First Reply Angel One

[Ducha Relina Zhan]

Location: Charubah, Esthar Metroplex; Hapes Consortium

Theme Music "The Best Thing" Savage Garden
​

Lady Commander Zhan, having returned to her homeworld on Royal Navy business, flew her new Miy'til Int/T Terminus down from orbit toward the A-North Sector of the enormous urban sprawl of Charubah's capital city. Esthar was one of the largest cities in the entire Hapes Consortium, taking up about two-thirds of a moderate-sized continent called Eruse and was divided into five administrative sectors, bisected by the River Chresterra. Excessively gentrified, each sector, A-North, B-East, C-South, D-West, and E-Central were considered very expensive, even by Hapan standards, to live in with the most expensive residential complexes being both waterfront and higher in elevation; even among the ground-level inner-city areas, one would find it difficult to find an area that could truly be called a slum. They city was beautiful and wealthy, standing as a testament to the planet Charubah's strategic and economic value to the rest of the Hapes Consortium.

Zhan was dressed in a carbon-black armourweave flightsuit, carrying only her repeating blaster pistol sidearm and her vibrorapier called 'Silver Lady'. Still in the middle stratosphere of the planet, in sight of the setting single sun, Charu, and the rising twin moons, Pholus and Nessus, she stared through her HUD visor through the holo-projected image of the dark blue sky on the inside of her opaque canopy. Far below her was the bright metroplex glowing like a neon-lit carpet of silver-grey with a billion glittering jewels spilled out upon it. It was almost a quarter way through the planet's thirty-hour day; Her HUD's clock, automatically switching to local time, read twenty-two hundred hours.

"Angel One to Saint Clavelle, currently at altitude of twenty kilometres and descending. Requesting priority clearance to dock at landing pad Alpha." said she in Hapan over the commlink to the Palace of Saint Clavelle, her formal residence.

Relina Zhan was Ducha of Charubah, although her twin sister, Lady Alessandra Zhan, actually did all of the day-to-day political things their mother, the former Ducha Anastasia Zhan, once did. The only reason why the current Royal High Commander of the Hapan Royal Navy bore the title was because tradition demanded it; she was born five minutes earlier than her sister. However, the twins were both strongly Force Sensitive and shared an extrasensory bond from birth. Thoughts and feeling flowed easily between them, sometimes unintentionally, regardless of distance. Each of them could sense when the other was near, when one was in pain or ecstasy, or when one laughed or cried. Now was no different; Alessandra thought to her sister a warm welcome twinged with regret for the less-than-glamourous circumstances.

"Acknowledged, Angel One. Clearence granted. We have you on radar and we're reading your descent velocity is in excess of Mach-two. Is everything alright with your craft?" asked a male air traffic controller employed by the Duchal house.

"That's affirmative. I'm just eager to get home and see everyone." Zhan replied with a hint of sarcasm; she considered opening up the ship's afterburners just to mess with the guy, but ultimately decided against it. "I shall be on the pad shortly." she added.

 

[Malcoma Hesse]

Ducha Relina Zhan
OOC: writing as Kordolph Leys

There was at least one everyone waiting that the elder Zhan would not know. He was waiting in one of the palace's many drawing rooms for an audience with Relina. He had been quite clear, but polite, that he was not requesting an audience with the interim Ducha. What he wanted would benefit from a military woman's prospective, or so he thought.

He stood at one of the grand windows, sipping the tea that had been brought in for him some time ago, looking out over the capital. It was much different than Tu'ana.

 

[Ducha Relina Zhan]

Relina didn't engage her landing cycle until her HUD visor read that she was about a kilometre above the tallest starscrapers of Esthar's A-North sector, some of which actually pierced the clouds on overcast days. Her astromech trilled and burbled out a string of binary at her, which her cockpit's systems promptly translated as a masculine machine-voice.

"We are seventeen kilometres from Palace of Saint Clavelle. I am marking the landing pad on your HUD for you." said he, knowing full well she'd land manually, so he didn't offer to land the ship.

"Thanks, R9." Relina replied, smoothly banking around toward the HUD marker in the distance.

"Lina. Do you copy?" asked a voice very similar to her own, but perhaps half an octave higher pitched, using a shortened version of her name only members of her family used.

"Go ahead, sister." Relina replied, instantly recognizing her twin sister's voice.

