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CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The Overseer has a really nice office.

  Now, I’ll be the first one to admit that I really don’t get out much. Not to important business offices, at least. Outside of the Admiralty, I don’t have any reason to visit any other important folk. When we’re on missions, I’m usually on-ship during the ‘visiting important folk in their offices’ part of the trip. I meet folk in Cap’s or Calgonnel’s offices occasionally, and I’ve visited Tanna’s Dad in his office before, but they don’t hold a candle to this place.

  The room is huge. It must take up most of the entire fourth level of the building. The floor has plush brown carpeting, which makes me bounce slightly with each step. A large desk that looks from here like it’s made from dark brown stone adorns the far wall, with four large plush chairs on this side. Four places in the room contain small conference tables with chairs, each positioned to be near a different area of surrounding artwork.

  The walls, which I know are made of red clay like every other wall in the building we just walked through, are covered with dark wood panels that look exactly like an actual wooden wall. Hanging from those walls are important documents, large painted pieces, and shelves containing trinkets, sculptures, and other knickknacks.

  On one wall, displayed prominently, is a portrait of King Damnation, done in vibrant paint colors. On the opposite wall, displayed equally prominently, is a portrait of a goblin in UCST battle armor, holding a crown aloft in his left hand while a flail hangs from the right hand at his side. Beneath his foot is a figure lying on the ground, covered in a red robe with adornment along the hem – obviously a royal figure.

  The Overseer leads us to a table and chairs directly beneath this portrait, and chuckles when he looks at us. “I see you’ve already noticed His Excellency’s portrait. I assume you haven’t seen the statue yet, but the pose is remarkably similar. Obviously, though, the statue isn’t in color.” He chuckles at his own joke, and I hear Calgonnel chuckle as well. I can assume that the ‘diplomacy’ part of the mission has indeed begun.

  He gestures to the chairs, so Calgonnel and I take a seat. Simon remains standing at our backs, facing the door. The Overseer takes a seat across from us, relaxing into his chair. “Ambassador Dreadthief informed me that you’ve arrived as part of His Excellency’s contingent, and that you have a very urgent falsified document for my direct attention.”

  Calgonnel nods. “Indeed, Your Honor. We appreciate your time in meeting with us under these circumstances. Before we begin, can I please ask which folk in your office have details of our visit? Part of the urgency of our visit is to validate and assess a potential threat to His Excellency.”

  The Overseer becomes more rigid in his chair. “Of course. The Ambassador initially contacted me directly, on my personal communicator, informing me of your names and that you are with His Excellency. I informed Rosa to be on the lookout for you. One moment.” He touches a communicator charm on the table, and Rosa’s face appears above the table between us.

  “Rosa. Please give me the exact details of when you learned that our guests had arrived and everyone you spoke with about them.”

  The goblin girl smiles. “Of course. You initially informed me of their names and ranks. I informed the main door guards, and only the main door guards, to be on watch for two elves who are working directly with His Excellency and to bring them up immediately. When the office received a call from the landcraft attendant mentioning two elves, the confused receptionist brought it straight to me. I dismissed her and left without another word to anyone. I assume the call created some gossip about elf visitors, but nothing more.”

  Calgonnel nods. “Thank you, Rosa. You have been very helpful to us today! My sincere thanks.”

  The Overseer disconnects the call. “Rosa is a trusted assistant, and works with many of my confidential matters.”

  Our Ambassador removes a scroll from inside of his jacket. “I understand. Thank you for indulging my request, Your Honor. Upon our arrival, all of our information changed drastically, so we need to validate everything we can. As you will see, we began this journey under quite different circumstances.”

  He passes the scroll to the Overseer, who opens it and begins reading. Upon reaching the bottom, he stops, hands shaking. With obvious effort, he slowly rolls the scroll and gently lays it on the table in front of him. I can tell he’s incredibly angry at what he read. He takes a few deep breaths to regain his composure, then looks back at us.

  “Friends,” he begins, taking another breath before continuing, “I am stunned into confusion with this document. I can tell you, with absolute certainty, that this document is falsified. For one, there has been no assassination attempt on His Majesty, may there never be one through his reign.” He bows his head and places a hand to his forehead for a second in reverence, then looks back at us.

