaster, were staring at a wallscreen readout.
    "Colonel," Arbogast said, "I am not attempting to involve myself in militaria. All I am doing is trying to clear this inquiry from Himself regarding the, and I quote, inordinately high desertion rate in your unit."
    "What does the Emperor expect to happen when you dump a lot of young soldiers into the middle of Prime? Any virgin can be seduced."
    "Another area which isn't my expertise," Arbogast said. He and Fohlee quite clearly hated each other.
    Ledoh attempted mediation.
    "There were four desertions this month alone, Colonel. Perhaps you should examine the selection method for your Praetorians."
    Fohlee turned on Ledoh. "Does not compute, Admiral. Candidates for the Praetorians are personally vetted by myself or my adjutant."
    Arbogast came in