The Lost Stars: Perilous Shield tls-2

by Jack Campbell

  “What are communications telling us?” she asked the comm specialist.

  The woman was watching her screens intently and listening. “They’re still Syndicate, Kommodor. All of the message traffic I can see and hear is consistent with that. There are snake ciphers being used for some of it. We can’t read them. The snake ciphers we captured at Midway must have been superseded.”

  That settled the matter since those messages had been sent hours before the arrival of the flotilla and so couldn’t be a deception designed to fool the newly arrived ships. Marphissa adjusted her suit. As much as she detested Syndicate uniforms, it had been necessary to don one for this performance, though it was a suit for a much higher rank than she had ever actually achieved.

  She adopted the look of haughty superiority that she had seen so many times in Syndicate CEOs, then tapped her comm controls. “To the authorities at Indras Star System, this is CEO Manetas, commanding a flotilla en route to an internal security mission at Atalia Star System. I do not require your assistance at this time,” Marphissa drawled with as much arrogance as she could manage. President Iceni had stressed the need for that. Syndicate CEOs never ask, and they never show any trace of humility or weakness.

  “For the people, Manetas, out.” It had taken a special effort to say “for the people” in the standard Syndicate manner, rapidly, with the words slurred together into the meaningless phrase it was for the leaders of the Syndicate.

  She ended the transmission and inhaled deeply. “We’ll see how well that works.”

  Diaz bent an amused look her way. “I’ll bet you never expected to wear a CEO suit.”

  “Never expected and never wanted,” Marphissa said. “I feel unclean in this thing. But the imposture is necessary. We need to convince the authorities at Indras that we’re a legitimate Syndicate flotilla on our way to hammer Atalia. If we can do that, then even if they learn the truth when we show up again on way back to Midway, they won’t have time to activate the hypernet gate block, however that works.”

  “They might be able to do it from here,” Diaz suggested.

  “But they won’t, not without approval from Prime,” Marphissa insisted. “Do you think Prime is going to authorize anyone but themselves the power to shut down hypernet commerce and military movements? Indras will have to ask permission, and by the time they get it, we’ll be home at Midway.”

  “I see your point,” Diaz admitted. “What if they see through us before we leave for Atalia?”

  “Then we push on and hope the gate isn’t blocked when we get back,” Marphissa said. She pointed to her display. “All they have here in the way of mobile forces is two light cruisers and two HuKs orbiting thirty light-minutes from the star. Enough to overawe the local citizens but not enough to stop us, and not in any position to threaten us.”

  Diaz licked his lips, his eyes on his display. “Should we destroy them? Try to lure the light cruisers and HuKs in close and take them out so the locals have a chance to rebel against the Syndicate?”

  Marphissa hesitated, feeling a strong temptation to agree. It took a major effort of will to suppress the desire to say yes. “We can’t. We have a mission, a primary responsibility.”

  “But—” Diaz began, turning a disappointed look her way.

  “No. Listen. You’re in command of a warship now. You have to see the big picture. One part of that is, if something happens to us when we try to take out the Syndicate mobile forces here, or if our action provides enough notice for the hypernet to be blocked against our return, how do we get back? Who picks up the survivors from the Reserve Flotilla? We are their only hope for rescue from the Alliance camps where they are being held.”

  “That’s true, Kommodor, but still—”

  “And if we succeed, if we destroy all four Syndicate warships here, can the local citizens do anything? What about the ground forces? What about the snakes? You know the snakes plant weapons of mass destruction in cities as a last-ditch means of defeating rebellion.”

  “I had heard that,” Diaz admitted.

  “It’s true. President Iceni received a full briefing on what General Drakon’s soldiers found when they captured the snake headquarters. The snakes had nukes under every city on Midway’s primary world, and they were trying to set them off when General Drakon and his ground forces stopped them.”

