The Loralynn Kennakris series Boxed Set

by Owen R O'Neill

  “In fact—what?” asked Wicklow, with a sharp look.

  “Nothing.” Trin rubbed her right eye. “Anything’s possible, of course.” Which struck all present as a most un-Trin-like rejoinder—so much so that it stilled the conversation for a moment.

  “The one thing that is clear,” Admiral Westover said when that moment had elapsed, “is if we wait until the Doms tip their hand, the game is up. Either we secure the initiative, or we’ll find ourselves in kneepads, paying the devil. We all understand the trade-offs they face. What we need is an idea of their thinking—how they weigh the options. Has anyone a suggestion on that?”

  Several beats of silence, then Trin Wesselby spoke up with a queer, reluctant edge to her voice. “Well, sir. I have given it some thought.” She said nothing further and Westover exchanged a glance with PrenTalien, who said nothing either.

  The CNO gestured to the other staff officers in the room. “Gentleman, excuse us please.”

  Wearing bewildered expressions, the men stood. When Captain Raven hesitated briefly, PrenTalien gave him a private nod. Accepting the dismissal, he filed out with the others. When the five of them were alone in the huge compartment, Narses and Zahir regarded Trin with singular intensity.

  “What was that all about?” Narses asked the room in general.

  “A moment, Lian.” Westover nodded to the commander. “What is it you have, Trin?”

  “We send a message, sir,” she answered, avoiding the CinC of SOLCOM’s eye. “Something the Supreme Staff can’t ignore that pins down a specific option. Then we wait for their reaction.”

  “How does waiting—” Narses began, impatient and irked at being put off. Westover silenced her with a raised forefinger.

  “Such as?” he asked mildly, eyes on Trin. Zahir was also shifting forward in her chair.

  “That depends, sir. Maybe we could say that the refueling facilities at Outbound are down for some reason. We send it in Admiralty B, so the fleet commands are notified per usual, then—”

  “Carlos! What the hell’s going on?” Narses had reached the end of her patience—never a long journey. “Admiralty B? What’s this about?” Admiralty B was the CEF interservice encryption system used to coordinate operations with field commands.

  At last, Westover turned to address her. “The Halith Supreme Staff has broken Admiralty B.”

  “They’ve what!? How do we know that?”

  “Because we’ve partly broken their Morganatic channels.” Those were the Supreme Staff’s ultra-secured command networks.

  Narses slumped back in her seat, seamed face registering shock and no small amount of pique. “Why wasn’t I informed?”

  “You just have been, Lian,” Westover told her, brusquely. “There are—ramifications. This isn’t the time to go into them.”

  “You’re the focal point in all this, I take it, Commander?” The question sounded uncomfortably like an accusation, as if Trin had pulled off this remarkable coup just to highlight the incapacity of her superiors.

  “That is correct, ma’am.” Trin’s tone was barely civil.

  “How long have we known this? About Admiralty B?”

  “Three months, ma’am. It appears that Halith broke the code months before that. Maybe as long as a year ago.”

  “And we continue to rely on it?” Narses stabbed Westover with a fierce look.

  Westover took it unflinchingly. “Yes. We can’t make a major change that risks alerting them.”

  “Anandale was coordinated using Admiralty B.” Zahir spoke almost under her breath.

  Westover nodded. “That’s why I suggested we postpone it, Devlyn. But the Council was determined.”

  “I understand, Carlos.”

  Trin cleared her throat and looked across at Zahir. “Ma’am? We also don’t yet understand how they broke Admiralty B. We can’t deploy a new encryption system until we have some handle on how the old one was compromised.”

  “Of course.”

  Admiral Narses, however, was still smarting. “So, is this insight you’ve gained into the Doms’ mind the reason you’re flogging the Wogan’s Reef idea, Commander?”

