Rifts

Posted on Sun Mar 10th, 2024 @ 3:03am by Princess Royal Giana Orsini & Empress Cosima Orsini & Richard Ramsay Ph.D

Mission: Historiae Terrae Et Imperii
Location: ISS Imperator
Timeline: Date 2371-09-05 at 1630
4416 words - 8.8 OF Standard Post Measure

ON


It had taken Giana time to think and consider her options regarding how to move forward at what she felt was likely a life changing point for her. Her and potentially over half a million souls. The number was staggering in reality on its own, but when she considered that these were a number of enemies who had actively chosen to follow Giuseppe and would have seen her family dead, she found herself both afraid and enraged. The temptation to be rid of them was strong and one she felt could be justified, but she didn’t trust the delicate mind of her mother and Ramsay whether he agreed or not would use any opportunity to be rid of her just short of killing her - probably.

So she sat quietly in her father’s office waiting on the appointed time to meet with the other two regents over long range communication. She was wearing a simple navy blue dress with a very modest jewel neckline, her hair was brushed and styled nicely, and she wore just a touch of makeup to cover up the tiredness and enhance her natural beauty. Her blue eyes were transfixed on the slowly spinning Imperial sigil on the large screen in front of her, but her mind was drifting.

The left half of the screen lit up first with the image of her mother. The aging beauty wore a low-cut dark maroon dress which made use of assets she still possessed, shirking the rules which tended to bind young women at court more than the older ones. On her head was a golden tiara tied into her curly hair with red ribbon, and a look of dismay which would make any child anxious. It was clear that she was stressed beyond anything Giana had ever seen from her mother, and considering all that she was going through, it was no wonder. As soon as the connection started, the Empress leaned forward, not waiting for Ramsay to arrive.

“Giana! What is going on? Where are you?” she asked, her regal tone mildly frantic.

“Mother.” Giana greeted calmly and perhaps a bit curtly. “I’m at Axanar. Paolo is with me and he is fine.”

“Axanar?” She asked, indignant. Her eyes wide. “What on Earth are you doing at Axanar? And you brought your brother with you? Giana, of all the irresponsible things you’ve ever done, this one takes the cake. How could you endanger yourself like that? How could you allow your brother anywhere near Giuseppe?”

Giana’s expression soured immediately. “I didn’t bring Paolo with me, mother, he followed me on his own accord when I specifically left him on Terra so he wouldn’t be in danger. Maybe you should talk to his keepers since he was able to do that so easily.”

“Watch your tone, Giana.” The Empress said, raising her brows. “Why did you leave for Axanar without inform Richard and me? What game are you playing over there, shutting down communications? I’ve been worried sick. And it isn’t as if there wasn’t enough going wrong. Your father still hasn’t woken up.”

The Empress, wiped her across the front of her dress to comfort herself. She looked as if she hadn’t slept in days.

“He hasn’t? Why not?” Giana frowned. “What did his doctors say?”

“The blade that cut your father was laced with a toxin that shuts down brain activity. I’ve been informed by Director Nazar that the toxin is taken from the seed of a rare fruit on Romulus.” Cosima said, her eyes haunted, like she had cried so many tears she didn’t have any left at the moment. “Giana, the doctors have no idea how long he’ll be asleep or even..if there’s anything left of his mind. I just can’t believe Giuseppe did this..”

“How the fuck can you still sit there and say you can’t believe he would do something like that, mother?!” Giana roared suddenly. “After everything he has done in his life, after what he did to me, how can you say that? Your son was a gods damned monster who didn’t have a redeeming quality about him and you know what? He’s dead.”

Giana hadn’t meant to be cruel, but hearing her mother lament over her precious baby boy once again in the face of everything was just too much for her.

Giana’s mother looked at her daughter through the screen, her lips parting softly and her brown eyes growing dark and deeply sad. She said nothing, and the silence which followed Giana’s harshly-put news spoke volumes. Her gaze fell down to the desk in front of her and her eyes started to grow wet with tears which wouldn’t fall. In the space of a few days, she had lost her husband and her first child.

