UnArcana Stars

by Glynn Stewart

  Wait… Was Grace nervous? She was the one who’d initiated their on-again, off-again relationship through college and their later fling after the Antonius Incident. Though, now he thought about it, she’d been nervous when they first met during the Incident, too.

  “Damien,” she replied, and for a moment, the two of them just stood there staring at each other.

  Then Romanov coughed delicately.

  “Adorable and awkward as this is for the rest of us, my lord, we do have quite the collection of other Admirals waiting for you,” the bodyguard noted.

  Damien flushed and looked away—but not before realizing that Grace was also blushing.

  “Of course,” he agreed quickly. “Mage-Admiral Medici, if you could lead the way?”

  James Medici was probably the oldest person in the room right now, and if the pair of thirty-somethings stumbling over their own tongues was a surprise or bother to him, he didn’t show it.

  “Of course, Lord Montgomery, Admiral McLaughlin. Follow me.”

  Six Admirals, a Commodore and a First Hand of the Mage-King gathered in the conference room. Four Captains and a dozen aides, assistants and bodyguards filled out the space, which was thankfully designed for at least twice as many people.

  Having regained his equilibrium after seeing Grace again, Damien stood on the stage behind a lectern with Mage-Admiral Medici at his right as he surveyed the collection of stars filling the room.

  “Officers, thank you,” he began quietly. “Only Admiral Medici and our Navy captains are truly subject to my authority. Admiral Vasilev doesn’t really have much of a choice, with his system in the line of fire, but the rest of you don’t need to be here.

  “So, thank you. Your presence here may well turn the tide of the battle to come. We now represent the single largest concentration of warships the Protectorate has ever gathered outside the Sol System.”

  He smiled thinly.

  “I want one thing to be very clear from the beginning: Mage-Admiral Medici is in command of this naval force. You are assembled here under my authority, but I am a civilian with military oversight, not a naval officer.”

  Damien waited long enough to be certain that the other Admirals were going to fall into line, then let his smile warm.

  “Our mission objective is very simple: we hold Ardennes against the Republican Interstellar Navy. Our current intelligence suggests that we will be facing five full carrier groups of the RIN, the largest force concentration of theirs we are aware of.

  “We have no choice but to assume that the RIN is fully aware of our strength and deployments. All evidence suggests that we have been quite thoroughly infiltrated by agents equipped with FTL communicators of some kind. While there are some hints that we may have neutralized at least the communication capabilities of the local spies, we cannot rely on that.”

  “Is it truly that bad, my lord?” Admiral Darzi asked. “I’ve…more direct experience with the competence of the MISS than most of you here, I suspect.”

  “The Republic managed to infiltrate an Augment assassin onto this ship,” Jakab told Darzi. “During our last action against the RIN, that Augment attempted to kill Lord Montgomery.”

  “And had used an FTL communicator to bring the RIN to us,” Damien added. “Yes, Admiral Darzi, it is quite possible that, despite the number of agents the MISS has successfully neutralized, the Republic remains fully aware of our actions.

  “We do have more reinforcements en route from the Amber System, but due to our new systems of communications security, I don’t know the magnitude of that force yet,” he continued. “Until they arrive, what we have is what we have. And on that point, I’ll hand this briefing over to Mage-Admiral Medici.”

  He nodded to the Admiral and took a seat at the side of the stage, hopefully concealing the sigh of relief as he was able to lay his hands on his lap. They were starting to bother him again.

  “As of the arrival of your contingents, people, we now have the following ship strength,” Medici told them, bringing up an organized hologram of the new fleet.

  “We have three battleships of the Royal Martian Navy, Peacemaker, Pax Marcianus, and Foremost Shield of Honor. We have two RMN cruisers, two ASDF cruisers, two MSF cruisers and eight TCSF cruisers. The Sherwood Interstellar Patrol has brought us twelve seven-megaton frigates, and the Condor Royal Fleet has provided us with two four-megaton guardships. Combined, our force musters sixty destroyers.”