  “That could happen here,” Diaz said, his eyes hooded. “If the citizens aren’t ready, if they don’t have the ground forces on their side—”

  “And if we start things rolling, the end result could be their cities vanishing into nuclear fire and rubble,” Marphissa concluded. “President Iceni and General Drakon planned and coordinated their rebellion. That’s why it worked. We can’t just jump-start another rebellion here.”

  Diaz gave her an admiring look. “You’ve picked up a lot in a short time. It seems like only yesterday, you were an executive.”

  “It was only yesterday in some ways,” Marphissa said. “And now look at me in a CEO suit! I can’t wait to get this thing off, but I have to see what kind of reply we get first. Do you want to know where I’m learning some of these things?”

  “Sure.”

  “From the Alliance officer.” Marphissa ignored Diaz’s jolt of dismay. “Captain Bradamont has been around a while longer than you and I, and she’s been a senior officer a lot longer, too. She’s had to think about these things, and she’s telling me about them.”

  “If she’s telling you what to do—” Diaz began.

  “No. She is showing me how to think! What I should think about. The big picture. What might happen, as opposed to what I might want to happen. The consequences of my actions. I knew some of this, even if I didn’t think in those terms, but she’s helping me understand. She wants us to win, Kapitan Diaz. Not because the Alliance has designs on Midway Star System, but because . . . well, she has personal reasons for wanting us to be free and strong.”

  Diaz looked around, his mouth working, then back at Marphissa. “And because it weakens the Syndicate?”

  “Certainly that, too. Look, Chintan, she hates the Syndicate, we hate the Syndicate. She spent time in a labor camp. We don’t have to like each other, but we can help each other.”

  “True.” Diaz gave her a twisted smile. “But you do like her.”

  Marphissa started to deny it, then spread her hands in a helpless gesture. “We get along.”

  “Will she talk to me?”

  “Of course she will. That’s why Black Jack sent her to us.”

  Diaz nodded slowly, his eyes once more on his display, his expression thoughtful.

  THE reply from the authorities in Indras took exactly one hour and one minute longer than transmission times across the vast gulf of interplanetary space required. That timing made it obvious a snub was being delivered, an impression confirmed for Marphissa when CEO Yamada, a man of late middle age who had obviously lived many of those years too well, began speaking. “CEO Manetas, I have not heard of you.”

  “He knows you’re a fake!” Diaz cried.

  “No,” Marphissa said. “President Iceni told me I might hear something like that. It’s a CEO put-down. He’s saying I can’t be all that important because he never heard of me. It means they fell for it.”

  Yamada had continued speaking as if the conversation held no interest for him. “I do not have any need for your assistance. You may continue on your assigned duties. I will expect you to leave both heavy cruisers here when you return as I have use for them. Enjoy your trip through Kalixa. For the people, Yamada, out.”

  Diaz and Marphissa both laughed. “He did buy it!” Diaz said.

  “He’s going to be very disappointed when we come back,” Marphissa said, “and tell him and every other CEO in this star system where they can stuff their expectations.” She got up. “I am changing out of this awful suit and putting on a uniform I am proud to wear,” Marphissa announced for the benefit of the bridge watch specialists. “Keep me informed of developments, Kapitan
Diaz.”

  “Yes, Kommodor Marphissa,” Diaz replied with a grin.

  She stopped by Bradamont’s stateroom on the way to her own. “Our deception worked. Can you believe they thought I was a real Syndicate CEO?”

  Bradamont nodded approvingly. “Good work. I was just watching my display and remembering the last time I came through here. It never occurred to me I’d come back aboard a former Syndic cruiser.” She nodded again, this time at her display. “Indras is far enough from the border with the Alliance that it didn’t get hit too often. It’s a shame a decent star system like this is still part of the Syndicate Worlds.”