  Trin ground her teeth. Narses had learned tact from her former boss, Fleet Admiral Kasena, and while she was a better-than-average CinC, she was no Jasmine Kasena. “No, ma’am. We know they’ve been debating the matter, rather like us.” The slightly waspish intonation did not go unnoticed. “We have a good idea of who’s advocating for the various options, and it does appear that they recently came to a decision—Colonel Yeager’s raid looks to be the catalyst—but we’ve no indications yet what it was.”

  “Hence your scheme.” The waspish note had not improved her temper. “What makes you think they would react to a story about refueling problems at Outbound?”

  “Nothing—particular, ma’am. I mentioned it for the purposes of illustration, no more.”

  “So—whatever we say—how do we keep from confusing our own people as much as the Doms?”

  “We’d have to use Exarchy, ma’am. And rely on couriers to inform the subordinate commands.”

  “Doable,” PrenTalien commented. “Especially for a place like Outbound.”

  “Good point,” agreed Zahir.

  Narses, seeing that she was pushing it—even for her—subsided.

  Westover nodded. “Agreed. Joss, since this seems to be most in your area, come up with a scheme and go forward. We don’t have time for a lot of back and forth on this, so just take your best shot.”

  “I’m beginning to like this refueling notion,” Joss PrenTalien said, with a nod in Trin’s direction. “If Outbound had a problem with its refueling facilities, we’d have to take up the slack with a tanker fleet out of Merope. And we’d be at liberty to position it where it would be most convenient. That would give the Doms something new to think about, and a juicy new target to boot.”

  “If that’s what you think best.” Westover shifted his attention. “Devlyn, prep for another poke at Miranda—be somewhat ostentatious about it. Lian, support her on that. Offer help, but don’t overplay it, of course.” To her credit, the admiral did not snort. “That will send a message, as well. Is there anything else before we break?”

  Trin nodded slowly. “Possibly, sir.”

  “Yes, Commander?”

  “We’ve been finding some odd message threads lately—I can’t say how long they’ve been going on—but some appear to relate to an R&D effort, others to requisitions. Some may be test results. The only common denominator is that they might relate to large gravitic systems.”

  “How large?” Westover asked, interested.

  Trin shook her head. “Maybe dreadnought class? I don’t—there’s not a clear connection there, sir. Halith doesn’t have any new dreadnoughts in the slips, nor do we have anything on a new class being in development—even at the initial R&D phase. And all the components we can identify so far are in series production, not developmental.” She cast an apologetic look at her boss. “I’m sorry I haven’t reported on this before, sir. We’ve been finding these messages over the past few weeks, but the possible connection only occurred to us quite recently.”

  “No apologies, Trin. But you think there’s some special significance here?”

  “It’s hard to say—grav plants that size . . . they could be looking to jump something quite large. I’ll keep after it, of course.”

  PrenTalien took that in with a serious look and gave Trin a nod. “First things first, though.”

  “Of course, sir.”

  The CNO glanced a final time about the table. “I believe we’re concluded here then. That was productive. I think we’ve found our road at last. All that remains is to follow it.” Here, he favored Trin with a professional smile. “Thank you for your input, Commander. Carry on.”

  “Yes, sir.” Trin rose, moving stiffly and supporting herself against the edge of the table with both hands. “Thank you, sir.”

  * * *

  Once in the passageway, Jo
ss PrenTalien put a fatherly hand on his intelligence chief’s shoulder.

  “You were looking a little piqued in there, Trin. Are you doing alright?”

  “Perfectly, sir”—attempting to support the bald assertion with a frayed smile. “It’s really nothing. I’ll be fine.”

  “Well, take care of yourself, then. Get some rest. You’re not looking well.”

  “I will, sir.” She tapped the folio under her arm. “Just as soon as I deal with this.”

  Z-Day minus 24

  IHS Marshall Nedelin, docked;

  Janin Station, Tau Verde, Vulpecula Region

  “Jakob, it is good to see you,” Admiral Caneris greeted his old friend warmly. Joaquin Caneris was not notable for personal warmth, and that he showed it to any degree bespoke the deep connection between the two men.

