The Lost Stars: Perilous Shield tls-2

by Jack Campbell

  “It was planned,” Rogero said. “Someone planned that and led it, and I very much doubt that whoever motivated that mob was anywhere near the forefront of the action. More likely they were a ways back from it, building an alibi.”

  “You’re right. But anybody who knew who that was must have died when you put down the riot. I used the portable ground forces interrogation gear you guys brought. It’s not great, but it’s good enough. None of those workers were trained to handle interrogation.”

  “What about the grenade?” Rogero asked. “I was able to determine that it was stolen from our supplies, not delivered to someone by one of my soldiers. That theft took considerable skill, getting past the alarms set in that cargo area and leaving no trace of the intrusion. But there was only one grenade missing.”

  “You probably killed the one who got it from whoever stole it,” Ito said. “He or she had to have been at the front of the mob to toss it through the door when they got it partway open. They only took one because if they had taken two, we might have found it during a search after the riot; and then we would know who was behind everything.”

  “Most likely,” Rogero agreed. “Whoever planned this did a professional job. They need to be caught.”

  “And killed?”

  “Probably. After they answer a few questions.”

  “So,” Ito said, “tell me something. You killed all the snakes at Midway? What did the workers do without the snakes keeping them down? They must have rioted. Did you have to do a compliance action on the whole planet?”

  Rogero’s memory filled with images of the nearly hysterical crowds, which had celebrated the deaths of the snakes on Midway and the destruction of the Internal Security Service headquarters by General Drakon’s soldiers. He had seen the trouble developing, he had known the celebration was growing more frenzied and would soon descend into riot. “No. I could tell things were going to get out of hand. But they didn’t. General Drakon sent us out, but he sent us out to enlist the citizens in preventing the celebration from turning into a rampage of looting and destruction.”

  “Enlist them?” Ito asked. “You mean he drafted a lot of them to use for locking down the rest?”

  “No. General Drakon talked to the citizens. He told them they needed to keep anyone from using their freedom to harm the rest of them. He told them any surviving snakes might try to convince them to riot and destroy things. He got the police on the streets, with our backup. He went out himself on the streets, and calmed everyone, got everyone to think about tomorrow, and what they needed to do to keep themselves and their families safe.”

  Ito was watching him with a baffled expression. “But he also threatened them.” She made it a statement, not a question.

  “No,” Rogero said. “He and President Iceni told the people that they must act responsibly, and made it clear that anyone who didn’t would be dealt with.”

  “That’s a threat,” Ito concluded. “How much unrest has there been since then?”

  “Very little. Demonstrations, yes. President Iceni permits those as long as everyone behaves. It lets the people know they have a real voice.”

  They reached his quarters, and Ito left Rogero to the familiar but tedious job of cleaning out his armor. I love you most dearly, Honore, but you stink remarkably after a few days in armor. I won’t be telling you that to your face, though.

  I haven’t thought much about those days right after the revolt when we killed the snakes at Midway. There’s been too much else to keep me busy. But what would have happened if General Drakon and President Iceni had ordered Syndicate methods be used to suppress the citizens? We would have been on constant garrison duty, fighting to keep a rebellious people from doing to us what we had done to the snakes.

  We were given the leaders we needed, when we needed them. I must remain grateful for that, because Honore told me of many other star systems that lacked such leaders and have paid an awful price. I’ve heard about Taroa and some of the things that happened there. Was it coincidence that we had both Drakon and Iceni? I think not. Who or what do I thank for our good fortune?

  Not the people. This was beyond our powers.

  MARPHISSA watched Bradamont board Manticore and could not help but hug her in welcome. “You made it back.”

  Bradamont laughed, surprised by the gesture. She had dark circles of fatigue under her eyes and smelled like she had been buried for a few days and dug up. “I was wondering if I would make it back. I’ve been wearing battle armor nonstop for a while.”

  “No wonder,” Marphissa said.