  He shook his head.

  “For those who don’t have the math to hand, we muster eighty-nine warships massing just over four hundred and fifty million tons. We also have a damaged ASDF cruiser we may or may not be able to get back into action before the Republic arrives.

  “Unfortunately, our current best guess—as Lord Montgomery noted—is that the Republic will be bringing five carrier groups. A total of twenty-eight ships massing over eight hundred million tons.”

  Medici grinned.

  “What we need to sort out tonight, people, is how we’re going to win that battle.”

  Medici waited for the responding uproar to die down, gesturing for calm.

  “The situation is not nearly as bad as the numbers may make it appear,” he noted once the Admirals had quieted. “Our best estimate is that the enemy sacrifices a significant amount of their tonnage to maintain rotational gravity and for whatever system they are using for FTL.

  “The Republic has also consistently proven to be extremely loss-averse. Commodore Jakab has now clashed with them twice, and both times, they refused to commit to an action that would have destroyed his ships—at the certain cost of several of the Republic capital ships.

  “They have so far proven willing to lose gunships, but their capital ships clearly represent an investment they are unwilling to take risks with. We can almost count on them opening with a gunship strike to try to wear us down and use up our munitions.”

  “That strike will likely consist of at least a thousand gunships,” Vasilev pointed out. “That’s a lot of missiles.”

  “And that’s the situation we need to plan for,” Medici agreed. “If we can’t survive those salvos from the gunships, we can’t win this fight. We need to find a way to deal with that initial strike. I’ll match our people against the battleships and cruisers. It’s that six-thousand-missile salvo from the gunships that’s going to be a headache.”

  “How do we deal with that?” Darzi asked. “If we haven’t already written this off, you have to have a plan.”

  “Part of a plan, at least,” Medici agreed. “The Republic so far has relied on superior electronics to counter the fact that we have magic for missile defense and they don’t. Their missiles are smarter, their sensors are better, their software is cleaner and their hardware is faster.

  “Demonstrably, however, their missiles are no more immune to the antimatter hash of the modern battlespace than ours. The more degraded the space between us becomes, the more degraded both of our missiles are—but the Republic’s missiles have more to lose.”

  “So, we fill space with antimatter explosions and hope?” Darzi said. “That seems…basic.”

  “It’s a starting point,” the Mage-Admiral agreed. “We’ve also got some of the best programmers we can find coding new electronic-warfare routines for our systems and missiles from scratch. The Republic, it turns out, has our complete ECM databases. Anything more complex than outright jamming isn’t going to work.”

  “So, we build new routines. What about decoys?” Grace asked. “Rig up some engines and emitters on a bunch of empty cargo containers; we can pretend we’ve got extra destroyers at least. They won’t make a lot of difference, but every missile that blasts a decoy misses a ship with people aboard.”

  “Admiral Vasilev?” Medici asked as he and Damien both turned to the local commander. “Do we have anything we can repurpose like that?”

  “Almost certainly,” Vasilev agreed slowly. “I’ll have to ask, but I think we can get something into place quite quickly.”


  “Everything needs to be done quickly,” Damien pointed out. “We don’t know how much time we have, but it’s on the order of days at most. Admiral, what about prepositioned missiles?”

  “We’d need a better idea of where the Republic will come out of jump,” Medici told him. “Otherwise, they’ll be out of position for us to be able to engage them.”

  “I wasn’t thinking in terms of firing on the Republic,” Damien said. “Prepositioning them as counter-missiles. We know where we’re going to be.”

  “That…makes sense,” the Mage-Admiral allowed. “Every little bit helps today, people. We have a lot of work to do, but I don’t think we can dismiss any idea out of hand. We’re going to be outmassed almost two to one.

  “That means we need to be that much smarter than them.”