On seeing Cosima’s reaction, Giana immediately felt a pang of regret. Though they rarely saw things the same in life, she did love her mother. She averted her own gaze then. “I’m sorry, Mama.”

Cosima seemed about to respond, her sad eyes drifting up to her daughter’s face again, when the other half of the screen changed to an image of Dr. Ramsay sitting behind a desk in a brown suit with an orange tie. He, to contrast the two royal women, looked well rested, though not particularly happy.

“Hello, sorry I’m late.” He said in an amiable tone. “I was in a meeting with the Chancellor and it went over just a bit.”

“Are there any new developments on your end, Richard?” Cosima added, welcoming the distraction from the disaster that was her conversation with her daughter.

“Well, as you know, CJ has been working to manage the PR fallout from the news that the Emperor is incapacitated. The news stations and media companies have been doing double time to promote Prince Giuseppe as the devil incarnate and talk up the competence of the regents in an attempt to give people the impression things are okay. Contessa has been working with the stock exchanges to avoid a collapse in investment and has kept interest rates low. It will all be in your boxes.”

He looked up at Giana’s image then, his face curious and frustrated.

“It’s nice of you to answer, Your Highness. We’ve done everything to reach you except send a Fleet after you.”

“Yes well in war time controlling both the inflow and outflow of communications is important, Ramsay.” Giana replied dryly then turned her attention completely toward the man’s screen. “Giuseppe is dead.”

His face contained neither surprise nor dismay. He simply gave a short nod as if things were exactly as he had expected them.

“It would have been better for you to consult with your Council colleagues before you flew off to kill him. One might almost suspect you were trying to perform a massive military operation without our input. I think that should be addressed, but we have bigger fish to fry. We are still trying to locate the Crown Prince. Things could not be more chaotic here unless there were an actual battle in our system.”

“Paolo is with her.” Cosima said, her expression reflecting a flurry of different feelings. “She said he snuck out there by himself.”

“Ridiculous.” Ramsay said, furrowing his thick eyebrows. “How the hell could that be true?”

“Ask his keepers.” Giana replied with a dismissive wave. “Unless you’re trying to insinuate I’m lying to you.”

“I’m not insinuating anything. You are simply the only person we’ve found who knows the whereabouts of the heir to the bloody empire.” He said, immediately frustrated with her response. It seemed she was intent on being difficult. “If I thought you were lying, I’d bloody-well say so.”

“Let’s not fight.” Cosima said, frowning.

“I’m not, ma’am. I'm simply trying to find answers to important questions.”

“Watch your tone, Ramsay.” Giana warned the man much in the same way her mother had just moments before. “I told you to ask his keepers, they would have a better answer for you. The fact is he is here and he is safe. Now, we have another issue to deal with most imminently - what to do with the rest of Giuseppe’s forces.”

Ramsay shifted from annoyance to a smile which evolved over a few seconds into laughter. He chuckled heartily.

“Oh, I see why you're calling,” he said, his voice pitching higher and sounding like a cry. “Well, why Don’t you just deal with that one yourself just like the rest of it?”

“I’ll take that as your permission to do what I see fit then, Ramsay.” Giana replied, dismissing his reaction totally and then looking at her mother. “What say you?”

“No, I think it’s really disrespectful.” Ramsay cut in, ignoring the fact that Giana tried to deflect away from him. He recovered from the laughter slowly, but eventually he resumed his typical sober tone. “You leave on this wild goose chase to fight a war without consulting us, shut us out of all communication, and give us a ring when it’s time to do the part where success probably won’t make you look good.”

He frowned then, pointing his finger at the screen.