  “No wonder what?”

  “Nothing! I’m sure you want to clean up and rest. Don’t worry about anything else. We’ll get the one thousand three hundred twenty six Syndicate lovers dropped off and head back for the jump point. Life support on the freighters will gradually recover with the load on them reduced, and with any luck, we won’t need you again on this trip.”

  “Don’t jinx me,” Bradamont cautioned. “Not everyone we’re leaving is a Syndicate lover, Asima. Some just didn’t want to go to Midway.”

  “Their mistake.”

  “Did Atalia give you much trouble about accepting them?”

  Marphissa grinned. “I’ve been around President Iceni enough to know how to do these things. I didn’t ask Atalia if they’d accept them. I told Atalia they were getting them. Atalia decided not to argue since I had so much more firepower than they do.”

  “Don’t learn the wrong lessons, Asima.”

  Marphissa paused at Bradamont’s stateroom before heading back to the bridge. “Let me tell you something, Honore. You’re on Manticore. Keep your hatch locked as usual, but you’re safe here.”

  Bradamont smiled wanly. “You warned me about the crew, remember?”

  “That was before. You’ve been on board awhile. They know you. Then word got around about that riot. To them, Manticore’s Alliance officer, their Alliance officer, was almost killed by a bunch of louts from the Reserve Flotilla. They may not love you, but you belong to Manticore. That’s what they’re thinking. You’ll be safe here,” Marphissa repeated.

  “I’ll never understand sailors,” Bradamont said.

  “You understand them well enough. Welcome back, you Alliance monster.”

  “I’m glad to be back, you Syndic devil.”

  IT hadn’t been easy waiting at Atalia. It wasn’t easy transiting back through Kalixa. But Marphissa had reserved most of her worries for what might await them at Indras.

  Why did I have to be right?

  “Damned snakes,” Kapitan Diaz spat.

  There were now three light cruisers and five Hunter-Killers at Indras, and they were orbiting ten light-minutes from the jump exit to Kalixa, along the most direct route from there to the hypernet gate.

  “Maybe we can bluff our way past them,” Marphissa said. She was once again wearing the Syndicate CEO suit. Don’t sit too straight. Look bored. Act like you are the biggest thing in this star system and every surrounding star system.

  She reached for her comm control and schooled her voice again to an arrogant drawl. “This is CEO Manetas. Our mission at Atalia has, naturally, been successfully completed. We are returning to Prime with prisoners for special evaluation and interrogation. All ships are to remain clear of the path of my flotilla. Manetas, for the people, out.”

  “I’m praying again,” Diaz told her after the transmission ended. “My parents taught me how to do that in secret.”

  “They did? I hope you learned well.”

  Their answer came much quicker than expected. “Kommodor, it is an eyes-only message, from the Syndicate flotilla ahead of us, for your private viewing.”

  Marphissa knew what everyone expected. She would go to her stateroom and view the message alone, a message that probably contained secret offers as lucrative as the Syndicate could come up with. That was what Syndicate bosses did. “I’ll watch it here,” she said. “Anything the Syndicate has to say to me is not private.”

&
nbsp; “Yes, Kommodor,” the comm specialist said, betraying a pleasant sort of surprise. “On your display.”

  The man looking out at them was clearly a snake. A senior snake. Marphissa felt her blood growing cold just seeing him, despite knowing that his eyes could not actually see her. Such eyes, such a gaze, had been the last thing many of her friends and acquaintances had ever seen before being hauled off to a labor camp or simply disappearing without a trace.

  “I am Sub-CEO Qui. I don’t know who you really are, but I will find out. You have something the Syndicate Worlds needs. What we need is you. The Syndicate Worlds requires good CEO material. You have proven your abilities by the accumulation of a substantial flotilla of mobile forces, a flotilla that follows your orders.

