by Eric Thomson
“I’d already figured that out, Ser Forenza.”
He noticed the sarcastic undertone in her reply, and his thin smile returned.
“Then you’ll agree the trick is determining which of the spokes radiating from Kilia will lead to answers.”
“Now there’s a shocker. And that brings us back to your mission. Perhaps it’s time you stopped being coy and shared with us, Ser Forenza. Human lives may depend on it.” When he didn’t respond, Dunmoore stood. “How about we repair to my day cabin for a cup of coffee? If you can, please join us, Zeke. Mister Sirico, the CIC is yours.”
— Forty-Three —
Brakal woke with a start and sat up, wondering what could rouse him from an uneasy rest. He reached for the cup of now cold tvass by the side of his bunk and drained it in one gulp. The liquid tasted worse than yatakan droppings, but it helped drive away the last wisps of sleep along with the lingering memory of a dream that could only come from gods seeking to punish him. He took a deep breath and listened intently, wondering whether an unexpected noise was responsible for this interruption. But Tol Vehar sounded as it always did. Brakal’s fist smashed into the control panel above his head.
“Bridge.”
“Yes, Lord,” Urag replied with commendable swiftness.
“Did anything unusual happen?”
“No. Everything is as it should be. Strike Force Khorsan is still trailing Kilia with systems dampened, the Tai Kan rats on that damned station haven’t said a word since Regar last spoke with them, and no new ship has appeared on our sensors.”
A disconsolate grunt erupted from Brakal’s throat unbidden. He had elected to stay near Kilia instead of returning to his patrol route despite the objections of his ship captains. Escaping virtually unscathed from what many were now calling the Great Hecate Missile Shoot seemed to them a sign from the gods they should withdraw and cease overstepping their bounds.
Brakal couldn’t tell whether this uncharacteristic caution stemmed from eroding morale, thanks to years of inconclusive warfare. Or whether newfound fear at human ships able to hide in plain sight until they opened fire without warning, such as the ghost decimating Shrehari shipping or the battleship that ambushed them in the Hecate system, was to blame. But sure as black holes devoured stars, the Imperial Deep Space Fleet’s fighting edge was fading, worn away by a lack of decisive victories.
Even members of the Warrior caste didn’t want to die for a cause that seemed less and less likely to end with the humans’ abject defeat. They understood there was no honor in a senseless death.
Perhaps Regar was right when he said many within the Fleet would rally around the banner of an admiral and hereditary lord striving to claim the kho’sahra’s robes and end this war before the Empire’s strength dwindled further.
Brakal already held his family’s seat in the Four Hundred and owned the wealth of its estates. If he could formally claim Hralk’s command and obtain promotion...
But for that, he needed a victory. Something to show the Admiralty he surpassed Hralk in tactical skill and acumen. The destruction of the human ghost who was devastating Imperial shipping would do nicely.
And his instincts told him the hunt for that damned phantom was far from over. It would come to Kilia again because this Persephone who’d bedeviled Enoc Tarrant could be no other, just as its commander must be the flame-haired she-wolf.
And this time, he would wait in ambush at one of Kilia’s co-orbital points, using a human tactic against them. He gazed at the outer bulkhead, wondering whether her arrival, as yet undetected, was the cause for his sudden restlessness and growing irritation. A pox on the hairless apes and their refusal to submit. If it were not for the Tai Kan using Kilia as a base of operations in this sector, Brakal might be tempted to vent his spleen on its mostly human inhabitants.
**
Commander Holt passed out coffee mugs and took a chair next to Forenza, facing Dunmoore’s desk.
“Tell us about your mission.”
Her tone was soft yet demanding.
“With the understanding that anything you hear from me doesn’t make its way into official reports or idle wardroom discussions. If your superiors insist on details, feel free to take credit for tracking down the relevant information with no help from anyone else.”
Forenza held Dunmoore’s eyes, and when she nodded, he turned his gaze on Holt until he too signified his agreement.
