Chapter 816: A Route

Mingyue moved to the next proposal.

"Keep your force at its current position. We keep ours here. Open a route for civilian movement under observers from both sides while we discuss the rest."

The officer’s expression tightened.

"You are asking for recognition as a military power with authority to set conditions on Imperial movement."

"I’m asking you to stop moving your guns toward people while we talk."

"Without enforceable disarmament, the pause would let your forces consolidate."

"And your fleet would remain armed."

"The fleet is acting under lawful authority."

Mingyue sat back.

They had reached the same refusal by two different routes. She could keep changing the number of observers or the distance between troops, but he had already told her which fact prevented an agreement.

He would not accept that the vampires could remain armed while deciding whether to trust him.

Vesa spoke softly beside her.

"Thepes is listening."

Mingyue looked at the officer.

"Your message used the outbreak he led as grounds for this operation. Suppose Thepes agrees to go with you. Do you withdraw the demand for the other Progenitors and the settlements?"

The envoy began to answer, but the older officer stopped him with a small movement of his hand.

"Is he in your custody?"

"He is defeated and restrained."

"Then transferring him would fulfill one part of your obligation."

"What would it change for the others?"

"Their obligations remain."

Thepes’s voice came through the open connection.

"Then why keep showing my face?"

Both Imperials turned toward the device.

Mingyue did not interrupt him.

"Say what you came to take," he said. "You want the worlds and every person strong enough to refuse you."

The older officer leaned forward.

"Your submission would be recorded separately from theirs. Cooperation may affect how you are treated."

"While you go after everyone else."

"That operation does not depend on your individual case."

Thepes was silent.

Offering himself would not stop the Empire pursuing the others. It might buy better treatment for him. Mingyue doubted he enjoyed hearing that bargain offered in front of her.

"Do you wish to discuss your own surrender?" the officer asked.

"Finish speaking to her."

Vesa closed his speaking channel, leaving him able to hear.

Mingyue gathered the unanswered shelter requests.

"I asked for someone who could negotiate."

"I can settle the manner of compliance. I cannot revoke the command’s objectives."

"Can you take these proposals to someone who can?"

"Yes."

"Will enforcement stop while they consider them?"

"No suspension has been authorized."

The city officer beside her lowered his gaze to the list of people who needed hours to move. The discussion had not gained them any.

Mingyue stood.

"Then send them now. We won’t count an unanswered request as protection."

The envoy looked toward the transport.

"Your final acknowledgment is still required."

"You received acknowledgment when you delivered the order. You will receive our answer through the same channel."

The older officer rose more slowly. Before addressing Mingyue, he turned toward the man in the stained city uniform.

"You can leave with this delegation. Your continued presence here will become harder to explain once enforcement begins."

The city officer looked toward the transport. Mingyue let him take the time he needed.

"Will someone replace me here?" he asked.

"After control is restored."

"Then there would be no one until you finish fighting."

"That is your interpretation."

The man gathered the shelter list he had helped prepare. His hands shook as he folded it and struggled to fit it into his pocket.

"Tell your people my sister is a civilian," he said. "She is leaving because she wants to."

The Imperial officer’s expression hardened as he turned back to Mingyue.

"If your forces interfere with our departure—"

"They won’t."

She signaled Dorian before the sentence could grow into another exchange of threats.

The fighters remained behind the landing line. Mingyue watched the delegates return to their vessel, watched its guns stay within the agreed ground, and waited until it lifted clear before putting away her sword.

She had no reason to give the Empire a dead envoy to add to its recording.

***

Thepes asked to speak when Vesa returned to the room where he was held.

Mingyue stopped in the doorway. He looked at her, then at the device on the wall.

"You let them go."

"They came to speak."

"They came to count how many weapons you put around a table."

"They learned we could keep our people from using them."

He made a contemptuous sound.

"Will that save anyone?"

"It kept this meeting from starting a battle beside the receiving road."

She checked the ice at his wrist, watching the blood beneath it for the beginning of a rune. The device remained on the wall beyond his reach. He did not resist the inspection.

She was about to leave when he spoke again.

"Don’t tell the old ones I offered myself for them."

"I heard you ask a question."

"Keep it that way."

Mingyue nodded once and left the recording where he could see it.

Outside, Dorian was already sending the first groups back from the freight ground. Selene had received the refusal of a protected medical pause and begun clearing space for the patients least able to endure another evacuation.

Mingyue contacted Alex.

"No stand-down. No shelter exemption. Thepes changes nothing for the rest."

"I heard."

"Any answer from above the officer?"

"Receipt of the proposals. Nothing else."

She looked at the time remaining on the original order. Almost three hours had passed since Alex acknowledged it. The meeting had used part of that time without buying another minute.

"I’ll return to Luna," she said. "You can go to Dorian when I’m there."

Alex agreed.

As she walked back toward the opening to Edonia, Vesa brought forward a message from the distant groups. Several had accepted the warning exchange. One had already reported an Imperial movement notice on a neighboring route.

Mingyue sent it to Dorian without waiting for another discussion.

At the receiving road, the attendants were already moving beds into the space Selene had cleared.