Shattered Spear

Chapter Eight

Diaz nodded, eyeing his display as one of his hands moved to set the location for the descent. “I will transfer full control to the maneuvering systems in twenty minutes, Kommodor.”

“Comm specialist,” Marphissa said. “Be prepared to contact the source of the pickup signal.”

“Yes, Kommodor,” she replied. “I have the necessary commands already loaded and ready to transmit, but it is likely the Syndicate battle armor will refuse to link with our systems, and the people down there may not know how to override that. But we will be able to establish a voice link and use that to precisely establish their position.”

“Excellent.”

Marphissa leaned back, trying to look relaxed and confident, as Manticore finished most of another orbit and began braking, lowering her velocity to levels her hull would withstand inside the planet’s atmosphere. The heavy cruiser dropped toward the planet, her path a long curve heading downward and around the globe toward the point where the signal had originated.

Kapitan Diaz sat, both hands gripping his seat’s arms as if trying to ensure he would not reflexively enter a manual maneuvering command. “If I pretend our display is just zooming in on the planet’s surface,” he said, “it’s a lot easier to handle than if I think about us actually going this deep into atmosphere.”

“We’re barely moving,” Marphissa heard one of the specialists whisper to another. “Look. Our velocity is being measured in hundreds of kilometers per hour.”

“Try the link,” Diaz ordered the comm specialist.

She entered the command. “We’re not getting a link back, Kapitan. Request permission to go to voice comms.”

“Permission granted.”

The specialist began sending. “Whoever is requesting pickup, we need you to establish your position by answering our transmission. Comply. We require a signal to find you. Comply.”

After several iterations, an answer came, weak and riddled with static. “Almost out of power,” the reply murmured. “Three of us. Where is shuttle?”

“Three,” Diaz said in amazement. “Give me the comm link. This is the commanding officer of the heavy cruiser. We do not have a shuttle. We are bringing our unit down to within half a kilometer of the surface and extending a cable. You must go to where that cable reaches the surface and climb into the cage attached to the end.”

“Cannot go far…”

“Continue to transmit and we will drop that cable as close to you as possible.”

“We are ten kilometers from the surface,” the senior specialist reported. “But the distance readings are fluctuating.”

Marphissa checked them and laughed slightly. “That’s because we’re traveling over the surface of a planet and what you’re seeing are altitude readings. Whenever we pass over a higher part of the planet the distance to the surface gets shorter for that reason alone, and past that high part the distance gets longer on its own.”

“That… is odd to see, Kommodor. Distance to surface now seven kilometers.”

Marphissa looked at the image of the surface below and was surprised by the sensation of speed as the ship dropped lower with a velocity still in the hundreds of kilometers per hour. The mostly desert terrain beneath the warship appeared to be whipping past below at a disconcerting rate.

“Three kilometers.”

“I really hope we don’t have to go to manual maneuvering,” Diaz said, holding his hands back and away from the controls. “I’m afraid to touch anything.”

“Tow cable is being payed out. One point four kilometers remaining to surface.”

“Huge… fire…”

“That must be what we look like to them beneath us,” Marphissa said, trying to keep her breathing even. “They’re looking up and seeing our main propulsion pointed almost straight at them.”

Thrusters fired on automatic, gently nudging Manticore to try to position the end of the cable at the same point where the signal was now pinpointed.

“Half a kilometer,” the senior specialist said, his voice a little unsteady. “End of cable has made contact with the surface.”

“Get to the cable!” Diaz transmitted. “Can you see it? Get to the cable and get inside the cage. We can’t hold this position very long.”

“Understand… comply…”

“We’ve got visual,” a specialist announced. “Three figures. Syndicate ground forces armor. They are moving toward the cable.”

The motion of the three figures below, stumbling over broken ground and rocks, felt glacial. “How long are they going to take to get there?” Diaz grumbled.

Marphissa tore her eyes from the three figures and scanned her display for any sign that the enigmas were reacting. But this close to the surface Manticore’s sensors could observe only a tiny part of the planet. “With any luck, the enigma sensors are focused on objects in orbit and can’t see us when we’re this low.”

“One in.” Manticore shuddered, thrusters firing again. “Something shoved us.”