“You think you can disregard me because I’m a commoner, but you can’t. I’ve been in Government longer than you’ve been alive, Princess, and I’m aware of the responsibilities your father trusted all of us-“

“Actually, Ramsay, I’m disregarding you because I think you’re an ass. You’ve never liked me and the feeling has been mutual, let’s be honest for once. Yes, I chose to go after Giuseppe and end this conflict that has endangered my family AND the Empire as a whole for far too long because what parents could be asked to order the death of their firstborn son no matter what he had done? My father is nearly in his grave and my mother,” she paused to gesture toward Cosima while still looking at Ramsay, “still sits here saying she can’t believe her precious boy could do something like that”

She was gentler with the words about her mother, but they were still pointed. “My father, who declared Hostias on Giuseppe - an absolute death sentence - backpedaled within two days and rolled back his kill on sight order. He did that silently of course to not appear weak - but he was weak. He had the weakness of a father and I don’t blame him for that.”

She folded her hands in front of her and leaned forward a bit then. “If you think I’m calling you because I’m afraid of looking bad, you’re a moron. There are nearly seven hundred thousand Terran souls sitting out here with me waiting to see what is going to happen to them. I do not feel equipped to deal with that decision on my own, but I will if that is what you want. I also know that there will be repercussions for what I have done already. You will not, however, dismiss this call because you had your feelings hurt that I did what nobody else was willing to do despite it needing to be done for the good of our people.”

When she had interrupted Ramsay in the middle of his sentence, he was prepared to cut back in and stop her, but realized she was at least addressing the topic at hand. He frowned, and when she was done, leaned forward.

“I’m sorry to say this, but I believe you have a profound ability to misunderstand the point when it’s spoken by someone you don’t care for. I admit that I have found that a slightly annoying characteristic all your life, but now that you’re an adult and in authority, it has become a danger and a liability.” Ramsay said, clearly fed up with it all, but keeping his calm. “I don’t need any lectures about what your father was going through. I was there the entire time, trying to convince him to reinstate the order. I can tell you that your behavior over the course of your life has brought him just as much pain as did your late brothers, and when you and your fiancé ran away, he completely shut the conversation down.”

He tapped a stylus on the table in front of him, turning away for a moment and continuing thereafter.

“No one wants you to deal with any of this by yourself, and the fact you went beyond your legal rights in a role in which you have no experience put your life and the lives of the thousands of soldiers under your command in jeopardy. I understand why you did it, and I might even be convinced it was a justifiable thing to do, but this arrogant blustering at this point…completely absurd. And, for the record, I don’t dislike you. I’m old enough to be your father myself. I held you when you were a baby. It is you who don’t like me, and it shows. So don’t play that victim card in order to justify your actions. I’ve watched you do that so much, it’s not even funny.”

“The only one blustering on is you, Ramsay. I’m bringing an important issue to the table while you’re too busy incessantly scolding me for whatever you feel like scolding me for. You don’t listen - I already said I don’t like you. I’m not playing the victim here, I’m used to people not liking me; you think it makes me sad you’re one of them? I really don’t care. You held me when I was a baby, I held your son and daughter. What does that matter? You and the Empress both agreed to put me in this role instead of giving me something better suited to my skills and I embraced it-“

“What do you mean? You’re the one who wanted the military.” He said, furrowing his brow.

“No, I wasn’t. Paolo was the one that wanted me to have the military. I wonder why that is. Why do you think that is, Ramsay?” She asked, her expression darkening slightly. “Why do you think that is, and why is my brother here?”

“I think he wanted to use you to finish this war.” Ramsay answered, irritated by her. “And he is a child. His suggestion, which you ask for, was the suggestion of a child. Paolo is a brilliant boy, but he is not a regent. I only agreed because you agreed and I thought we would be able to guide you through the unknowns of the job. Little did I know, you would leave an hour or so later, knowing you were undermining the system.”

The entire argument between them held Cosima’s attention. She didn’t move to speak, but only listened, her head low and her face sad. At this point, though, she opened her mouth.

“Enough.” She said simply. “It’s obvious this isn’t going anywhere, and I can’t listen to it anymore. My husband is near death; my son is dead.”