  “If you were of lesser talents, you would not receive this offer, which is fully backed and guaranteed by the government on Prime. If you accept Syndicate authority again, if you bring these mobile forces back under the command of Prime, you will immediately gain actual CEO rank, as well as full immunity for any actions that might have violated Syndicate law or regulations or procedures. Blanket immunity for any possible offense, as well as a leap into the highest ranks of the Syndicate Worlds.

  “I hope you recognize the benefits of this very generous offer,” Sub-CEO Qui continued, his eyes and smile equally cold. “You gain high rank and a certainty of safety, and the Syndicate Worlds gains a very talented CEO and a small but valuable flotilla of mobile forces units. You need not fear opposition from your subordinates or workers. We will provide you with a plan to get sufficient forces aboard each unit to subdue any resistance.”

  Qui’s smile changed, gaining a terrible kind of promise. “Or, you could reject this offer. It would be an awful waste of your talent. We’ll destroy every freighter with you before you can reach the gate, which means you will return to wherever your home is as a failure. You know the rewards that come to failures. And we will determine who you are, and where your family is, and we will hold them accountable for the crimes against the Syndicate Worlds you have surely committed, and they have surely conspired to assist.

  “Far better to pursue the most profitable course. I’ll await your reply on this channel. Qui, for the people, out.”

  The silence on the bridge when the message ended was close to absolute, broken only by the soft noises from the ship’s automated systems and the breathing of the men and women around Marphissa.

  She laughed, letting all the scorn she could manage go into the sound. “Does he think I am like him? Does he think I really am a Syndicate CEO? Is he so stupid as to think I would betray those who follow me, who have sworn to follow President Iceni, who fight for our freedom and the freedom of our families?”

  “I think the answer to all of those things is yes,” Kapitan Diaz replied.

  Bradamont had been listening with disbelief painted large on her face. “He actually proposed that, thinking you would accept?”

  “It’s probably how he got to be a CEO. By accepting similar offers and selling out people who were depending upon him,” Marphissa explained. “And he’s a snake. He doesn’t mean it. Every word was a lie. I would die along with everyone else in a command position, while the workers were shipped off to slave labor. He thinks my greed will override my common sense and cause me to ignore my experience with watching people being betrayed every time they were fools enough to believe the soothing words of a snake.”

  “Are you going to tell him that?” Diaz asked with a grin.

  Marphissa almost said yes, then shook her head. “No. I want to buy time for us by making him think I am considering his offer. The closer we get to the gate before the Syndicate mobile forces start attacking, the better chance we have of getting some of the freighters through.”

  She looked around the bridge at the grim expressions her last words had brought to life. “We have to accept this. We outnumber them, but stopping them from hitting the freighters is going to be very difficult. We’ll do our best.”

  “Those freighters are packed with workers,” Diaz said. “Any hit at all will kill many.”

  “We will do our best! Let me send my reply to Sub-CEO Qui. Comm specialist, can you give me a digital background that makes it look like I am in my stateroom?”

  “It is done, Kommodor,” the comm specialist said. “Ready for your transmission.”

  Marphissa put on a wary expression this time before hitting the reply command. “Sub-CEO Qui, your offer is intriguing. I am carefully considering it. You understand that I must maneuver carefully to ensure none of my subordinates suspect they may be supplanted. I will give you my reply soon. Out.”

  She looked around. The Syndicate flotilla was ten light-minutes distant, so it was a bit over an hour and a half before any physical contact was possible. “I’m getting out of this CEO suit now,” Marphissa announced. “If I’m going to fight, it will be in the uniform of Midway.”

  She was back on the bridge a few minutes later, in time to hear the operations specialist call out a warning. “The Syndicate flotilla is maneuvering.”

  Marphissa watched, waiting, as the vectors on the Syndicate mobile forces changed. “They’re accelerating to intercept. I guess Sub-CEO Qui didn’t like my answer.”

  “Forty minutes to contact on their current vector,” Diaz noted. “He said he’d be going after the freighters, and even though snakes always lie, I think this time he told us what he was actually going to do.”