  “I am happy to see you as well, Joaquin. Happier than you might imagine.” Adenauer invited him to a seat in his day cabin. Caneris was well aware of the tremendous strain Adenauer had been under; what was more, he could see it in the new lines on the long face and in the bowed shoulders. “Truly, I had not looked for you this trip.”

  Caneris had arrived unexpectedly with IHS Orlan, which had docked early that AM, and Adenauer suspected he had more reason for making the trip than to oversee the orderly transfer of his newest and largest battleship to the Kerberos Fleet. As much as he wished to hear what those reasons might be, there were proprieties to be observed. “But before I say more, allow me to offer my deepest condolences. Ava was a jewel among women. I am most heartily sorry.”

  “Thank you,” Caneris replied, his voice uninflected. Ava Marcellanis, his wife of fifty years, had recently succumbed to the aftereffects of her immunocyte implant triggering a cytokine storm, a rare but not unheard of reaction, especially in postpausal women. Then he spoke in a more human tone. “It was a mercy, there at the last. You know how she would never consent to seem a cripple.”

  “Yes,” Adenauer said simply, putting an end to the topic. “So what news? I must imagine you have some.”

  “That is true,” Caneris allowed. “But before we attend to that, I’m afraid I have to apprise you of new developments you will not find so pleasant, regarding this business with Jantony Banner.”

  “What business?”

  “You have not heard?”

  Adenauer shrugged, opening his long hands. “He requested a billet here. I was obliged to turn him down. I do not think he was well pleased.”

  Here the Kerberos Fleet’s commander was perhaps not being wholly candid. While he readily admitted the genius of Banner’s flying, Adenauer personally found the turbulent aristocrat vain, arrogant, and too showy by half. The “flying circus” he’d formed between the wars had real practical value, but it was also shameless self-promotion and needless grandstanding. But what truly raised Adenauer’s indignation to a fine pitch was Banner’s habit of—here the admiral preferred a Terran word—hotdogging: flying combat missions for the express purpose of scoring kills without regard for the real objective. At best, this was a chivalric stunt—searching for an opponent “worthy of his guns”—but Adenauer knew for a fact that by the end of the last war, Banner had taken to shadowing other formations solo, looking to pick off damaged enemy fighters to pad his list of kills with little or no risk to himself. That was discreditable in the extreme, and when Banner had talked his way into combat and applied for a posting to the Kerberos Fleet, Adenauer had been happy to promptly deny it.

  “Vansant took him on,” he finished, a move which had surprised him not at all, and at the time, he’d wished the Duke Albrecht Fleet’s CO joy of having the prickly prima donna in his command. “Has he raised some complaint?” That also would not surprise him.

  Caneris’ normally inexpressive face registered something not far from shock. “He was wounded at Miranda. Most severely. Has been in a coma since—not expected to recover. Almost certainly will not.”

  “You astonish me.” And indeed Adenauer looked it. “What happened? Was it Commander Huron?” That would be the most plausible explanation. And as Huron had killed his friend, Pavel Heinck, Banner had all the more reason to seek an engagement.

  “It was not Commander Huron,” Caneris emphasized, still recovering from his wonder at his friend having been kept in the dark. “Though it seems clear Banner thought it was. You know his habits.”

  Adenauer merely nodded, not wishing to interrupt.

  “His flight recorder data shows he was stalking a dogfight—six of ours against two of theirs. One of their pilots was put out of action swiftly, but the other, instead of taking the prudent course, attacked.”

  “With what result?”

  “He killed five outright and crippled the last—the pilot failed to return. You can see how that would invite the comparison.” Caneris used the masculine pronoun reflexively: the Imperial Navy did not allow women as pilots in their strike and reconnaissance forces.

  “Indeed so.”

  “However, that was a small thing to what followed. I have seen the video—and I tell you plainly, Jakob, such a display of lethal virtuosity I have never before witnessed.”

  Very strong words from Joaquin Caneris. Adenauer could not recall him an occasion where he’d been so emphatic before. “If it was not Commander Huron, who was it?”

  “That is the devil of it, Jakob. We don’t know. The officer was junior enough to be a wingman, not even an element leader.”

