Chapter 91: Resolution

  Jack stepped from the elevator construct, and it closed behind him.

  He stared.

  “Hi, Dad,” Chloe whispered. Her voice was so quiet, he almost couldn't hear her even when there were no sounds in the room but four people breathing.

  But he did hear her. And he did see her. And when they ran to each other and he scooped her into a bear hug, he did feel her.

  She was here. She was alive.

  Oh, Principle. She was here.

  Jack's arms felt weak. He let go of his daughter before he finished lifting her from her feet and took a step back. “Chloe,” he began, his voice breaking. “You... you shouldn't be here.”

  “I had to see you, Dad.” Chloe's arms stayed firmly wrapped around him and she buried her face in his chest like she had when she was a little girl.

  She still was, and always would be, his little girl. He wrapped his arms around her and held her, not speaking, contenting himself to know she was okay. For now, she was okay. Principle grant she stay that way.

  Finally, far too soon, Chloe straightened up. She met his eyes. Hers were filled with tears – and they didn't look like happy tears to Jack.

  Neither of them spoke. Why should they? Jack and Ellie and Chloe could have dictated books to each other without so much as saying a word. Jack could read every centimeter of tension in Chloe's frame, every line of worry in her face, every hint of fear in her breathing.

  He wished he couldn't.

  He wished she didn't feel any of it.

  And dammit, however much he wished otherwise, he didn't seem to be able to do a thing about it!

  Nothing except hold her and wish.

  He looked up at Ellie's face. She'd been crying, he could see. Her eyes were red-rimmed and her red-gold hair was mussed. But she'd done her crying before she came. She was trying to be strong now. For him.

  It should've been the other way around.

  Jack didn't have to know his family half as well as he did to know what it meant.

  He wasn't gonna be pardoned. There weren't gonna be any appeals.

  Something had happened on the outside to throw a wrench into his plans – and whatever ones Chloe had made that brought her to Etemenos.

  He was as good as dead.

  All he could do was pray his wife and daughter weren't.

  He looked to the fourth person in the room, maybe the most surprising one of all: the Federal Navy's golden-haired, golden-eyed golden boy, Marcel Avalon. Jack was surprised to see the admiral in civilian clothes, almost as surprised as he was to see him at all.

  “I should not be here,” Avalon said quietly. “My apologies, but it was the only way I could think of to both grant them a chance to see you and secure their safe return.”

  Jack nodded to the man. “Thanks, Admiral.”

  Avalon shook his head and looked away.

  “Dad,” Chloe whispered, “I'm so sorry.”

  Jack bent back enough to lift her face. “What're you talkin' about, Chloe?”

  “We... Rudy and I, and Mom and Admiral Avalon, we thought we could...” Chloe's voice trembled and she bent forward to sob again.

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  Jack stroked her hair. “Easy, Clo. It's okay.”

  She shook her head violently; dark curls, undyed as he'd rarely seen them, beat against his chest. “It's not okay! It's not right.”

  “What happened?” Jack asked.

  “I had intended to ask your pardon as a Victor's Boon for winning the Etemenos Cup,” Avalon said. “Rudolf Algreil had the same plan.”

  “Otto's little brother? What's he got to do with this?”

  “It's... it's a long story, Jack.” Ellie tried to smile, but she failed so badly she ended up rubbing her reddened eyes.

  Jack didn't have time for long stories anymore. He never would again.

  Chloe's arms tightened around his chest. “Rudy was going to do it so you'd give your consent to he and I being married.”

  “Oh,” Jack said.

  The hits just kept on coming. At least from the warmth in Chloe's voice and the fact that Ellie's expression didn't grow much bleaker, he figured Rudy Algreil had been a better intended than his brother had a husband.

  He'd have hoped for a far better pattern to Chloe's days than that implied. But at least an Algreil and a tournament winner might be able to protect her.

  He clutched her to him. “You love him?”

  “I sure do, Dad,” Chloe said. She looked up and actually did manage a tear-streaked smile. “You'd, you will, really like him, too. He's... he's the second coolest guy in the whole galaxy.”

  Jack brushed a stray curl from her face. He smiled down at her. Not that far down now. He hadn't realized how much Chloe had grown up until he'd been away from her, though she'd probably been just as tall, just as much a young woman rather than a girl, when they'd been forced apart.

  Maybe he hadn't wanted to realize.

  Now it was too late.

  He patted her shoulder. “Bet you're right, Clo. I'm sure you are.”

  Ellie closed her eyes and looked away.

  Avalon stood, frozen like a statue.

  Chloe just gazed up at him like he was the last star to fade in the galaxy and she the last person to see it set.

  “So,” Jack asked, “what went wrong?”

  “We cannot win,” Avalon said.

  Chloe's head snapped to him. “That's not true!”

  “Zelph,” Jack guessed.

  Avalon and Ellie both nodded.

  “Rudy can beat him,” Chloe said. “Dad, they're wrong, believe me. Rudy beat Stephan. The Black Rook, I mean. He can beat an Animus Hunter.”

  “Not that one,” Jack said. He was impressed, sure. If Rudy Algreil managed to solo a nob, he was a hell of a lot better pilot than he'd seemed at the Wellach Cup. But Errard Zelph was in a whole different league from any nob Jack had tangled with in the Civil War. According to Otto, Zelph had killed the Emperor himself.

  Avalon nodded again.

  “You don't understand,” Chloe said. “Rudy is a nullifier. He can even suppress my powers – even my erinyes!” Before Jack could ask what that was, Chloe held up her hand. A coil of familiar liquid silver flowed from it, stretched over her body in a suit of armor, then faded back into invisibility. Jack had never seen it do that, but he recognized it immediately: her mother's mecha. “If he can do that to an Imperial, he can stop Zelph's powers, too.”

  Jack had to admit he was impressed again. “How wide an area does he nullify?”

  “Anything he touches stops working completely. My erinyes won't go within three meters of him willingly, and it starts melting if it gets much closer.”

  Jack lowered his eyes. “Then it doesn't matter.”

  “Huh?”

  “Zelph isn't just gonna throw around telepathy, Clo, which is the only thing that field would be good for in a mecha battle. Maybe your boyfriend won't get his cockpit crushed, but what good does that do if his machine doesn't have arms or legs or weapons?”

  Again, Avalon and Ellie nodded.

  Jack got the idea he wasn't the first to explain this to Chloe, and probably to Rudy Algreil, too.

  “If you really love this kid, Clo,” Jack whispered, “you gotta stop him from fighting.”

  “I can't,” Chloe said. “He wouldn't listen, and even if he did, Dad, you'd be –”

  Jack kissed her forehead. “I'd be better off knowing you had somebody to watch out for you.”

  Chloe looked up at him. Tears filled her eyes. “You're saying...”

  “I'm saying,” Jack said, “that you've got to get out of Etemenos. That if Rudy Algreil is the guy you want to spend your life with, he better be the one to get you out of here.”

  “You'll die,” Chloe said simply.

  Jack knew he should bluff her. He figured, if he put everything he had into the bluff, he could actually pull it off – at least for long enough to get her out of Etemenos.

  His gaze swept over the room.

  Avalon met it and gave no response. Ellie started to look away, but checked herself at the last minute.

  They both knew.

  So did Chloe.

  Jack didn't want his last words to his daughter to be a lie.

  He kissed her forehead again, crushed her to him for a second, stepped back from her trembling arms.

  “I probably will, Chloe,” he said. “But you won't.”