  43

  As the meeting wrapped up, Damien found himself facing a somewhat amusing dilemma. Amusing to him, at least. He was relatively sure that Grace wanted to spend more time with him, but given the professionalism of the current situation, he wasn’t sure how to approach her.

  The other Admirals drifted out in assorted order. Grace lingered, making a show of reviewing her aide’s notes, until it was only her staff, Damien and his people.

  Jakab’s kick in the shins was gentle but pointed. Damien shook his head reprovingly at his former flag captain, now effectively his naval chief of staff. For all the grand power and authority vested in the First Hand, his staff seemed to be utterly lacking in appropriate respect.

  “Admiral McLaughlin,” he said clearly as he stepped over to where the Sherwood contingent was waiting. “Could I impose on you for a few minutes of your time in private?”

  Her aide—Meadows, Damien thought his name was?—made a valiant attempt to not roll his eyes out of his head.

  “Everybody in the room knows your two’s history,” Meadows pointed out. “I’m assuming Commodore Jakab’s people have an office I can borrow with a link back to the Patrol?”

  “We can manage that, I think,” Jakab said, with admirable professionalism. “If the First Hand and the Admiral’s consultations run late, we also have some spare visitors’ quarters you can use.”

  Grace laughed, a familiar warm sound that sent gentle shivers down Damien’s spine.

  “And just which of us is being thrown to the wolves here for politics?” she asked sweetly.

  “Both of you,” Jakab told her brightly. “If nothing else, your force represents the single largest contingent here except the Navy itself. Making sure that you are on the same page as Lord Montgomery is important. If that allows for old friends to catch up as well, that’s a bonus.”

  Damien needed to work on his emotional control, he reflected. He was pretty sure he was blushing—and Grace had a flush to her cheeks as well.

  “Of course,” she said. “My time is at your disposal, Lord Montgomery. Your office?”

  “That seems wise,” he agreed. “The peanut gallery in here seems surprisingly active.”

  Grace was all of two steps into the observation deck Damien used as an office before Persephone announced her presence. The kitten came streaking out of the cat door linking the office to his quarters, bounced off the desk she wasn’t supposed to climb on and landed on Damien’s chest with a surprisingly gentle impact.

  He carefully moved his arms to keep the cat from falling, and she purred her way into an appropriately safe position on his shoulder.

  “You have a cat,” Grace noted with a chuckle. “I didn’t take you for the type to have a long-term pet.”

  “Technically, she’s a therapy animal,” Damien told her. “One of my doctors happened to make the suggestion where Princess Kiera could hear her. The next thing I knew, I was being presented with an extraordinarily purr-y box.”

  “Therapy for your hands?” Grace asked, perching on his desk herself.

  “Yeah. Petting her is the right kind of low-intensity activity to help stretch my fingers.” He shook his head and waved a free hand. “They don’t move much still, but they’re getting better.”

  “Do you need a hand with the kitten?” she asked.

  “If you’d be so kind,” Damien admitted.

  Grace plucked Persephone from his shoulder, snuggling the kitten as she leaned into Damien’s personal space.

  “What’s her name?”

  “Persephone,” he replied. “I did name her myself, I’ll admit.”

  “I figured from the mythology.”

  Grace hadn’t left his personal space. She was still holding the kitten, but she was only a few centimeters away from him.

  “Thank you for coming,” Damien finally said. “This whole situation is terrifying. I know it’s not my fault, but…damned if I wasn’t the one who triggered the Secession.”

  “Even you can’t blame yourself for that,” she pointed out. She gently put the kitten down on the floor, where Persephone happily jumped up into Damien’s chair and purred loudly at them. “They’d been preparing for this for years. I don’t care how much pure Sherwood Scot stubbornness you’ve got, Damien; that’s not your fault.”

  He chuckled.

  “I know.” He sighed and gave in to temptation, settling on his desk next to Grace and leaning his head on her shoulder. “Been a long few years, Grace.”