  “That is bad.” Adenauer glanced toward one of the large lit console screens, not registering the data displayed there. Seen objectively, the incident might appear inconsequential enough—the fate of a single man—but war was not an objective business. Symbolism wielded great influence in war, and Captain Jantony Banner, Halith’s most revered warrior, was one of the most potent symbols of all. If it became widely known that he had been defeated and perhaps killed by a junior CEF officer who couldn’t even be identified, it could not but have a very poor effect on morale, with potentially far-reaching consequences. How the Ministry of Information would handle the debacle, Adenauer had no idea. Banner could not plausibly be kept out of the limelight much longer.

  “You say there is no hope of survival?”

  “No hope of recovery, certainly. Survival is a more delicate matter.”

  Adenauer’s expression hardened and he waited for Caneris to go on.

  “Indeed, the Ministry strongly desired life-support to be removed and things allowed to take their ‘natural’ course.” The set of Caneris’ jaw eloquently expressed his disapproval of the whole affair. “The family refused, of course.”

  “I don’t wonder.” Euthanizing, in effect, a man—an aristocrat—of Banner’s stature was unheard of.

  “Banner has been released into their care. Subject to certain stipulations.”

  Maintaining a strict silence he meant. Now they were reaching the heart of the matter, it seemed.

  “Obviously, they have been suppressing the incident—more effectively than I would have believed possible, as you had not heard—and the decision has been made that Banner shall be ‘lost in action’ in the course of the forthcoming operations. The Ministry’s propaganda people are hard at work making a production of it—a suitably epic end—odds of twenty to one were even discussed—and we may be assured the media will play it constantly for years.”

  This struck a chill to Adenauer’s stomach—not the ridiculous fancy of engaging at twenty to one; that could hardly be attempted to be believed—but from what he anticipated must be coming next.

  By his look, Caneris inferred his friend’s feelings. “I regret to say you have been assigned major supporting role in all of this.”

  As he thought. “Did they provide you with details? Or must we wait upon those?” There was only one way to handle this, and nothing he could do about it, but he might as well hear the scheme now.

  “They did, to a degree. Banner will be assigned to your fleet with a new squadron. The double has been visosculpted and prep
arations are now finalizing.”

  “Condemned? Or did they find a volunteer?” It made little difference either way. They would certainly use neurological implants and memory modules to allow the double to play his part convincingly, and the other members of his “squadron” would see that he did. Adenauer asked the question mainly to indulge his generally ineffable aggravation.

  “I’m afraid I cannot say. A basic framework has been established. No doubt the operation will provide ample engagements to lend the necessary degree of verisimilitude.”

  “No doubt,” Adenauer remarked dryly. “But what of the League? They will certainly want to profit from Banner’s ‘death’. Yet they can hardly release corroborating video. Are they aware what actually happened?”

  “It appears they are not. The fate of the other pilot is unknown. He took heavy damage as well, and may not have survived. Even now, there has been no mention, not even within CEF channels.” Accepting that with no more than a low noise from the back of his throat, Adenauer allowed Caneris to continue. “And they will revel in the result surely, but either ‘suppress’ video of the engagement or ‘doctor’ it to conceal the ‘vast damage’ wrought by a single pilot. Such will be the official line.”

  “Oh, surely.” Adenauer shook his head and rubbed his lower lip. “That implies sacrificing most of his ‘squadron’ for effect, does it not?”

  “It remains to be seen.”

  “Well, I appreciate that you brought me this word.” A routine alert appeared on a nearby console: Orlan requesting details regarding taking on stores, shore leave policy—someone wanting permission to send a boat . . . nothing that needed his attention. Adenauer routed it to his chief of staff to deal with. “But you had other news?”

  “Yes. Forgive my being the unwelcome messenger. But this should put things in a better light. They have agreed to release Jena to you. You will receive official word of the transfer in a day or so.”

  It certainly did put things in a better light. “Thank you, Joaquin”—with a stately inclination of his head. “I am deeply grateful for your efforts there.”