Her eyes moved up to the screen again. She was clearly very angry, but seemed unwilling to give speech to her feelings. Like Ramsay, she felt like apologies were in order, but she couldn’t argue with Giana right then; there wasn’t enough of her left.

“What about the soldiers?”

Giana didn’t say a word. She had tried twice to bring the topic up only for Ramsay to continue to piss and moan about… whatever it had been, so instead she looked at him and lifted her brows with expectation.

For a moment, Ramsay doubted the wisdom of monarchy. He blinked several times, looking back at her as if she was the most frustrating person he’d spoken to in years, which was undoubtedly true.

“Giuseppe had followers that need to be punished. But doing so might cause a strain on our military personnel during wartime. And, in truth, the sheer magnitude of executing so many is a weight on the soul. Which is why she called us, instead of taking it into her own hands.” He said, pursing his lips for a second, “which she doesn’t want to do, despite what she-“

“Stop.” Giana lifted a hand slightly. “You want me to make the choice, I will, but give me permission to-“

“Stop interrupting me, Princess. It is, again, very dis-“

“No, because I’m not going to sit here and let you continue to speak on something that just isn’t the facts. Again, you don’t listen-“

“That’s it, I’m done.” Ramsay said. He balled up his fists. “Solve the damn thing yourselves. Good bloody luck.”

With that, the right side of her screen went blank, leaving only her mother’s deeply dismayed image.

“I can see why father originally intended on it being Elana instead of Ramsay.” Giana said dryly and then looked at her mother, knowing she would listen. “I can make the choice, I know what should be done, but I wanted to hear what you both had to say. This is important.”

Her mother watched her, silently, dead behind the eyes. Giana was her first girl, and she had fixatedon her with such energy at first. The traditions of their education separated them, but she had worked hard to see her often. She wasn’t surprised at what she saw now, but was surprised to see it in the halls of power.

“You argue with Elana much more fiercely than that, Giana.” She said, thinking of her youngest daughter. She had opted to stay away from the family as much as possible, and Cosima knew why. “I don’t know, Giana. I don’t know what the right thing to do is. But I know we could have used Richard’s input.”

She looked at her daughter, debating between keeping the peace and being a mother. It had been hard being a mother to Giana. She didn’t bend well.

“You owe him an apology.” She said, her brown eyes looking at Giana, “you owe both of us one. And until this..dynamic changes, we won’t be able to work together.”

It was a statement of facts as she saw it, and not an ultimatum. Each of them had the power to stand in the way of the others with the veto, and they couldn’t govern if they were at each other’s throats. That’s how her husband designed it.

“You were going to get one after I returned to Terra, so I could do it in person and sincerely.” Giana replied, frowning and looking away from her mother on the screen and at nothing in the room. “I’m not going to apologize to him for the argument. I don’t care what comes out of his mouth, mother, that man is full of disdain for me and if you can’t know that just by listening to him, then I can’t help you. I brought an issue to you both - what I am supposed to do - and he spent the entire time making assumptions about my motives, telling me how much of a disappointment I’ve always been, and generally scolding me. What the fuck do I have to apologize for other than interrupting him because I got tired of listening to him go on and on when I was attempting to actually bring up a genuine issue? He started out of the gate with that sarcastic ‘it was nice of you to answer’ and just kept going.”

“You could bend a little. You could admit you’d stepped on our rights, and you could show less contempt for him.” Cosima said, frowning. “Ramsay is one of the most reasonable men I know, and I’ve never seen him leave a meeting in the decades we’ve known each other. It could be a problem, Giana.”

She eyed her daughter.

“He isn’t a member of our family and he isn’t used to being talked to that way. Ordinarily, I would say he is a commoner and he can take it. But…he isn’t really a commoner right now. He is just as powerful as either of us.”