“Wind,” Diaz said. “Let’s hope it doesn’t pick up.”

The remaining two figures were racing after the cage, which dragged along the surface as Manticore was blown around. They caught it, and a second one boosted into the cage.

The warship lurched again, sliding sideways, the motion transmitted to the cable below. Once again, the third figure ran after it, stumbling over rocks, the other two reaching out and down.

“Come on,” Diaz breathed. “Do it!”

One of those in the cage got an armored hand locked onto the third figure and began pulling it in, assisted by the second.

A bigger gust of wind hit, twisting and pushing Manticore.

Down below, the third figure clung desperately to the outside of the cage as it skittered and bounced over rocks. Either by accident or design, one bounce brought the soldier up and over to fall on top of the other two inside the cage.

“Get us out of here, Kapitan,” Marphissa ordered.

Diaz reached with great care to touch the control that would start the automated maneuvers for bringing Manticore up out of atmosphere.

Marphissa, accustomed to the heavy cruiser leaping under the thrust of her main propulsion, had to grit her teeth in frustration as the warship rose at what felt like an incredibly gentle rate. But she could see the hull stress and temperature readings that told her that even at this apparently slow acceleration the heavy cruiser was going as fast as could be dared inside even the thin atmosphere of this planet.

After what felt like an eternity but was only a few minutes, the sky around Manticore changed from a disturbing shade of blue to the familiar black of space.

“Anything from the planet?” Marphissa demanded as the ship rose high enough to view a large chunk of the world once more.

“Nothing, Kommodor. No indications of enigma activity.”

“Coming into orbit,” Diaz said. “Not stable yet, but the thrusters can handle any problems.”

“Good. Shut off main propulsion and bring in that cable.”

Once again, a fairly quick process felt like it took forever. As the cage at the end of the cable neared Manticore, crew members in survival suits went out to collect the three soldiers and disconnect the cage. The soldiers were hauled along the hull to the nearest air lock, while the cage was shoved down toward the planet to vaporize during an uncontrolled descent to the surface.

“They’re inside,” Diaz reported. “Air-lock outer hatch sealed. Towing cable recovered and locked down.”

“Get us out of here, Kapitan,” Marphissa said. “Take us to the jump point for Midway, and don’t waste any time getting there. I’m going to go see our new guests.”

“Yes, Kommodor!”

Marphissa, bracing herself against the surge of acceleration as Manticore whipped out of orbit and headed for the jump point, walked carefully off the bridge.

To her surprise, she heard cheers breaking out through the ship. No words were identifiable, just sounds of jubilation. A group of specialists on their way to their watch stations saluted her, grinning broadly. “We did it, Kommodor! Thank you, Kommodor!”

She could not help smiling back as she returned the salutes. It did feel good right now.

The rescued soldiers were packed into the small compartment that served as a medical office aboard the heavy cruiser. They were still being helped out of their armor by unusually solicitous crew members who commonly expressed disdain for their ground forces counterparts. But now there was none of that rivalry.

The three soldiers, two men and one woman, were thin, with haunted, confused eyes. “They look like hell,” Marphissa said to the senior medical specialist who was examining them. All three had already had med packs slapped on their arms, the packs providing intravenous nourishment, fluid replacement, and antishock drugs.

“They’re in awful shape, Kommodor,” the medical specialist paused to report.

“Keep working,” Marphissa said. “Brief me as you work.”

“Yes, Kommodor,” the medical specialist replied gratefully, maintaining the formal tones of an official report as he continued working. “Living in battle armor for so long is stressful under the best of conditions. They were also conserving energy, and their available food and water, and running their armor life support on filters that should have been cleaned or replaced long before.”

“Are any of them in danger?”

The specialist paused to consider the question. “No, Kommodor. Not now that they are receiving proper care. They will require extensive recovery time.”

The soldiers, though dazed, had slowly shifted their gazes to Marphissa and appeared to have realized that she was a superior. All three began trying to rise from their seats and come to attention. “Sit down!” Marphissa ordered, and the three instantly dropped back down. “Report.”