  “ Secondly, Gak Bonedread has not been Overseer for these last fifteen years, and has no ability to authorize anything from his holding cell. Next, if this Lieutenant Commander Darkmuck had indeed attempted to assassinate our King, and was not already killed by the Palace guards, he would be held in the Palace holding cells, not the ones I control.

  “Finally, a war declaration would be created directly from the Palace, not from this office. The Overseer has many abilities, but war declaration is a power strictly held by His Majesty. My office’s charter is to maintain peace and punish those who threaten that peace, not to declare war.”

  I let out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. Calgonnel’s face doesn’t change, but I’m sure he’s internally relieved as well. He nods in acceptance of what we just heard. “Thank you, Your Honor. It’s comforting to know for certain that this message is false. As you can imagine, it was disturbing for us to receive it, and we were sent out immediately to verify its authenticity.”

  The goblin nods. “Immediately? I assume you received this on Terra? Can you tell me the exact day?”

  Calgonnel turns to me. “Commander, you had the information before I did. Can you please provide an answer for His Honor?”

  In our discussions about these meetings, we decided that Calgonnel will handle the niceties and most of the discussion, but specific details will be addressed by me. That provides him with occasional breaks, reminds everyone that I’m still here, and gives me a chance to piece together an analysis.

  I smile my prettiest smile. “Certainly. We received the message on Terra in the afternoon fourteen days ago, Your Honor. The Admiralty passed the mission along to the Corsari the next day, we made immediate preparations to depart, and launched eleven days ago, arriving at Stenchstone yesterday evening.”

  The Overseer nods, staring over my head in thought. “Fourteen days... so it would have left here on…”

  I feel a brief flashback to my Captain’s test. I do the dragons-be-damned nav-math in my head as quickly as I can. “Assuming a standard message ship on a direct course to Terra, the message would have left Stenchstone twenty-five days ago.”

  The goblin touches the communicator on the table again, and Rosa’s head appears. “Rosa, can you please find the last time a message ship visited Stenchstone?”

  The female head nods. “Of course. One moment. As you know, Stenchstone doesn’t communicate very often with outside worlds, so we don’t have message ships visit regularly.” She grins. “Ah, here it is. The last message ship was the Bookkeeper, three months ago.”

  Calgonnel and I look at each other while the Overseer reaches to the communicator. “Thank you, Rosa. Can you please have lunch for five delivered from The Burning Hut? I’d like to ask that you please join us for lunch to help in case we have need of more information.” Rosa’s head nods and he cuts the connection.

  Looking back at us, the Overseer places his hands together on the table and leans on them slightly. “Three months is a lot longer than twenty-five days. I think I can say with certainty that this message did
not originate on Stenchstone. Even if I pretend that it originally came from this office, and from the previous Overseer, and was somehow found in an archive and sent so many years late, I know that there was never an attempt on His Majesty’s life by a UCST lieutenant commander, so the message is still invalid.”

  I look at Calgonnel. “That makes me remember something. The message was received by the Admiralty fourteen days ago, and they called Cap in immediately as the Corsari was the only ship on-world. We were there for a week, and I only remember one irregular message ship docking in that time, four days before Cap was called in.”

  Calgonnel touches his chin in thought. “Interesting. The math doesn’t make sense. No one in the Admiralty would leave a message like this sitting around for four days. Certainly not Admiral Shockpaw, who’s in charge of the war department and would have been the first to see it. Does that mean the fake message actually originated on Terra?”

  I shrug. “It could have. The message would have gone straight from the message ship to the Admiral otherwise, four days earlier. But that still doesn’t really make sense. Why would someone on Terra fake the message? Were they just trying to get us off-world for some reason? Who gave it to the Admiral? Did Admiral Shockpaw create the fake message himself? But why would he do that?”

  I stop as I realize I just thought all of that out loud. Calgonnel’s eyes are wide as he’s looking at me, but that’s not what got my attention. The Overseer snapped up straight in his chair to look right at me, a scowl on his face.

  “Commander,” he says icily, “are you suggesting that His Excellency created this forged document?”

  Dragons be damned! I’m not! …am I? No, I’m not! I didn’t mean to! I… damn it! “Your Honor, I apologize profusely! I absolutely was not honestly thinking that Admiral Shockpaw would do such a thing. I have no idea why he would! I was simply thinking about possible scenarios, and it entered my mind. I truly don’t believe he would do anything like this! I am so sorry I said it!”

