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"Three packages came in on the fast courier. They're all addressed to the same address, and the instructions say they're to be carried in uniform."
Lieutenant Mattvey Alarie stood at attention in front of his commander's desk, savoring the aftertaste of the coffee he had downed before entering and blinking the fading sluggishness from his eyes. Messages carried in uniform meant they were official; warrants served, promotions given and deaths announced. It was a fairly routine task for attachés in political offices on Barrayar or Komarr, or on planets with a significant expat or diplomatic community. They were rarer on Escobar, which had a very small Barrayaran community. Even the embassy, which ought to be staffed by hundreds of personnel due to the rocky relationship and closeness of Escobar and Barrayar, only had a skeleton staff of Barrayarans due to Escobarran reticence at issuing visas to Barrayarans. Alarie listened to his commanding officer rattle off the address, committing it to memory (although it was also written on all three packages).
"At ease, Lieutenant. Thoughts?" Captain Ragounos gestured at the chairs sitting in front of his desk. The senior military attaché at the Escobarran embassy loved to gossip, and Alarie knew then that he had been chosen for this task because of his willingness to play that game.
"Three packages for one address? All needing to be carried in uniform?" Alarie said neutrally as he sat down.
"Exactly my thoughts." One would be rare, but unsurprising. One package carried in uniform along with two less formal messages would scarcely be more notable. But three packages, each marked as needing to be carried in uniform, all for the same address?
The two men stared at the three stasis boxes placed on the desk. Regulations stipulated that they would have been sealed by the first member of the courier chain, and they would be unsealed by the last member of the chain. If the sender and receiver wanted their own layer of tamper evident containers, then they would be contained within the official courier containers.
If Alarie was carrying them to their final destination, then he ought to open them. But the captain wanted to see what was inside, hence the invitation to sit instead of merely dismissing him with his packages. Alarie reached for the first packaging, releasing the airtight seal and popping open the box.
Inside lay a roll of parchment wrapped in blue ribbon.
The captain goggled at it while Alarie opened the other two containers. The second had a simple envelope, and the third had a small dark green rectangle that both men recognized as the standard box which held medals or rank insignias.
"Hell," stated the captain quietly, eyes still focused on the parchment, "you better go ahead and deliver these."
Alaric knocked on the door and stepped back, double checking the number on the side of the unassuming house. Was this really where he was supposed to deliver an imperial edict? The door swung open, revealing a six-months pregnant woman taller than he was. She took in his uniform lightning-fast, eyes darting to his rank insignia and (holstered) stunner, before slamming the door shut.
Alaric stood there in shock for a second, unsure whether he should knock again, but he heard yelling inside and so decided to give them a minute before disturbing them.
Finally the door opened, and a shorter man stood in the doorway. The woman stood behind him, hands clasped around a stunner, pointed safely at the ground. Her finger was on the trigger, though, and her eyes were focused on Alaric.
"I uh..." Alaric cleared his throat when the words came out in a whisper, "I have a message addressed to Bazil Jesek and two messages addressed to both Bazil Jesek and Elena Bothari-Jesek."
The man's head tilted just a degree, and then he surveyed the mostly-empty street from the doorway.
"I'm Baz. What's the message?"
Alaric lifted the roll of parchment from the floatcase holding the three items, and handed it to Baz.
"I take it you're Elena, ma'am?" he said to the woman. "The second package was addressed to both of you in the system but the envelope just reads your name." He held out the envelope to her.
Baz unrolled the parchment, but Elena just stared at his extended hand, unwilling to let go of the stunner in case she needed it. Are these two on the run from the imperial service? Why else would they react with such hostility to an imperial messenger? Then Alaric remembered they were on Escobar, which had good reasons to hate or fear the Barrayaran Imperial Service. Still, they both have such Barrayaran-sounding names...
"It's okay, Elena," murmured Baz to his wife. She finally took her eyes off of Alaric, still holding the weapon in both hands, and leaned over her husband's shoulder to look at the parchment. Alaric caught the slight widening of her eyes. Whatever she saw, it caused her to let go of the gun with her right hand and reach out to take the letter from Alaric's still outstretched arm.