One of the men blinked, then began reciting a standard Syndicate accounting for himself. “Capek, Katsuo, Worker Third Class, First Squad, Eighth Platoon, Third Company, Nine Hundred Seventy-First Ground Forces Brigade. Immediate Superior Worker First Class Adalberto Horgens. Unit Commander—”

“Enough.” Marphissa looked at the other two. “Your names and ranks, only.”

“Dinapoli, Mbali, Worker Fourth Class,” the woman said.

“Keesler… Padraig… Worker Fourth… Class,” the second man managed to recite. He was in the worst shape of the three, his eyes having trouble focusing on Marphissa.

Marphissa looked at Capek, who was watching her with a bewildered expression as he tried to figure out her rank from her uniform. “What happened?”

“Honored, um—”

“Do not worry about titles. Just tell me what happened.”

Capek blinked again, but with a clear order to follow he managed to rally his thoughts. “We were on a wide patrol… checking out areas far from Iwa City Complex. Our orders were to search for… for… anything out of the ordinary. My supervisor told me that we were searching for… infiltrators. On the third day of our patrol, we received an emergency alert that hostile forces had entered the star system. We were ordered to… return to Iwa Complex to defend the city. Two hours later, we were ordered to hold positions and… prepare to ride out orbital bombardment.”

He stopped, his gaze on Marphissa growing troubled. “Are we prisoners, honored… ?”

“No,” Marphissa said. “My ship, our forces, did not attack Iwa. What happened after you received orders to dig in?”

“Our unit commander told us to head away from the city. Get as far away as we could, he said. All units were… dispersing.” Capek paused, trying unsuccessfully to swallow and continue his report.

“We got far enough out,” the woman took up the tale, her voice thin with exhaustion. “We saw the rocks come down and felt the impacts, saw the flashes and the debris clouds even from as far away as we were. All comms lost. We could not contact anyone. Worker First Class Horgens ordered us to head back toward the city.” She paused, her face twitching. “Toward where the city had been. We would fight to the death, he said.”

Capek managed to start speaking again. “We traveled for over a day, on foot. It got very hard when we hit the bombardment zone. Very hard.” He appeared to be about to cry. “They destroyed… everything. We saw their ships coming down. Not like ours. Not Alliance.”

“Like turtles?” Marphissa prodded. “Big turtle shapes?”

“Yes,” the woman soldier agreed. “Different sizes. They came down. Worker Horgens led us toward them.”

“Dispersed column formation,” Capek said. “Standard dispersed column formation. Horgens was in center. Then… his head exploded. We went to ground. Others dying. We could see. I realized our links… were… being… targeted. I told Di— Dinapoli and K—Keesler, only two near to me, to kill links. Total elec… tronic silence.” He stopped again, staring at nothing but clearly seeing the slaughter of his comrades.

“You three survived,” Marphissa said, “because you went totally passive. Did you see the enemy?”

Capek focused back on Marphissa as if momentarily uncertain of where he was, then shook his head. “Long-range smart rounds… I think. Nobody close to see us. They came much later, we are certain. To take away bodies.”

The woman spoke once more. “We didn’t move for… an hour? Then Worker Capek said we should get spare power packs and rations off the dead. We would need them. But don’t take packs already plugged in. If the enemy saw armor had been looted… they would come looking for us.”

“That was smart, Worker Capek,” Marphissa said. “You’ve been hiding since then?”

“Hiding, watching their ships come and go. No ships for a while, though.” Capek’s eyes went distant again for a moment. “Long time. Lying quiet, conserving power. Not transmitting. Cold. Air getting bad. Not enough water, food. Make it last. Someone will come. Someone will come.”

She thought about how many days those soldiers had spent suffering and in fear, nursing a wild hope that rescue would arrive. Marphissa looked over them again, seeing how thin they were, their badly cracked lips, the bleeding skin sores from their long time in Syndicate armor, the eyes that twitched around as if expecting to wake and discover that this was a dream. “How did they manage to run to the cage?” she asked the medical specialist.

He shrugged. “In extreme conditions, people find strength sometimes. They knew if they didn’t get in that cage they would die.”

“But they will be all right now?”