“But I would prefer if as little as possible of this matter became general knowledge. It might affect more than just a few innocent lives.”
“I can promise that after hearing you out, I’ll avoid using your or the Colonial Office’s name. But if it’s something the Fleet needs to know, I will pass any relevant information to Admiral Nagira directly.”
Dunmoore conveniently omitted any mention of the report already in Nagira’s hands, courtesy of the Octavius subspace array.
“That’s right. I almost forgot — you’re one of his protégées. Evidently, you still have a direct line.”
“Which I take care to not abuse. He personally arranged for me to get this command.”
“Fair enough. Even our lot thinks highly of Nagira.”
Holt snorted.
“Will wonders never cease.”
“In an infinite universe, Commander, everything eventually comes to pass.”
“An assassin and a philosopher.” The first officer smirked at his captain. “We are truly blessed to be in the presence of such greatness.”
Forenza graced him with an ironic, albeit seated bow.
“I’m a man of many talents, Commander. Solving the Office’s intractable problems and regaling an audience with profound remarks are only a small part. Now if we’re done with the persiflage, perhaps I might tell you something about my mission.”
Dunmoore threw Holt a warning glance before saying, “Please do.”
“As you’ve no doubt surmised, the Colonial Office doesn’t merely administer colonies under a federal charter. It also keeps an eye on, and sometimes even a hand in the affairs of colonies established by the Commonwealth’s various sovereign star systems. What you might not know is that in addition, we monitor unofficial settlements, both within and beyond the Commonwealth sphere. You’d be amazed at how many and in what variety of extreme environments. To do so, the Office developed its own intelligence service decades ago since neither the SSB nor the Fleet is prone to share. My branch doesn’t officially exist. Ostensibly, we work for the Colonial Office’s Assistant Secretary, Governance and Oversight.”
“The oversight part kind of went sideways on Toboso, didn’t it?” Holt asked. “Considering we solved your agency’s problem by the time you showed up.”
Forenza dismissed the first officer’s words with a half shrug.
“Politics interfered with a prompt response, Commander, as they often do. I don’t decide when and where to act. Only how.”
“Pray continue.” Dunmoore gave Holt another quick glance to forestall a reply.
“Naturally, we’ve been watching human colonies emerge in the badlands, settled by people fleeing the Commonwealth government’s reach for any number of reasons. Politics, trouble with the law, wanderlust, or a sense of adventure — name the cause and you’ll find someone willing to own it. Unfortunately, settlements of this sort are vulnerable to every predator with an FTL-capable starship, and the current war simply makes matters worse. A few colonies arm themselves, others are forced to accept so-called protection, and some are wiped out. Oh, we try to help where possible, but since these are folks with an ingrained distaste for Commonwealth authorities, it can be painful. In most cases, the Office uses more or less unwitting intermediaries to supply aid.”
“Such as Kattegat Maru?” Holt asked.
Forenza tapped the side of his nose with an extended forefinger.
“Most perceptive of you, Commander. Kattegat Maru and other traders brave enough to sail the badlands route. They mostly deliver medical supplies, spare part
s for essential tech and so forth. Untraceable stuff donated anonymously.”
“Weapons and ammunition?”
“That too, Captain. And yes, I know shipping ordnance without a permit is against the law. But then so is the Colonial Office operating its own in-house intelligence service, or if not against the law, then not sanctioned by it. Anyway, that was a bit of context to help you understand the situation. In recent times, things have changed out there.”
He waved at the far bulkhead.
“And not for the better. Marginal settlements are vanishing; others display open hostility to outsiders; a few turned into downright nasty places ruled by violence and fear, and several colonies suddenly sprouted no-go areas that were inhabited, yet out of bounds to visitors such as me. Before you ask, I don’t hold the Shrehari responsible. They’ve never shown much interest in this part of space other than for trade and the occasional bit of piracy. Conquering it outright would create an open flank with a space-faring species living deep within the Unclaimed Zone known as the Arkanna. Did you hear of them?”