  The freighters were sitting ducks and would be all of the long transit from this jump exit to the hypernet gate. The light cruisers and HuKs the snakes had at their disposal couldn’t defeat Marphissa’s warships, but they could target the freighters and blow the large, clumsy ships apart one by one.

  I’ve never done this. How can I save those freighters? Can I save those freighters?

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  MARPHISSA bit her lip as she thought. Defending against slashing attacks was going to be hard. “We need to keep close to the freighters. Right on top of them.”

  A gentle touch on her shoulder caused Marphissa to look up and over. Bradamont was there, looking at Marphissa and shaking her head in a barely perceptible way.

  Marphissa looked at her display again, then stood up abruptly. “I’ll be right back,” she told Diaz, and left the bridge quickly once more.

  As she had guessed, Bradamont was right behind. “Let’s talk,” Bradamont urged. “In your stateroom.”

  Marphissa walked to her stateroom, waited until Bradamont entered, then sealed the hatch. “What do you want? I don’t know how to do this. I’ve done other operations. I have some experience. But convoy protection? The one time I did something like that, I was the most junior executive rank and not even on the bridge of my ship.”

  “I know what to do,” Bradamont said.

  “Please, please, do not give me a talk about how Black Jack saved a convoy at Grendel—”

  “That was different. He was badly outnumbered. You have an advantage in numbers of warships here, and you can use that to get through to the hypernet gate without losing any freighters.”

  “If you know how to do it, then you should—”

  “No. You have to command. Here’s the key. You can’t tether your defending warships too close to the freighters. That’s a natural thing to do, but it’s the worst thing you can do.”

  Marphissa sat down, staring at Bradamont. “Why?”

  “Because you need to break up the firing runs by the attackers before they get so close to the freighters that you can’t stop them. That means ranging out, hitting the attackers while they’re trying to position for firing runs. Up, down, right, left, all directions. Keep hitting the attackers, and they won’t have a chance to go after the freighters.”

  She could understand what Bradamont was saying, but her instincts rebelled against the tactics. “I’m sorry, but that doesn’t make sense. If my warships are away from the freighters, the freighters will be exposed to attack. I can’t put out a dista
nt screen strong enough to stop incoming warships around the entire sphere surrounding the freighters.”

  “You don’t have to! It’s an active defense. Watch the movements of the attackers, get your warships out there, and when the attackers start to line up to hit the freighters, hit them.”

  Marphissa thought carefully, trying to drive away distractions and fears that hindered her focus. “How do I know where the attackers are going to go, so I can have my warships out in the right directions?”

  “That’s the easy part, Asima. The attackers have to go where your freighters are. If you can stop them from doing that, it doesn’t matter where else they go in this star system.” Bradamont knelt in front of her so that their heads were on a level. “You can do this. You’re good. You listen to the movement of your ships, you feel where they should go and how to get them there. You do the same thing when watching other ships. A lot of ship drivers never figure that out and need automated systems to handle everything. Yes, you need more experience, but I’ve seen you handle this ship. You can do this.”

  “Am I as good as Black Jack?” Marphissa asked, standing up and taking a deep breath.

  “Nobody is as good as Black Jack. But, someday, you might be,” Bradamont said, standing as well to face her.

  “I was kidding,” Marphissa said.

  “I’m not.”

  Marphissa stared again, stunned, studying Bradamont’s eyes and face for any trace of humor or mockery. “Do you really believe that?”

  “Yes. Now get back on the bridge and get this flotilla safely to the hypernet gate, Kommodor.”

  “Is this . . . some kind of . . . motivation?” Marphissa asked.

  Bradamont gave her a puzzled look. “Yes. Though it’s also true.”

  “How strange. I’m used to Syndicate-style motivation. Don’t screw this up or you will be shot. That sort of thing.”

  Bradamont laughed. “Now you’re kidding me.”