"It's from Gregor," Elena said quietly to her husband. "He says dropping your charges was easy enough, but this should prevent a zealous prosecutor from raising them in the future and inconveniencing all three of us... He says Miles is getting married soon and he'd hate for ancient history to get in the way of us attending."
Alaric stood there like a prey animal hoping to not be seen by a predator, lest the pair realize he was listening to them. He watched as Baz rolled the parchment back up into a roll and took the letter from Elena's loosely held grip. His lips moved, barely, reading silently to himself, but even if Alaric had been the greatest lip reader employed by ImpSec he would be hard pressed to pick up half the words. He caught the last sentence, though, since Baz repeated it under his breath—"My final due to both of you took some doing, so I hope it's appreciated."
"There was a third package?" Baz asked, looking up from the long letter.
Alaric wordlessly picked the box up out of the padded floatcase, and held it out to Baz. Baz picked it up with one hand, the letter and scroll in the other, and tried for a second to pop it open with the same hand that was holding it. Then he handed Elena the unwieldy scroll and flipped up the magnetized lid, revealing to all three of them the two gold stars that lay on soft velvet within.
"What the hell?" Baz said.
"They're gold Imperial Stars," Elena responded halfheartedly, as if naming them might cause them to evaporate. "Miles had a few. For missions we were on with him, now that I think of it, although we weren't in the Service."
"What did you do ?" Alaric grunted out, strained at the sight of one of Barryar's high military honors given to two random civilians on a hostile planet.
"Deserted in the heat, and then had that used as cover for a longer ImpSec career than my original Service one," Baz said wryly, eyes dancing with laughter but face held still in anticipation of an outburst from the lieutenant.
"Deserted in—!" His face went red and then white. "Do I have to try to arrest you?"
"You don't have jurisdiction here," snapped Elena, while Baz said, "Not anymore, that's what the parchment was. Imperial Pardon."
The couple looked at each other, fondness blossoming in their faces. Elena took the box from Baz and moved to pin one of the stars on his lapel, but she was interrupted by Alaric clearing his throat. It's this or leave, and I don't want to miss anything!
"If you would allow me, ma'am? sir?" Alaric said, placing a hand out to take back the box. "I know it's all rather informal, but I would be honored."
"Would you?" Baz asked, taken a bit aback. "To pin a gold star on the chest of a deserter?"
"I..." Alaric stammered, caught in the contradiction of two inconsistent beliefs fighting it out in his head for supremacy, "...don't know what you did while working for ImpSec, sir, but if it got you a pardon and a gold star, then yes?" He couldn't quite keep his voice from rising in an uncertain tone at the end, and he flinched at it.
Bemused, Elena handed the box back to Alaric. Alaric stepped in front of Baz and pinned the gold star on Baz's civilian clothes. Then he moved to pin the second one, but Baz stepped back and gestured to his wife.
"That one isn't for me," Baz said.
Alaric took a second to figure out that the gesture and words combined indicated that the other star was meant for Elena, and his eyes widened in surprise. Baz frowned a bit at this reticence, but Elena just laughed, her eyes sparkling.
"I wonder which was a harder sell—awarding a medal to a deserter or a woman," Elena said, one side of her mouth raised in an ironic facsimile of a smile.
Alaric, to his credit, pinned the star to her civilian clothing as well, but it took him twice as long since he very carefully refrained from brushing her chest with his fingers as he worked the sharp pin through her shirt. Finally, with nothing left to excuse his presence, he turned tail and briskly walked back to the embassy to debrief his superior.
"So, a pardon, two medals, and a letter from someone named Gregor who has the pull to get those things done which mentioned someone named Miles? I think I see."
Alaric's superior had taken in the story with, if not equanimity, at least some measure of composure. "I don't, sir."
"Well, ImpSec. Probably classified." Captain Ragounos waved Alaric out of his office.
As Alaric sighed his way out of the room, Ragounos felt a moment of mercy. "Alaric. You know at least one person powerful enough to swing an imperial pardon named Gregor, no?"