  Marphissa leaned against the side of the entry. “It’s all a lie, you know. Everything you’re seeing is fake. Those big manufacturing centers and transportation hubs? They’re full of inefficiencies, shoddy work, theft, and diversion of goods to the black market, thanks to workers who know the system is rigged against them and so don’t care about their jobs, and thanks to supervisors who owe their promotions to superiors who only care whether the supervisors tell them what they want to hear. The schools and universities teach technical subjects fairly well, but everything else they teach is lies. The houses and apartment complexes look neat and secure and safe, but they’re full of families and individuals who live every moment in fear that the Internal Security Service will come knocking because the snakes suspect them of something or they were accused of something or just because some snake supervisor needs to fill an arrest quota. That’s the real Syndicate system.”

  “I’m sorry,” Bradamont said. “No one should have to live that way.”

  “Should has nothing to do with it. It’s the way it is. The way it has been. But not at Midway anymore. We’ll get strong enough to help other star systems, too, like we did Taroa. Someday, the Syndicate will just be a bad memory.”

  “And then somebody will start a new version of it,” Bradamont commented gloomily. “There’s been a lot of speculation in the Alliance that the Syndic leaders kept the war going because it helped hold together the Syndicate Worlds and allowed them to justify repression and everything else.”

  “They didn’t need the war to justify repression,” Marphissa scoffed. “They stopped trying to justify things a long time ago. But it is true that we couldn’t rebel while people were worried about what the Alliance would do to us. Why swap one set of tyrants for another set?”

  “The Alliance isn’t run by tyrants,” Bradamont said, startled. “The instability there these days is precisely because we can vote out our leaders. The people are doing that, and not always for the right reasons.”

  “You’re talking about the way things are in the Alliance,” Marphissa pointed out. “I’m talking about what we were told about the Alliance. We knew what we were told was probably lies, but we didn’t know the truth. What we did know was that people in power were corrupt and cared nothing for those beneath them. Why should we expect your leaders to differ from ours?”

  Bradamont shook her head. “How did you come out the way you did, Asima? You’re not a bad person. Not at all.”

  “I knew I could either be like the people I hated, or I could be something else. I decided to be something else.” Marphissa paused. “The CEO here made some mocking comment about enjoying our trip through Kalixa. I know that’s where a hypernet gate collapsed and caused a lot of damage. How bad is it?”

  “Bad,” Bradamont said. “Very bad.”

  THEY were still twelve hours away from the jump point when Marphissa was awakened from sleep in her stateroom by an urgent summons. “We’ve received a snake message,” Diaz said. “We can’t read it, but it’s high-priority and addressed to the fake Syndicate hull identification we’ve been broadcasting.”

  Marphissa stared at him, puzzled, then felt horror replacing her bafflement. “They want the snakes on our ships to check in with them! There haven’t been any snake status reports sent from our ships!”

  “Damn! I should have—”

  “We all should have thought of that! Quick. Have a message made up using as templates some of those snake messages we captured after we killed them. Use the snake encryption we brought from Midway. It will be old, but it’s the best we’ve got. Tell them . . . tell the snakes in Indras that there are new procedures. ISS agents on ships are supposed to maintain comm silence as much as possible to keep rebels from knowing which ships are still loyal.”

  “Kommodor, that is really weak,” Diaz said, “but it’s a lot stronger than anything I’ve thought of. I’ll get the message ready and send it to you for approval.”

  Marphissa sat on the edge of her bunk, staring into her darkened stateroom. So close. We almost made it out of Indras without being uncovered. But it looks like we’re going to be busted before we leave here, and that might mean getting home will be a nightmare.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  “THERE’S no way the snakes in Indras would accept silence in response to their demand,” Marphissa said to Bradamont, who, along with Kapitan Diaz, had come to Marphissa’s stateroom in response to a summons.

  “Then it sounds like you have no choice but to try your bluff,” Bradamont agreed, looking unhappy.

  “Can you think of anything more plausible?”

  “Plausible? To a snake?” Bradamont laughed shortly. “Actually, from what I know of them and other bureaucracies, the stupider the directive, the more realistic it might seem to them. How many really dumb directives did you get in the course of a year before you revolted against the Syndicate Worlds?”