“It will take some time, Kommodor. I will soon sedate them and strap them down, because”—he tapped his head—“nightmares come, you know. After this sort of thing. Nightmares come.”

“I know.” She stood up, stopping with a stern gesture the automatic attempts by the three soldiers to rise again as well. “You will rest now. You are safe. I will speak with you again when you are better.”

Capek tried to stand yet again despite his unsteadiness, and shakily recited the standard Syndicate Acceptance of Responsibility. “This worker is responsible for the failure. My coworkers did not—”

“There was no failure,” Marphissa said.

“You came,” the woman said. “You came for the CEO. We failed to—”

“We came for you.”

“But… we’re just workers.”

“You are our comrades,” Marphissa said. “We do not leave anyone behind.”

As she walked back toward her stateroom to try to get some rest, Marphissa realized that was why the crew had cheered. It wasn’t simply that they had plucked three soldiers away from certain death, it was that those soldiers were “just workers.” They hadn’t been saved because they were high-ranking executives or CEOs. The risk had been run, the chance taken, even though the objects of the rescue were “just workers.”

The Syndicate never would have approved such an operation, Marphissa knew. It wouldn’t have been cost-effective. The risks would have been out of proportion to the possible gains, as precisely calculated in spreadsheets that assigned the same sort of carefully calibrated values to human beings as they did to pieces of equipment. The workers would have been left to their fates, slowly dying as they waited in vain for rescue.

It surprised her to realize that it had never occurred to her that the person or persons who needed to be picked up from the planet might be “just workers.” That simply hadn’t mattered.

She reached her stateroom and closed the hatch, falling gratefully onto her bunk fully clothed, and thinking that maybe, perhaps, it would be possible to overcome much of the toxic influence she and everyone else aboard Manticore had inherited from their years as servants to the Syndicate.

Marphissa could not really relax until Manticore finally entered jump en route Midway. They had only been intermittently able to see the portion of the planet where the enigmas had been working, but during those periods no activity could be detected. Either the enigmas were continuing to lie low until the human warship was gone, or the distance to the planet had grown too great to spot the small surface indications of the work deep underground.

“I tell you,” Diaz commented, “I was expecting some enigma warships to pop up at any moment while we were inside atmosphere and simply blow us apart.”

They were sitting in Marphissa’s stateroom, Diaz having stopped by after leaving the bridge. Being in jump meant he could relax somewhat as well, and the stateroom offered far more privacy for candid talk than did the bridge.

“I was expecting that, too,” Marphissa confessed. She ran one hand through her hair, sighing. “I am guessing that what we did was so unexpected that the enigmas were still arguing over how to react by the time we were done. They had never seen a human warship do what we did, so they had no idea what to do about it.”

“Doing the completely unexpected does sometimes help you out,” Diaz admitted. He stretched slowly. “Damn. I think I’ve been tensed up every minute we were at Iwa. And at Moorea. It’s a good thing the crew can’t tell how scared we are at times.”

“I think they may figure out a lot more than we give them credit for,” Marphissa said. “Speaking of figuring things out, did your people finish downloading and copying the data from those soldiers’ battle armor?”

“No.” Diaz made a helpless gesture with both hands. “They were going to try, since we told them to do it, but fortunately before they started I asked the right question, and they admitted that they were not familiar with ground forces’ software, so there was every chance that the access and download attempt would have triggered an autowipe of all the data by Syndicate-installed security subroutines.”

Marphissa clapped a hand to her face, exasperated, then slowly lowered it. “Every time I think we’re getting the workers past their Syndicate training… and look I just called them workers instead of specialists, so I’m also defaulting to that… they start to mindlessly obey an order instead of letting us know there might be a problem.”

Diaz shrugged. “Under the Syndicate, telling a supervisor there might be a problem with an order could get you shot. They learned to obey first and think not at all. Anyway, I told them not to touch the armor. We can turn it over to Drakon’s ground forces when we get back. They’ll know how to access that data. What are we going to do with the three soldiers?”

“Give them to Drakon, too, I guess.” Marphissa saw the look that Diaz couldn’t quite hide. “President Iceni trusts him. He’s backed the president in every way. And Honore Bradamont says that General Drakon is a good man who never really acted like a CEO.”