"You have someone ( Malcoma Hesse ) waiting for you here, though I regret I have things I need to manage before I come down to meet with you. Tea is already prepared in the third floor drawing room." said Alessandra Zhan.

"Rodger that, Aless. I'll be along shortly." Relina said, throttling up just a bit more to cross the distance that much faster. "It seems I'm popular these days.... Oh, and pardon the engine noise you'll hear in a couple of minutes."

True enough, in a couple of minutes after she said that, the loud staccato of pulse-detonation engines could be heard everywhere int he Palace complex. For amusement, Relina pitched up as she slowed to a near stand-still over the landing pad, using the 3-D thrust-vectoring of her engines to hold the Terminus upright in a sustained pre-stall position for a few moments before she gently levelled the craft onto its repulorlifts. It then gently landed on its lowered gear with the opaque canopy facing the palace's private hangar bay.

".... Show off." Aless's voice snarkily resounded in her commlink with a hint of amusement.

Relina laughed and powered down the fighter, pressing a release switch which drew back the metallic canopy at a sealed seam a little more than three quarters of the way forward, leaving only a small portion of the very front part of the canopy in place. R9 dropped down from beneath the ship on a tiny lift to roll along the landing pad toward the hangar bay for his mainainence checks while Relina climbed down the step-ladder brought to her. She picked up her vibrorapier and affixed it to her flightsuit's belt as she headed into the palace through a different entrance which placed her on the first floor in one of the wide hallways leading toward the grand staircase in the main hall.

 

[Malcoma Hesse]

Ducha Relina Zhan
OOC: writing as Kordolph Leys

When Relina made it to the third floor drawing room, the visitor turned to greet her with a shallow bow at his waist. He was a middle-aged man with short, grey hair. "Ducha Zhan," he began, "I appreciate the audience. How was your flight?"

As she answered, he set his empty teacup on the nearby beverage cart.

Then, if an appropriate response, he would give a nod and a "Very good."

Either way, he would continue, "I am Kordolph Leys, Majesty, butler to House Kri of Terephon." She might recall that the current matriarch of that family, Betal Kri, was Ducha of that planet. "I have served two of its generations faithfully. I came here hoping you might take that fact into consideration as I make my request..."

He trailed off, seemingly waiting for confirmation. Or rejection.

 

[Ducha Relina Zhan]

Malcoma Hesse

Relina stopped into her bedroom, having a servant go and announce her arrival. She changed out of her flightsuit into a more comfortable and decidedly more feminine dress. She neatly laid her carbon-black flightsuit on the edge of the bed which was set into the floor of a low dais at the back left corner of the room opposite the sectional and holo-table. She then added a bit of her clean, floral perfume, let her hair down to brush it, and finally donned a delicate circlet of rhodium chain clipped neatly to the hair on the sides of her head so it very gracefully fell over her forehead similar to the Queen Mother's own (albeit far more ornate and precious) Headband of State.

After slipping into a pair of expensive, but simple sandals for comfort and a better match for the dress, she went to the drawing room where her guest waited for her. She looked like a Ducha, for sure, but she moved with the purposeful and efficient strides of a military woman. She checked the time on her wrist-comm just before she approached the door to the room. Smoothing out her dress and sighing at how much of a pain in tush she found such things as these meetings to be, she stepped forward to activate the door's sensors which then automatically slid the beautifully crafted barrier of Charubah Steel aside.

"Fairly smooth, actually." she replied matter-of-factly to the inquiry in regards to her flight. "The Miy'til Terminus is a wonderful design of which I am quite proud, to be sure." said she; her Hapan was spoken was a High Charubahni accent more local to Esthar itself, incidentally.

She gestured to the man to have a seat on the nearby sectional across from the table with the still-hot tea set as she strode to the one opposite it. She then gracefully took a seat, herself. Despite being high military with certain bits of her body language constantly betraying this, other things expected of noblewomen were still drilled into her from a young age, such as how to sit properly, how to pick up and drink from a teacup properly, and the decorum of conversation. Too, the presence of men in a setting such as this, she had to maintain an air of strength in how she held her head and the erectness of her spine.

The same servant she had sent to stall the man in the most polite way she could given the circumstances promptly poured her a cup of tea. Zhan was not adverse to doing such things herself, but she allowed it, anyway. She nodded her thanks to the young lady. "You needn't call me 'Majesty', Mister Leys. I am neither Queen Mother nor do I particularly wish to be at any point in the future. If not Ducha Zhan, then 'My Lady' is appropriate even in a military context." she corrected him evenly before taking a sip from her cup.

