The calm before the storm.

Stage 15

The calm before the storm.

The day had ended anticlimactically. After helping Lian out of the office and enduring the consequent storm of tears from Teresa, Miranda felt physically and mentally exhausted. When she returned to Zechariah's office, he had made good use of the time away from her and cleaned up. He too looked tired and exhausted, but the distant look upon his features as he stared out into the horizon frightened her. He barely moved as he started to speak.

"Richard and I knew about their treatment and still allowed them to execute the mission. We had hopes… well, I had hoped that they were cut from a different cloth. We were being pushed to cut corners, but there is no excuse big enough to replace the lives of those lost in the Sea of Mists. I should have known better than to trust Houston and his ilk."

Miranda could feel the pain that he had numbed within. To his core, Zechariah had a soft heart and an easy disposition when it came to giving people the benefit of the doubt. Yet even so, that core had a complex protection system, carefully crafted over the years. A refined paranoia that forced him to double check and triple check everything. So for Zechariah to have been so duped by Houston meant the man had a rather unique skill set.

"Tell me about them, Zechariah. I want to know the truth from your own mouth."

Zechariah looked over at her and exhaled, nodding. He leaned forward and reached out to touch her hand lightly. "Would you care for some water?"

He already knew the answer, of course, but for him to communicate this through words brought an inexplicable amount of happiness to her being. "Yes, thank you."

He walked over to a small cabinet and opened it, revealing a rather modest collection of bottles. To her surprise, his tastes in liquor bordered on the ultra-expensive. "You've got quite a palette there, Zechariah I mean really!"

He chuckled. "You'd be surprised how long this stuff lasts me, Miranda. I've had some of these bottles for years." From a small sink, he picked up two rather large glasses and poured some water into them, adding a few perfectly-square cubes into the glasses.

Zechariah made his way over to Miranda and offered her a glass. There must have been a look of curiosity on her features because it prompted Zechariah to speak. "Soapstone, or whiskey stones if you're so inclined."

She smiled. "Don't like your expensive stuff to be needlessly diluted, eh?"

He laughed. "Sometimes, I don't mind it nice and dirty."

She blushed, then took a drink of water. He offered a knowing smile and followed suit.

After a quiet moment of sipping and savoring, he sat down next to her on the couch.

"How much do you know about The Hell's Wind Motley?" he asked.

"That's the crew Richard and a few other officers recruited, right?"

"Yes. And they were able to recruit them because of old documentation that proved the need for the reinstatement of the 'letters of marque and reprisal.'

"Wasn't that due to the uptick in pirate activity?"

"Exactly. What the Old Imperial Republic government didn't know was that Richard and those other officers needed training for the coming revolution. Previous experience had taught them that using the cover of the privateers, they could secretly begin negotiations with the sudden influx of pirates who held a similar code of conduct."

Miranda listened to his words with great interest.

"Richard involved me in the negotiations only after they were able to make contact with a viable and respected pirate group. From that point on, we were able to make a tentative arrangement with them. We agreed to facilitate their use of the Sanctuary's rarer resources.

"Thanks to some of the contacts we made with them, we were able to retrofit our ships with high end military hardware from the Core Galaxies. Some of the stuff they were offering in exchange for our cooperation was incredible. Have you ever heard about Zyn Corporation Nanotechnology?"

Miranda shook her head.

"Their stuff rivaled the Old Imperial Republic's own research. I couldn't believe how far the Republic had fallen behind in development at that time. The more we learned about the extent of our former government's atrophy, the more it spurred us to break away. In retrospect, we should have taken more time to understand what was causing the demise, but we were too focused, far too concerned with becoming a new nation."

Miranda understood what he meant. Only a few days had passed after their hard-fought independence when rifts and factions started to appear, each with their own ideals of how the government should be run. Tempers ran high; politicians of rank would set themselves against junior colleagues in violent bursts of rage that often ended up in physical altercations. Hammering out a working government from scratch threatened to break them apart, if not for the efforts of the Fifteen. Somehow, those men and women were able to rally support for a system of governance that offered all parties a say. Though prevalent in the old days, the federalist style had gone out of fashion. Imperialisms, republics, monarchies, oligarchies, parliamentarians and theocracies were the favored form of governance throughout the whole of the colonized universe. For this new government to choose federalism in its purest form was seen with a skeptical eye.

But something didn't quite ring right about his last statement.

"What do you mean about their demise? Aren't they more powerful than ever?"

"Thanks to us, yes. Had we waited, there was a chance the Old Imperial Republic would have been crushed under its own weight. But thanks to our efforts and their subsequent losses, they were able to regroup and recover. They learned a valuable lesson from humiliation."

A look of dissatisfaction crossed Zechariah's features.

"After all we've been through, I still feel discontent. Don't get me wrong, I love our new government and the fact we helped the people find a voice. I thought that being part of such an important event would have fulfilled me in some way, but it hasn't. I asked Richard once if this was the end of things, if this was what he had envisioned. He just smiled and said, 'sometimes, things aren't always what they seem.' I was troubled by that statement, but now I'll never get the chance to clarify what he meant."

She nodded. Richard's death had started the trek down her current path, but because of that she had been able to save Zechariah and, in turn, he had been able to fulfill her deepest need for answers. And their vinculum, this shared connection not only enriched her life, but his as well.

"At least you're happy, right? I mean with me, our vinculum and this current situation?"

"More so than I could have ever have hoped, Miranda. You've exceeded my wildest expectations even though you above all others should be the most disillusioned."

Miranda felt flushed by this. She took a deep breath and lay down on the couch. "Considering how things could have gone for me, I'm fortunate. Though, with all that's happened in the past few days, I'm mentally drained." She sighed. "Did you know this couch is really comfortable?"

"Why do you think I keep it here, there are times…"

He started moving over to the couch, only to see that Miranda was now fast asleep.

"…I just need a little nap."

With a smile, he walked over to a cabinet and removed a large blanket. He walked over to Miranda's side again and arranged the blanket on top of her. He stood there and watched her steady breathing for a moment longer.

"May your dreams be without fire, my dear."

He returned to the window and stared outside. He could see the world below him, but cared little for that hustle and bustle. A well-honed paranoia quickly reminded him that standing in front of a window - even a bulletproof window - was never a good idea. He stayed there for a moment longer than his comfort allowed, then exhaled and turned away from the view. With a snap of his finger, the glass became opaque. That gesture was just one of many that defined Zechariah's more eccentric nature. He always liked to put a little spin on things to make him seem magical, perhaps otherworldly. But it didn't take any magical thinking to know that a figurative storm was brewing. He moved and then sat at his desk and, without hesitation, started to assess his team's readiness.

He reached over to his keyboard and typed in a few lines, then hit enter. A local news source was reporting on a heightened state of security. Anonymous sources within the police department had received a credible threat from a local terror group.

A smile crossed his face as he envisioned the execution and fruition of his plans.