“I believe Bradamont,” Diaz admitted, “even though her judgment might be a little influenced by her involvement with that ground forces colonel. I just hate the thought of those soldiers thinking that we betrayed them after all. My medical specialist is keeping them asleep to aid their recovery, but he says every time he lets them wake a little they always look terrified until he can remind them that they were rescued. In their heads, those soldiers keep going back to that hellhole.” He grimaced and looked down. “I wonder if they’ll ever leave it, or if they’ll spend the rest of their lives feeling like they are still there.”

“You know how it is for us,” Marphissa said softly. “There’s a battleship I served on soon after becoming a junior executive. We got on the wrong end of a nasty battle. Everything knocked out, then the Alliance Marines came aboard. I don’t know how many times I’ve woken out of a nightmare where I am still fighting that battle in the darkened passageways of that doomed ship, blood and death everywhere, all my friends dying, some of them dying slow so they had plenty of time to know it—”

Her voice choked. Marphissa breathed in and out slowly, blinking back tears, aware that Diaz was conspicuously not looking at her.

“I know,” he finally said, still looking away. “There are two kinds of people in the Syndicate service. Those who died horrible deaths, and those who survived to remember. How did you survive?”

“The Alliance got driven off. Their Marines pulled back off the ship before they could take our defensive citadels.” Marphissa rubbed her eyes irritably. “Then those of us who were still alive were ordered to handle the casualty detail, collecting the bodies of our former friends and comrades, and getting the battleship into good enough shape to be hauled back and scrapped for parts and materials.”

“Nobody ever accused the Syndicate of being sentimental. It’s not good business.”

“True.” Composing herself, Marphissa nodded to Diaz. “We are the lucky ones, you know. Yes, we remember those who did not live, we remember how they died, but we can still try to make things better, try to save those that we can.”

Diaz smiled briefly. “Like three ground forces workers who expected to die?”

“Like them. It matters,” she insisted. “They matter. That’s why we must win—because we believe that.”

Diaz nodded, then smiled again. “But also there is this. We must win because if we lose, you and I will surely be killed in a very painful and public fashion.”

“That is another good reason,” Marphissa agreed.

Captain Honore Bradamont had mostly gotten over the occasional ugly flashback caused by being aboard Syndicate-design warships crewed by men and women in what were still basically Syndicate-style uniforms despite minor changes and new rank insignia. She had grown familiar with having bodyguards watching her to ensure none of the crew decided to act on their long-nurtured hatred of the Alliance and everyone who wore its uniform, even though that very familiarity with the practice disturbed her. And she had been able to accept that these men and women were not the “Syndic” monsters she had been taught to hate, who had killed many of her friends, and whom she had spent much of her life killing and trying to kill.

But to be riding a former Syndicate battleship, poised to assume command of a flotilla of former Syndicate warships if necessary, felt too bizarre to be real. To be sharing meals with former Syndicate officers whose own warships she had fought, and destroyed, at places like Varandal Star System, and who were supposed to follow her orders? If not for the orders that Admiral Geary had given her to do everything she morally could do to ensure the survival of the new regime on Midway, and her own belief that anyone who could win the loyalty of Colonel Donal Rogero as General Drakon had done must be a person worth following, Bradamont might have felt too disoriented to command at all, let alone well.

Manticore should have been back by now. Where the hell was Kommodor Asima Marphissa anyway? They had become friends, giving a strong personal aspect to Bradamont’s worries. But she would be relieved once Asima made it back to Midway not simply because it would mean she had survived her mission, but also because Bradamont could then gracefully return the role of flotilla commander back to Midway’s own Kommodor.

Five minutes ago, Midway’s sensors had spotted the battle cruiser Pele altering vector and accelerating toward the jump point for Lono. What was Kapitan Kontos doing and why was he doing it? Since Pele was nearly three light hours away, the action had been taken that long ago, and any message sent by Bradamont demanding explanation would require a six-hour round-trip.

Her impatient thoughts were interrupted by a call from the bridge. “Two light cruisers arrived at the jump point from Lono three and a half hours ago,” Kapitan Freya Mercia reported. “They are accelerating toward the inner star system at the best rate they can manage.”