“Tell me, will you be having a conversation with him about how he speaks to me after you and I are done here, or is this one just for me?” She asked in a tone that said she already knew the answer. “Will you be saying he could show a little less contempt for me? Nevermind the bullshit he tries to hide it behind with the ‘I couldn’t possibly… I held you as a baby’ type nonsense. I wanted to have the conversation, I wanted to get this done. He wanted to lecture.”

“I don’t think so. I think he wanted you to address the issue which has been at the forefront of our minds. He was a bit unkind at first, when he laughed at you, and I will certainly direct his attention to that fact, but it isn’t as if he was just trying to dress you down. I know him, and I’ve seen him work with people he doesn’t like. None of them had the effect you did.” Cosima said, her brows lifting. “Do you have any idea why?”

“I don’t know, mother, I feel like when someone accuses me of just reaching out because he thinks I’m coming to you to fix it, then going on to say I’m annoying, dangerous, and a liability, then after all that accuses me of the one doing arrogant blustering and being absurd… oh yes and let’s not forget accusing me of being as bad as my brother who tried to murder my father and take over the empire…” Giana counted each point off on her finger as she listed it,

“That he might have been trying to dress me down.” She frowned then and waved a hand, still obviously very annoyed but cooler now that Ramsay was gone.

“To answer your question though, no, I have no idea why. Probably because he wants to kill me but knows he can’t without upsetting his bestie.” She waved a hand, indicating she wasn’t really serious about that second part at least.

“Gods in Heaven, Giana. That right there.” Cosima said shaking her head. “So dramatic. If you think he wants to kill you, then you’ve never met the man outside your own perspective. The answer is exactly that. Government work involves being professional, not personal. You are a Rengent now; claiming that people don’t like you is beneath you. It doesn’t help the situation at all when you claim he’s an ass and you think he might want to kill you.”

Cosima sighed.

“I’m tired, and this has sucked any joy which remained in my day. I would like to go to bed. Let’s get to the topic you wanted to discuss so that we can end this.”

Giana sighed herself and shook her head slightly. “I don’t think he actually wants to kill me, mother. I was joking. I mean, he probably does sometimes, but I think that means he’s just like most people.” She shrugged then. “I don’t think I was out of bounds calling him an ass for laughing at me or what else followed though.”

She looked away for just a moment and then back to the monitor. “Give it an hour and we can try again with Ramsay if he’s willing and I promise I will be on my best behavior if he is. If we need to talk about something else first then we will do that, but one of you two actually could have just said that’s what you wanted to do instead of letting all of that carry on. To me, the soldiers seemed more pressing.”

“Hmm.” Cosima said, seeming dismayed but giving no argument. “I will talk to Richard. I’m sure he will see reason. In the meantime, I hope you can search your heart and find at least one thing in that nightmare of a meeting to apologize for. Remember that your responsibility to be honorable doesn’t end when someone does something you don’t like. You don’t need to return tit for tat. You are a Princess.”

All of a sudden, Giana deflated with a sigh as if she was a balloon that had been popped. “You’re right, I’m sorry. He just… he gets under my skin so easily. I’m starting to think he enjoys it.”

“The man hates conflict, dear. I can promise he’s somewhere with his face in a bottle of wine right now.” Cosima said with a shrug. “I will ask him to apologize to you for what he can, and I ask you to do the same.”

“I will, mother.” Giana said and seemed to be genuine in the sentiment. “Oh, before we go though, I want to tell you that I rescued Jessica and Antonio before… everything. So I’ll be bringing them back home too.”

She seemed hopeful that this might please Cosima.

Though a smile did come to Cosima’s face, there was still a twinge of stress in it. She didn’t know what to expect from Giuseppe’s wife and heir now that he was gone.

“Gods, that’s wonderful, Giana.” She said softly. “The Court is returning to Rome from summer in Rio, so I’ll make sure there’s a place prepared for them in the Grand Imperial Palace.”

“Alright, mama. I’ll see you and Richard in an hour then.” Giana nodded.

Cosima offered a nod, tired and silent, before her screen went blank as well.

END