Ravenna was seething with anger inside. She stood with Commander Vander on a richly decorated tribune and watched a parade of soldiers pass beneath them.
She wore an ostentatious uncomfortable dress and heavy expensive jewellery. Somehow she was almost convinced that parade and pageantry clothes for women were designed to be uncomfortable. A small part of her was even envious of the woman next to her. As a military commander, she wore a uniform and the heaviest ornament was the medals hanging from the front of the uniform. Furthermore, the woman could wear a hat and didn't have to balance a mighty pinned-up hairdo on her head like Ravenna.
Sometimes she really wished her family wasn't so traditional. Yet they were, so she had to stand up straight and look dignified and represent the might and glory of House Vallian. She would have liked nothing more than to leave the parade and go and do something else, anything else.
Unfortunately, she could do that. In the absence of her brother and father, it fell to her, as the highest-ranking member of the family, to greet the commander, who had insisted on all the military courtesies and ceremonies that her rank allowed. Unfortunately, as commander of one of the largest stations in the faction's home system, there were quite a few.
Commander Vander, in contrast, who was the woman standing next to the princess, had to suppress a smile. The grandeur and power of a military parade in the capital were truly unsurpassed. Nowhere one could feel the power of the House of Vallian as clearly as here and at this moment.
She looked at her soldiers and those who remained on the planet with a proud chest. It really wasn't easy for her to keep from grinning from ear to ear.
She was already looking forward to the airshow that would take place later in the day, followed by a traditional military feast, born out of the custom of thanking returning soldiers and compensating them for the frankly horrible tasting food on campaigns or the nutrient paste in the Void. Not that Commander Vander or any of her officers would ever eat anything bad. She'd done that long enough on that cursed swamp planet. The woman had sworn to herself that she would take every benefit and every amenity her position could offer, just in case she ever did get redeployed.
...
Commander Vander's ego trip might not have been aimed at that, but it came in very handy for Jack. The effort and preparation for the various parades, marches and banquets had turned the whole palace into an anthill, which in turn made it much easier to get in and out of the complex.
Since he had not been able to convince any of his contacts to help him, Jack had decided to carry out investigations in the palace on his own. The complex, with all its gardens and auxiliary buildings, stretched over several square kilometres, which limited his chances of finding anything, but after Lyna had banned him from her workroom for asking too often for updates, he didn't know what else to do with himself.
Two of the new crew members accompanied him. Jack had decided this was as good an opportunity as any to test their skills and loyalty.
Instead of entering the palace by the normal route, Jack decided to enter secretly to avoid alerting the princess and her followers, or at least to gain a small lead.
Commander Vander had ordered loads of luxury food and sweets to be delivered to her ship and Jack quickly caught one of the deliveries.
After convincing the driver to call it a day with the help of a generous amount of cash, he and his two companions set off for the palace.
To be on the safe side, he first took a long diversion through the city and then approached the place from the opposite side of the docks. At one of the servants' gates, they were stopped by a bored man in a guardhouse. Jack rolled down the window of the Hovertruck and looked at the man with an equally bored expression.
"Yeah, what do you want?"
The man could be seen to be fed up with all the activity and hassle of the festivities. Jack tried to adopt as similar a tone as possible, hoping to arouse sympathy in the man.
"I've got a load of blue lobsters in the back, for some kind of feast. Ordered today, sounded urgent, what the boss said."
As he spoke he pointed his thumb back at the closed loading compartment. The guard grunted and started going through a list of vehicles and licences. After a while, he sighed in annoyance and went through the list again.
"I can't find you here."
Jack's heart skipped a beat, he had hoped to somehow muddle through all this trouble. Normally he would have turned around now and tried something else, but he couldn't afford the luxury this time, after all, Maya's freedom was at stake here.
"Come on, that can't be right. I'm pretty sure one of the higher-ups called us herself. Commander Vander was the name, I think."
Jack the man responded to the name, which made Jack feel more positive again.
"Don't you have a superior you can ask?"
The guard grumbled, then took a communicator from the wall and held it to his ear. Jack couldn't understand what was being said, but from the constant nodding and the increasingly grumpy expression on the man's face, he could guess that he was getting an earful from his superiors.
When the man emerged from the conversation, he looked as if someone had just run over his favourite pet. With a practised move, he operated the barrier at the gate and cleared the way for Jack's truck.
"Captain says you can go in."
Jack nodded gratefully to the man and hurried through the gate, for a queue had already formed behind them and the first people were getting impatient. Only after they had rounded the next corner did he notice how tense he had been all the time and took a few deep breaths to steady his heartbeat and calm his trembling hands a little.
The two men sitting next to him in the truck looked at him questioningly.
He briefly considered telling them off but decided against it.
"That was the hard part, at least I hope so. You still have our plan in mind?"
The two men nodded. And one of them recalled what they had talked about.
"We'll find guards of the Prince's who we can take the uniforms off, then we'll find out which of the school classes Security Officer Maya attended, find the person in charge of the classes, and work our way from there."
He followed the road signs to one of the kitchens, where he then parked the truck. Immediately one of the staff was with him.
"We have Blue Lobsters here for a Commander Vander. But there are problems with the paperwork, so I have to go back to the gate with my men. Should I leave the truck open so you can unload already?"
The man just looked at him overwhelmed. Making decisions was clearly above his pay grade.
Jack felt a certain sympathy for him but didn't want to spend any more time with the man than was absolutely necessary.
He tossed the staff member the key.
"Go in and ask one of the cooks or something. I assume my truck will still be there when I get back. There's no stealing here in the palace, is there?"
Before the man had time to think of an answer, Jack and his two mercenaries had already disappeared into the building in front of them.
"The gate is that way..."
The servant stared into the air for a moment, then he could hear the voice of his superior roaring from the kitchen and hurried to get moving.