Bradamont frowned at the image of the battleship Midway’s commanding officer. “That’s a very small attack force.”

“Ridiculously small,” Mercia agreed. “Our sensors have spotted combat damage on both warships.”

A tone sounded, drawing Bradamont’s attention to an incoming message. “Kapitan Kontos is hopefully informing us of his intentions. Are you copied on this message?”

“Yes,” Mercia replied.

The image of Kapitan Kontos appeared before Bradamont. He was seated on the bridge of Pele, and still looked impossibly young for his rank and for being assigned to command Midway’s only battle cruiser. But she had seen him in action and knew that Kontos was a brilliant tactician with an instinctive grasp of space combat.

“Honored Captain Bradamont,” Kontos said, his tone and bearing formal and respectful. “I have sighted two light cruisers arriving from Lono and am proceeding to intercept their track. A message sent by them to my ships asks for asylum and indicates they were pursued by Syndicate warships when they entered jump at Lono. Main propulsion on both ships has suffered damage, limiting their ability to accelerate. Unless otherwise ordered, I will join up with the two light cruisers and escort them to a safe orbit. For the people, Kontos, out.”

“He attached the message sent to his ships,” Kapitan Mercia noted. “Shall I play it?”

“Yes, please, Kapitan.” Bradamont had early on sensed Mercia’s unease with her, but the former Syndicate officer had done her best to accept Bradamont, so she did her own best to deal respectfully in turn.

The image this time was of a dazed-looking executive on the bridge of a standard Syndicate light cruiser. The small bridge of the light cruiser was marked by signs of combat, a few bodies still sprawled within sight. “We have killed all of the loyalists and Internal Security Service agents aboard and are seeking to join forces with those of Midway. But we took damage fighting our way free of our flotilla. There were two heavy cruisers in close pursuit when we jumped from Lono. Both of our ships have suffered damage to main propulsion. We urgently require escort. Please save us! For the people, Kavistan, out.”

It seemed like a pretty much straightforward situation. Bradamont took a quick glance at the display in her stateroom, but she was already familiar with the arrangement of Midway’s warships. The battleship Midway that she was riding, along with heavy cruiser Basilisk, light cruisers Falcon and Osprey, and three Hunter-Killers were orbiting together to cover both Midway’s hypernet gate, the most likely place for another Syndic attack to arrive, and the jump point from the star Pele, from which any enigma attack would come. That put them three and a half light hours from the jump point from Lono, far too distant to reach the new arrivals quickly.

Another heavy cruiser, Kraken, the remaining light cruisers Hawk, Kite, and Eagle, and six Hunter-Killers were orbiting far around the edge of the star system, covering the jump points from the stars Kahiki, Kane, Laka, and Iwa. They were more than five light hours away from the new arrivals.

The remaining three Hunter-Killers that Midway’s small navy boasted were still gone, returning representatives to the star systems of Ulindi, Taroa, and Kane.

That left the battle cruiser Pele and a single heavy cruiser, Gryphon, who had been orbiting to cover the jump points from Lono and Kahiki. Pele and Gryphon had been only about one light hour from where the new ships had arrived.

She shouldn’t have to do anything. By the time any of Midway’s other warships could get to the vicinity of those two light cruisers, Pele and Gryphon would already have long since engaged and driven off a pursuit force consisting of only heavy cruisers. Even a far-less-capable officer than Kontos could handle that.

The virtual window showing Kapitan Mercia was still open. Bradamont noticed that Mercia was frowning. “What’s the matter?”

“I don’t know.” Mercia’s frown grew deeper. “Something doesn’t feel right, but I’m not sure what.” She studied something off to one side of her. “From our own look angle we can’t see much of the main propulsion on those light cruisers, so we can’t confirm their reports of damage.”

Bradamont checked her display again and did a quick appraisal. “Pele and Gryphon can see less than we do. The light cruisers are almost bow on to them. Why would the light cruisers lie about the damage they had sustained? Two of them can’t threaten a battle cruiser.”

Another alert tone, this one urgent. “The Syndicate heavy cruisers pursuing those light cruisers arrived,” Mercia noted. “Two of them, just as we were told to expect.”