  “It has.” She leaned her head against his. “I won’t pretend I was waiting for you, but damn, does being in charge of a military not leave you much time for the personal.”

  “The last person I got personally involved with tried to kill me,” Damien said with a chuckle. “Different problems, same result, I suspect.”

  Grace chuckled.

  “Now, that I haven’t had to deal with since we last saw each other,” she confirmed. “I missed you, though.”

  “I missed you,” he admitted. “Our lives don’t allow for much else, though. You’ve got the Patrol and I…”

  “You have the Protectorate,” Grace told him. “All of it, from what I can tell.”

  “I did try to resign,” Damien said with a chuckle of his own. “Twice.”

  She tapped the platinum icon on his chest.

  “I see how well that went. You’re, what, the second-most powerful man alive now?”

  “I figure third,” he admitted quietly. “Mostly because Gregory and I have very different portfolios, and I’m more likely to need to follow his instructions than the other way around.”

  Her hand was still on the platinum fist. Her fingers were warm against his chest as she wrapped them around the chains.

  “Everyone has been very cooperative in making sure we have this time together,” she pointed out. “Now, I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to, but…”

  Grace pulled gently on the chain of his symbol of office, and he let her pull him around into a long kiss.

  “My arms may work, but my hands still don’t,” he said quietly.

  She smiled.

  “I can deal with that,” she promised.

  It took Damien a moment to work out what was going on when he woke up. It had been a long time since he’d slept with anyone else in the bed, and Grace had wrapped herself around him like a limpet when they’d actually fallen asleep.

  The unusual, though pleasant, situation left him unsure of what was going on for several seconds, but then he remembered. Carefully, so as not to injure himself, he wrapped an arm around her in turn and smiled.

  Then the sound that had woken him repeated. An incoming message alert from his wrist-comp. With a sigh, he kissed Grace’s head and extricated himself.

  Thankfully, she woke up quickly and helped. The inability to use his hands was less of an obstacle to cuddling—or other activities—than he would have expected, but it definitely caused trouble getting out of bed from cuddling.

  Once sitting up, Damien gestured and floated his wrist-comp back over to him so he could tap the Accept Call button.

  “Sorry to wake you, my lord,” Jakab’s voice said grimly. Damien h
ad forgot to engage the call in audio-only mode, but the Commodore had called in that mode. He knew what was going on.

  “We need you on the flag bridge and, well, Admiral McLaughlin needs to get back on her shuttle ASAP.”

  He and Grace were both fully awake now and Damien swallowed.

  “What’s our status?” he asked calmly.

  “Twenty-five jump flares,” Jakab replied. “Big ones. The Republic is here. Guessing we’ll have a gunship strike on our porch in about four or five hours.”

  “Understood,” Damien told the Navy officer. “We have time, but I’ll be on deck in ten minutes.”

  “I’ll be waiting for you.”

  The channel cut off and he looked up at Grace. She was already half-dressed and gave him a gentle smile as she pulled her shirt on.

  “Duty calls for us both.”

  “That it does,” he agreed. “I guess we’re used to that.”

  “Yes,” she confirmed. “But this time, Damien…” Grace paused in thought. “This time, it better be more than just tonight, okay? I know that may mean only one more night before life drags us apart, but I’m going to insist on at least that!”

  He laughed and stepped over to kiss her.

  “I can live with that,” he agreed. “We’ll make it work…somehow.”

  They both knew even that was a promise they might not be able to keep…but Damien also knew that they would at least try.

  44

  “All right, people, it looks like the Republic has finally shown up to play,” Captain Kulkarni declared on Stand in Righteousness’s bridge. “Chambers, get me some details. Everybody else, check your departments, check your stations. We’re not going to battle stations yet, but we’ll be there pretty darn quickly.”

  Roslyn was already going through the data and comparing it against their recordings from the previous encounters. They had a growing database of information on the Republic’s new warships, one that at least let her classify them.