  “You should measure that in days, not years,” Diaz said. “Otherwise, the number gets too big.”

  “They might think this is legitimate because it doesn’t make much sense?” Marphissa asked Bradamont. “You know, that’s possible. That’s really possible. All right, I’m approving the message,” she said to Diaz. “Transmit, and if you still believe in any deities, pray to them to convince the snakes to believe this when they get it.”

  Further sleep was impossible. Marphissa tried to work in her stateroom, got irritable, went to the bridge, almost bit the head off of a watch specialist who made a friendly comment to another specialist in too loud a voice, went back to her stateroom, then finally went to Bradamont and sat talking with her.

  One hour short of the jump point for Atalia, Marphissa returned to Manticore’s bridge, aware that she looked like hell and feeling just as bad as she looked. “No response from the snakes?” she demanded of Diaz.

  “No, Kommodor.” Diaz rubbed his eyes wearily, then slapped onto his arm one of the stimulant devices that everyone called an up patch. “No reply.”

  She tried to remember the last time she had come onto the bridge and not seen him there. Diaz had apparently kept himself on duty for the entire transit. “No signs of alerts in the star system?” Marphissa pressed. “Still no indications of any reaction? No fast ships suddenly heading for the hypernet gate as if they were carrying an urgent message?”

  “No, Kommodor.”

  What are they doing? Marphissa glared at her display. The snakes must at least suspect something. Are they laying some trap? Are they awaiting approval from some CEO who has strict instructions not to be awakened unless Black Jack himself comes storming in here with his fleet? “We keep going. We get to the jump point and head for Atalia, no matter what happens from this moment on.”

  To her surprise, the tension level on the bridge seemed to relax considerably. She gave Diaz a questioning look.

  “The uncertainty,” he said to her in a low voice. “It’s driving us all crazy. But you just gave them some certainty. We’re going to keep going. Now they know what’s going to happen.”

  “What’s going to happen in the next hour,” Marphissa grumbled. “After that, it’s anybody’s guess.”

  “It could be worse,” Diaz suggested. “We could still be wearing Syndicate suits, and there could be a snake standing at the back of the bridge listening to our every word.” He paused, an intent expression crossing his face
. “That would really suck.”

  “Have you been taking too many meds?” Marphissa demanded.

  “Maybe.” Diaz leaned back, his eyes on the overhead. “I don’t think I like Indras. Wouldn’t it be great if we had a big display over us that looked like the stars so it would be like we were on the outside of the hull and had a window above us?”

  “Kapitan Diaz, one minute after we enter jump for Atalia, you are ordered to turn over the bridge to another officer, go to your stateroom, take a crash patch, and get at least eight hours’ sleep. Is that understood?”

  “Uh . . . yes, Kommodor.”

  “I know you’re feeling the responsibilities of being a ship’s commanding officer, but the point is not to stay on duty until you are half-delusional unless there is no alternative. The point is to get sufficient rest so that you can make decent decisions and be at your best when it’s needed. And, yes, I am fully aware that I have done a poor job of that in the last several hours. I’m going to be crashing once we enter jump, too.”

  “Incoming transmission,” the comm specialist warned. “Snake cipher, the same one we used.”

  Marphissa closed her eyes, exhaled slowly to calm herself, then answered the specialist. “What do the snakes say?”

  “Just . . . we understand.”

  “What? They said what?”

  “That’s all, Kommodor. The entire message. We understand.”

  Diaz roused himself to glare at the specialist. “Are we certain that there is no worm or virus or Trojan horse attached to that message?”

  “There is nothing, Kapitan. It’s far too small to carry any of those, and there are no attachments. It’s just the address header and those two words.”

  Marphissa exhaled again, this time heavily. “They know. They’re playing with us. The snakes have figured out we’re not who we say we are. But they probably don’t know who we are. Maybe they hope that message will provoke us into telling them by implying they know more than they do.”