Bradamont gazed at the display again; the two heavy cruisers had come in from the same jump from Lono, and had quickly steadied out on intercepts aimed at the light cruisers that had shown up earlier. The damaged light cruisers were limping toward Pele and Gryphon as fast as they could accelerate, and Kontos was bringing his two warships toward those light cruisers at a considerably higher rate. “About three hours until they meet up,” Bradamont murmured. “Damn. Even if we sent a message it wouldn’t get there until they were almost…” She gave a sharp look to Mercia. “Why do I want to send a message? This doesn’t look like anything that Kontos can’t handle.”

“He’s very good,” Mercia said. “He does lack experience, but that shouldn’t matter here. The light cruisers have killed all of the snakes aboard and—” She stopped speaking, looking unhappy. “That’s part of it. Why did that executive call the snakes ISS agents? He used the formal title.”

“What was his Syndicate rank?” Bradamont asked.

“Executive Second Class, what you would expect to find in command of a light cruiser.” Mercia paused. “The commanding officer survived the mutiny. That’s unusual, but I understand some of the commanding officers survived when President Iceni led the mutinies on warships here, so it can happen.”

“How many days in jump space from Lono to here?” Bradamont asked.

“Lono to Midway? Seven days.” Mercia sat straighter, suspicion lighting her eyes. “Seven days. At least seven days after the mutiny, and there are still bodies lying around the bridge?”

“It looked staged, didn’t it?”

“I’m not too familiar with such things,” Mercia said, “but, yes, it looked like… exactly what I would expect to see if I was watching a vid. What are they up to?”

“I don’t know.” Bradamont hit her comm control. “Kapitan Kontos, myself and Kapitan Mercia are concerned that there is something wrong about those two light cruisers. Verify the damage they claim to have suffered and do not let them approach you too closely. We need to confirm that they are who they say they are.” She paused to consider adding more specific instructions, but that was foolish when she was observing events from three light hours away. Kontos would have to react to events as they developed. “Proceed with caution. Bradamont, out.”

“You didn’t say ‘for the people,’” Mercia chided her, smiling crookedly to show it was meant humorously.

“I almost said ‘to the honor of our ancestors’ out of force of habit,” Bradamont admitted. “But I know you don’t believe in the same things that we do.”

“Do you mean me personally?” Mercia asked. “Or everyone out here?”

“Everyone, I guess.”

“Some of us do share that belief. Others believe in other things. And yet others accepted the belief in nothing that the Syndicate worked so hard to convince us all of.” Mercia shrugged. “Not… what do you call it? Atheism. But denying even a belief in that. Only the Syndicate was supposed to serve as a guide and a purpose, because there was supposed to be no other possible guide and purpose.”

“I’m not sure I understand what you’re saying I should say,” Bradamont said. “Does it look bad that I’m not saying ‘for the people’?”

Mercia smiled very briefly. “I am saying that for all our lives we were told what we had to say. Now we can choose what to say. I don’t think anyone will deny you the right to say what you wish. But you are probably wise not to flaunt your differences from us. Thank you, by the way.”

“For?”

“Taking my concerns seriously. I worry about Kontos. When someone is as naturally good as he is, it is far too easy for them not to realize how much they have to learn.”

“Agreed.” Bradamont shook her head as she looked at her display. “And all you and I can do is watch and see what he does.”

For the next three hours, she had to watch as events unfolded too far away for her to have any control over them. The heavy cruisers chased after the light cruisers, which were racing to meet Pele and Gryphon, which were in turn charging to intercept the light cruisers. The tracks of the various warships all converged toward one point in space.

Bradamont’s unease kept growing as she watched. The Syndicate heavy cruisers in pursuit of the light cruisers were accelerating at a rate that would catch the smaller warships just after they joined up with Pele and Gryphon. There were plausible explanations for that, but it was odd that the heavy cruisers were continuing their pursuit when their own projections must have shown them that they would reach their prey too late to destroy them. And every meter the heavy cruisers drove toward Pele was another meter into a fight with a battle cruiser that the heavy cruisers could not hope to win.