  The goblin relaxes in his chair, and his expression returns to normal. “I accept your apology on behalf of His Excellency, Commander. I understand how difficult it can be to solve the clues of criminals. Sometimes you have to think of the impossible just to rule it out.”

  I sigh. Just dodged that arrow! I can see Calgonnel out of the corner of my eye, and I can tell he’s less than pleased. Oh well. It happened. All we can do is move on from here. Sorry, Ambassador. “Speaking of impossible things to rule out, what about the content of the message? If the message originated on Terra – or, at least, didn’t originate on Stenchstone – then why does it specifically name Lieutenant Commander Darkmuck as the assassin?”

  The Overseer looks at me and nods. “That, Commander, is an excellent question.” He touches the communicator again. “Rosa, can you search our files for the name Darkmuck?”

  She nods. “Of course. A quick search of names shows that we do have records for multiple Darkmucks. Do you have a given name?”

  I can provide that. “Spazkin. Lieutenant Commander in the UCST. Certified as a weapons technician.”

  Her head bobs as she scans the names. “Found him. Lieutenant Commander Spazkin Darkmuck, registered with the UCST weapons warehouse in quadrant 2. Not far from where I live, actually. His record with us looks clean, though. No trouble, no association with criminals. If it wasn’t for the weapons registration, he wouldn’t even be in our records.” She stops, then her face brightens. “Oh! Lunch is here, sir. I’ll sort it out and bring it in momentarily.” Her face disappears.

  I smile. “Well, our message, the war, and the assassination may be fake, but at least our accused assassin is real. That’s a step in the right direction.”

  The Overseer nods. “Very true, Commander. It might be wise to interrogate this Darkmuck and see why someone would frame him for a royal assassination.”

  I hear Simon chuckle behind me. “I like interrogations.”

  While the Overseer laughs at Simon’s comment, the door opens and Rosa comes in carrying a tray with five mugs and a large pitcher. She sets it on the closest table, leaves, and immediately returns carrying a second tray with five covered bowls. We watch as she moves two bowls off of the tray, replaces them with three mugs, and fills the mugs from the pitcher. She brings the tray over to our table and sets a bowl and mug in front of each of us.

  The tray empty, she turns to see Simon standing, and glances back at the table by the door. “Master Sergeant, you’d be more comfortable seated while eating. Maybe you can join me at the table by the door?”

  Time for this elf to help a girl out! “Simon, if someone attacks through the front door, you’ll be better sitting there than back here with us. Think of the reaction time!”

  Simon grunts. “That’s a decent idea. Tired of standing and listening to you talk anyway.” Rosa looks around him, flashes me a grin and a wink as thanks, then takes his arm and leads him to the other table.

  I turn back to the table as the Overseer uncovers his bowl. “The Burning Hut makes the best pork noodle casserole, and the bizzonberry juice is unique to Stenchstone. Please, enjoy.”

  I reach for my mug and glance at Calgonnel as I raise it. His comes up a half-second behind mine. “Your Honor, may your meal fuel the vengeance in your soul.”

  The Overseer smiles, pleased. “May yours stoke the fire of your marauding spirit.” We drink – the juice is tart, but flavorful like multiple kinds of berries and citrus at the same time – and he lowers his mug. “Well done, Commander. I assume you’ve had meals with His Excellency. He loves that blessing. A bit outdated these days on Stenchstone, but a good one nonetheless.”

  I nod and smile. “The Admiral is a welcome new member of our ship family. He’s become a bit of a wise uncle to us all.”

  “I’m pleased to hear it. I can’t wait to see His Excellency again at the Palace card game later today. It’s been a long time. Now, please, enjoy your meal.”

  I look in my bowl. Chopped pieces of roast pork, small flat noodles, some vegetables that look like corn and onions, and a creamy sauce. I don’t see anything I want to pick out of it, which is good. It smells just a little spicy, but otherwise delicious. Dipping my spoon, I scoop out a mouthful and dig in.

  Oh my! I may have to bring Tanna out to The Burning Hut tomorrow! I may also have to bring the ship’s cooks out here to learn how to make this!