Empire's Legacy

Chapter 38: A Date With the Secretary

Docking over C-Prime for an entire week was making Grey's skin crawl. He'd not intended to stay longer than a few days, but Kate and Taz had both insisted that they needed the time to complete an overhaul of the Sophia since they'd just had an influx of money that meant they could actually buy the parts they needed to replace. Every mindful of his ship's needs, Grey had grudgingly agreed.

Over the course of the week, it became increasingly obvious that there was a spy on board. Commissioner patrols repeatedly inspected the ship and questioned Grey and his crew—and they had all received a few too many pointed questions about their families for his liking.

And he still had no idea which member of his crew was the informant.

The worst moment was when the invitation arrived from the fucking Secretary of Internal Affairs, inviting the entire crew to dinner in his chambers. Grey had declined with a sarcasm that didn't make it all the way back to Secretary; though he left it up to his crew whether they accepted, the only one who chose to attend was Taz, much to Grayson's surprise.

"I've known Seamus Brenner a long time," Taz explained.

Grey hadn't known this, and it made him wary. He'd known Taz longer than anyone else on his crew, and the realization he'd never known this particular part of Taz's past made him...anxious. Worse, it made him wonder if, despite his assertion to Amy to the contrary, Taz might after all be the spy on board the Sophia.

Taz, for his part, disliked that Gus was uneasy about his relationship with the Secretary, but he owned Seamus Brenner so much that the idea of refusing an invitation from the man made him feel ungrateful.

"I see your crewmates think so little of me that they declined to send you with backup," Brenner said as Taz came through the door.

Taz grinned. "Most of them probably would have shot you on sight."

Some of the tension eased out of Brenner's shoulders. "It's damn good to see you, Taz. Have a seat."

"And you, sir," Taz said, taking the chair Brenner pointed out. "It's been some time."

They conversed amicably for some time on neutral subjects, working their way through the first two courses of the meal.

Finally, Brenner said, "How is my daughter?"

Taz's head came up. "Sir?"

Brenner lifted an eyebrow. "Son, don't try that innocent look on me. We both know she was here less than ten days ago, and I'm well aware she was on the Sophia before that. How is she?"

Ever since he'd first met Brenner's headstrong daughter at the age of 15, fresh off Meridani, Taz had never quite known what to make of her. Then, of course, she'd been Annieka—Anni—Brenner, 14 years old, with mousy brown flyaway hair, an independence streak an ocean wide, and an arrogance to match her father's. Unlike Seamus Brenner, however, Annieka hadn't taken to Taz; as he grew to know her a little, and learned the family dynamics, he realized it was because she hated her father, and thus, as a favorite of her father's, he was doomed from the start. He'd had a little better luck with Cam, but only because at five years Taz's junior, Cam had quickly come to idolize him. (Even if he did pretend otherwise when his sister was around.) Taz had been determined to make friends with Annieka, however prickly she was, and in the few years before Brenner had sent him off to C-Prime to start at the Academy, he'd worked and worked until her guards had started to let down. And then he'd gone off to become a cadet, part of the workings of the Commission she hated so much, and a few years later she deferred her service and went to the University, and he never heard from her again. Having her show up on the Sophia—under an entirely different name, at that—had been a shock, and as she'd chosen not to acknowledge their prior experience, he'd stayed silent about it. If she didn't want anyone to know she was the daughter of the Secretary of Internal Affairs, it wasn't his job to make that information known.

Even if he had regretted not having the chance to really talk to her.

That being said, he'd kept an eye on her. Oh, not before she'd come aboard the Sophia; before that, he had no idea how she'd been occupying herself. Her penchant for disguise and her thorough knowledge of the Empire had come as a surprise. But for all the time they'd spent in close quarters on the Sophia, Taz found he didn't really have an answer to Brenner's question.

"That last time I saw her, she seemed...normal," he finally said. "Insofar as Annieka Brenner has ever been normal."

Brenner sighed. "It's never escaped my notice, Taz, that you are likely more fond of me than either of my children."

"I owe you a great deal, sir."

"Yes," Brenner said absently. "I suppose so."

Taz watched the complex play of emotions over Brenner's usually unreadable face and ventured, "Sir, may I ask why your relationship with Anni and Cam is so fraught?"

Brenner snorted. "You can ask."

"Sorry," Taz said immediately. "Overstepping."

"No," Brenner said, turning his wine glass in his hands. "It's fine." He stared at the ruby liquid and sighed. "One of my children witnessed the death of their mother, and told the other. They blame me—which is understandable, given the circumstances. Unfortunately, I've never been able to determine with certainty which child was lurking in the shadows."

"But you think it was Anni?"

Brenner lifted his gaze and met Taz's eyes. "She certainly seems to hold me in greater distaste than her brother, but that's hardly definitive given the difference in their personalities. Annieka is mercurial, clever, temperamental, and prone to hold a grudge." An uninhibited grin spread over his face. "A classmate sat in the spot she wanted when she was 6, and she never spoke to him again."

Taz snorted. "Sounds about right. And Cam?"

"Cam is...easier. Easy-going, cheerful, gets along with pretty much everyone, hates conflict." He sighed. "The upshot being that even if Cam was the witness, if he told Annieka she'd be more likely to hold it against me than he would regardless. Although the difficulty with Cam is that that smiling exterior makes it damn hard to really figure out what he's thinking."

"Do you ever see them?" Taz asked. "Anni's most recent appearance notwithstanding."

"No," Brenner said, the word clipped. "Annieka dropped out of sight around the time she went to the University, but it was clear she had no interest in seeing me unless she had to. Not least, I suspect, because she runs under multiple identities and most of them probably don't know the Secretary of the Interior. Annieka Brenner, obviously, is the exception, and she was careful to slide into that identity well before she arrived here to see me." He frowned. "Cam would probably welcome me in with a smile if I turned up on Idylla, but then he'd be likely to be smiling if he kills you, just so you don't feel uneasy."

"...an unsettling thought," Taz said at last. The idea that Seamus Brenner might be the least dangerous member of the family was...disconcerting.