It felt increasingly wrong. Kontos should see that, too. But she knew how easily a ship’s captain could be caught by such a lure, not seeing the problems or potential dangers and focusing on the chance to not only save two newly friendly warships but also to destroy two enemy warships. What an opportunity! Exactly what someone would wish for. Admiral Geary had often made a point of warning against situations that seemed too good to be true.

Half an hour remained until they would see Pele and Gryphon meet up with the fleeing light cruisers. Bradamont stood up abruptly and left her stateroom, trying to ignore the bodyguards, who fell into place behind her. The walk to the bridge wasn’t too long since the command spaces and the highest-ranking officers’ staterooms were all located near the center of the battleship in the most well-protected part of the ship.

Mercia looked over at Bradamont as she walked onto the bridge and sat in the flotilla commander’s seat next to Mercia’s own ship commander’s seat. “It stinks worse with every minute,” Mercia said.

“It does.” Bradamont brought up her display and pointed an angry finger at the two heavy cruisers. “Look at them. Coming on straight toward Pele. Kontos has to see that it’s a trap of some sort!”

“But what kind of trap?” Mercia asked herself as much as Bradamont. “I’ve heard that the Syndicate has employed some suicide attacks, but those used small ships, courier ships with small crews.”

“They have,” Bradamont said angrily.

“Ah. Apologies. You were with Black Jack when they did that? It’s an ugly way to fight, but the snakes always fight ugly.”

Fifteen minutes remained until they saw what had happened when Kontos had met up with the light cruisers. “How much longer until he receives my message?” Bradamont asked, gazing at the unfamiliar Syndicate Worlds controls.

“Here.” Mercia leaned over and tapped a control. “There’s the count. About five more minutes. If Kontos hasn’t already started wondering about this whole setup, that message should wake him up.”

Midway’s bridge usually had only a low level of noise. Kapitan Mercia ran a tight ship. But it was quieter than usual now as everyone watched the events on their displays, knowing that no matter what happened, they were far too distant to influence events that had taken place three hours before.

If no other maneuvers had occurred, Kontos’s force would have passed through the two light cruisers at close range, continuing on to hit the pursuing Syndicate heavy cruisers.

“He’s detaching Gryphon,” Mercia noted at the same moment that Bradamont spotted the movement. Battle cruiser Pele had turned and was braking, while Gryphon had accelerated toward the oncoming light cruisers. “It’s not a direct intercept. Gryphon is going to pass to one side of the light cruisers.”

Bradamont felt herself smiling. “He’s going to have Gryphon take a good look at the main propulsion on those light cruisers before Pele gets to them. And Pele is swinging out and down to pass clear of the light cruisers as well.”

The results of those moves had come quickly. Three hours ago, as Gryphon and Pele split, the two fleeing light cruisers had also begun diverging, one aiming for Gryphon and one for Pele.

“Smart!” Bradamont said. “Kontos did exactly the right thing to force the hands of those light cruisers!”

A tactical feed from Pele appeared alongside the other data, relaying the communications that had passed back and forth three light hours away. Kontos had warned the light cruisers to continue onward, saying he would deal with the heavy cruisers. The same executive on the same light cruiser had called back, pleading for protection. “Our units will be very valuable to Iceni!”

As one light cruiser continued to close on Gryphon and the other on Pele, Kontos’s messages grew sharp. “You will remain clear of my ships!”

The executive had kept pleading. “The Syndicate heavy cruisers are right behind us! We need protection! Our main propulsion has been damaged!”

Mercia indicated another set of data on the displays. “Pele and Gryphon have two sets of firing solutions ready, one set aimed at the heavy cruisers and the second at the light cruisers. Kontos is ready for anything.”

At that point, three things had occurred almost at the same moment.

Kapitan Third Rank Stein on the Gryphon had suddenly altered vector, getting a clear look at the main propulsion on one of the light cruisers. “Kapitan Kontos! Only minor cosmetic damage is visible!”

An alert appeared, showing that the sensors on both Pele and Gryphon had picked up unusual fluctuations from the power cores on both light cruisers.

Simultaneously, the two light cruisers leapt forward as their main propulsion kicked in at full, one cruiser homing in on Gryphon and the other aiming for Pele.