Hearing him opening with how faithfully he served two generations of Terephon's noblewomen, she gently lofted a brow. What's Ducha Kri's angle...? wondered she to herself, generally not trusting any Hapan noblewoman she didn't know on a personal level except to be the well-earned stereotype of a cuthroat politico. Relina, being a well-known Royal Navy woman with the reputation of a lady of martial honour, didn't have much patience for such intrigues. "... Go on, Mister Leys. You may ask." prompted she.

 

[Malcoma Hesse]

Ducha Relina Zhan
OOC: writing as Kordolph Leys

Kordolph chuckled at his mistake as he went to sit opposite of her. "You're quite right, My Lady," he replied. "I'm very nervous.

"I come seeking support," he explained, "and possible even assistance. In addition to being house butler, I am also a member of the Friends of Terephon. The society was established by myself and the late Ducha's advisor not yet last month to seek the true heir of House Kri's throne." He took a worried pause, allowing time for his insinuation to sink in. "Thirty years ago, the then-Duch'das died a sudden, but peaceful death, or so we were meant to believe..."

The story might sound familiar. Even though Relina did not know the current Ducha of Terephon personally, she might be generally aware that the House of Kri had been plagued by Sophoclean tragedies. The oldest daughter of the last Ducha Kri had died inexplicably at two years old. Then, overtaken by grief, that Ducha had passed only a few months later, leaving the youngest Kri to inherit the title as a newborn. Until she came of age, a Ducha Regent who had perviously served the House as advisor ruled over the world.

In case she wasn't aware, he continued, "At the time, this was the only story that one could imagine. Then, the late Ducha also passed, transferring the title to the new Duch'da, the first's younger sister. A Ducha Regent ruled in her place until the current Ducha came of age.

"But, as I said, not a month ago, myself and the former Ducha Regent found evidence that the elder Duch'da, Hesse Kri, is indeed alive. We believe, living on one of the Core Worlds, unaware of her heritage. She was most likely sold into slavery around the time her death was faked. As of yet, we have no answers to how either of those events transpired."

He bowed his head. "I sit here now, asking not for answers to those questions, but for a man or woman unaffiliated with my House that may go look for the true Duch'da. A military scout dispatched to the Core will not attract the same diplomatic attention to this matter that, say, I might if I was to follow our lead personally."

 

[Ducha Relina Zhan]

Zhan stared at the man, very nearly spitting out her tea when he mentioned a Hapan noblewoman being enslaved. Even if it wasn't her planet, even if it were her worst enemy among the rivals to her house, even if, hypothetically, there had been a generations-old blood feud going on, she would never stand for such an outrage! She had to force herself to swallow her tea before coughing a few times.

"The frak did you say?" she asked, swearing unapologetically, clearly vexed.

She was Hapan. She didn't believe in slavery and found the barbaric practice utterly revolting. She was also high military. Wars have been declared and fought for less, though she was generally a reasonable woman and was loyal to the Hapan Crown completely. This much was pretty widely known as she wasn't jsut another duchess. her likeness was plastered on just about every holovid advert for Royal navy recruitment across the entire Hapes Consortium and her reputation spoke for her in regards to her integrity and honour. Therefore, it was easy to guess how she might be inclined to react to this sort of news.

Composing herself, however after her moment of undignified reactionary behaviour, she sharply inhaled, erected her spine again, and looked the man dead in the eyes. "Does Her Majesty know about this?" she asked evenly, her face taking a more publicly familiar military deadpan. "And when you say Core Worlds, we're talking about Alliance Space, correct?" she added.

Already she was considering how best to go about following up on this lead in the most strategically-sound way possible. If she arrived in force, this would arouse automatic suspicion, since anywhere in the Core Worlds, the news of a Hapan battle group would immediately put those who knew who they had on the defensive. No... this required more subterfuge than that. A single, small, clandestine special operations force was called for. In addition to the Queen Mother, her commanding officer and direct authority, she would also need to contact the Alliance government and arrange for such a mission to occur without their military's interference.... The gears were turning in her head and it very subtly showed in her eyes in how they slightly flicked about in thought as they remained focused on the man before her.

Malcoma Hesse