“Good in close quarters,” I replied. “It pairs with the broadsword.”
“Two blades?” the valet asked, his eyebrows shooting towards his hairline. “Dear Captain, do you think you’ll need to fight somebody?”
I shrugged. “It is an Imperial party. You never know what they’ll do.”
The valet hesitated. “Well, I suppose it will do until we can get you a nice custom smallsword…”
Irritated by this servant’s demeanor, I decided to stand my ground. “Actually, I was never very good with a smallsword. If you could get me a matching broadsword and dirk, I’d appreciate it.”
“Young man—” the valet began, but I cut him off.
“You told me to not wear standard kit. Isn’t a cavalry sword and dagger non-standard?”
The valet pursed his lips, glaring at me. “Yes, but I meant something like a nice brocade neckerchief or a cunning hat. I suppose I should be glad you’re not insisting on carrying this monster across your back,” he said, toeing my sheathed greatsword.
“Don’t be silly. The greatsword mounts on my hoversteed,” I said with a hint of superiority in my voice. It felt nice to know something the prissy bastard didn’t.
“Yes, that’s another thing. Why do you have a hoversteed if you’re a junior supply officer?” the valet asked.
I bristled. “My rank entitles me to a hoversteed. I am a sky captain.”
The valet raised his eyebrow. “For the last twenty minutes?”
With a shrug, I conceded the point. “I graduated into the cavalry from Royal Colonial. I went into supply for the mounted division, so I received a steed to keep pace, and we got a bit attached,” I explained, looking fondly at Tilly.
The valet shrugged. “Well, if you insist on taking a hoversteed…”
“I do,” I said sharply, more certain of that than anything since the Royal Guards had fetched me.
“… then we’ll need to get you a new one,” the valet finished.
I fell silent, his words failing to register. A new what? Surely, he couldn’t be talking about replacing Tilly.
Faced with my silence, the valet walked over to stand next to Tilly. He refused to touch her, likely because she was even filthier than I was. “It’s rather old, several generations out of date, and very hard used.”
“Yes,” I said, drawing the word out to showcase the valet’s ignorance of real combat conditions. “Because we’ve been at war.”
“I understand,” the valet replied in a patronizing voice, “but now you’re representing the Queen and Parliament and must maintain a royal standard of decorum. We have plenty of officers’ hoversteeds in the barracks motor pool. What color would you prefer?”
“I would prefer my hoversteed,” I said automatically.
“Don’t be silly. We can have a new steed up here and junk this old trash heap in a moment,” the valet replied.
Tilly had not been listening. I could tell because she didn’t make any threatening moves towards the valet. I, however, was now well and truly angry.
I jabbed a firm finger at the valet with a furious glare. “No, you cannot. Tilly is an emergent Synthetic Intelligence, not some standard-issue computerized transport. She has rights.You can’t throw her away like a piece of outdated military tech. Junking her would be a crime, and not in a figurative sense.”
“Oh, dammit. You let an SI develop? Aren’t there manuals about wiping the memory weekly to prevent this sort of thing?” the valet asked, looking around the room for confirmation. I kept my gaze firmly fixed on the servant. You never took your eyes from an enemy during a stand-off.
“Tilly developed her SI when she and I were trapped on an Imperial-held planet for several months after the Imps took all the portal sites. It was her, me, and a small cadre of supply corps infantry evading Imperial forces until the RC bridged a new assault force to retake the planet. We had neither the time nor the equipment to perform a wipe, and to be honest, I’m glad we didn’t. Tilly saved my life several times before reinforcements showed up, and over a dozen times since. So if you think I’m going to let you take my hoversteed away from me, then you have another thing coming!”
The valet returned my glare, staring me down until one Guards officer asked, “You were on Kakoda?”
“Yes. I was with the 984th Logistical Corps, attached to the 482nd Legion during the Imperial surge of ’78.”
Nobody said anything else, but the silence felt impressed, or at least approving. The valet must have felt it too, because he sighed and rotated back to look at Tilly with more appraising eyes.
“Fine. You can keep your steed, but we must clean it and apply a new coat of paint.”