Dunmoore nodded.
“Independent-minded, aggressive, unable to tolerate any form of subjugation, and from a Shrehari point of view, not worth the price of conquest, which says a lot about how dangerous these Arkanna are.”
“Just so, with one more caveat. They’re not expansionists. On the contrary. The Arkanna may be the first example of a multi-system autarky we’ve ever encountered. Therefore, if we accept the Shrehari aren’t to blame for recent events in the Zone, this leaves only one set of possible actors.”
“Other humans.”
“Just so, Commander. With the Navy busy fending off Shrehari advances into our sphere, various interests are using the opportunity to impose their will on outlaw colonies.”
“Tarrant?” Dunmoore asked.
“Not directly. He’s a facilitator, preferring to skim a percentage or offer carefully circumscribed services via his mercenaries rather than meddle in the affairs of frontier systems living in a bizarre mixture of pre-industrial and high-tech conditions. The human version of techno-barbarism, I suppose you might call it, minus the desire to engage in rapine and plunder.”
“Is the Colonial Office expecting a future expansion of the Commonwealth that will return these lost souls to the bosom of humanity and place them under your direct and benevolent authority?”
Forenza didn’t seem to hear the sarcasm in Holt’s tone.
“Of course. Expansion is inevitable.”
“That’s what the Shrehari thought,” the first officer replied. “A lot of good it’s done them.”
Dunmoore raised a hand.
“So someone’s been messing with outlaw colonies since shortly after the start of the war, someone from our side. And your job is to find out what’s happening.”
“Find out and if possible end it.”
“Except someone betrayed you to the SSB. Does that mean it’s to blame for events?”
“Until I found myself in the Temar rendition site, the Bureau’s involvement was merely one of several possibilities. Now I’m convinced that if the Bureau isn’t acting alone, then it at least controls some of the actors.”
“Such as Enoc Tarrant.”
“I wouldn’t say anyone controls Tarrant, Captain, but as you’ve seen, he is cooperating with them.”
“Why is the SSB operating in the badlands? I can’t see how that helps increase its power inside the Commonwealth.”
The ghost of a smile creased Forenza’s face.
“That, my dear Commander, became the question. Finding out was my mission this time around, hence my planet-hopping along the trade route.”
“And did you?”
The Colonial Office agent nodded.
“I did, and they somehow noticed, either through a slip-up on my part or as you suggested via betrayal by a traitorous colleague.”
“Care to discuss what you found?”
— Forty-Four —
“How will we turn Katie into a Navy corvette?” Carrie Fennon’s earnest face wore a frown of incomprehension. “Don’t the bad guys know what she looks like?”
“They do, but if we confound their long-range visuals with contradictory data, it will fool the bad guys long enough.” Lieutenant Commander Emma Cullop nodded toward Lieutenant Zhukov who was studying a readout on the bridge’s engineering console. “Yulia is about to mess up Katie’s systems to make her power emissions appear as if they come from an older, less well-shielded warship. And since Katie is of almost the same tonnage as a corvette, she’ll make those emissions consistent with a ship of that type. Then, Yulia will tweak our naval beacon, so when we go up systems, it’ll broadcast the identity of a corvette by the name Eyvind.”
“Does this Eyvind exist?” Fennon asked.
“Aye, but she’s assigned to the Shield Sector, so no one around here has seen her in recent memory, if ever,” Zhukov replied without turning around. “Transforming Katie into something more fearsome is the easy part. I shall be interested to see how Commander Halfen rigs Iolanthe’s Growlers so they can project credible holographic images of Voivode class frigates.”
“Do you think he can do it?”
Zhukov responded with a fatalistic shrug.
“Growlers are stuffed full of high-end electronics, Skipper. That ought to give the boss a good basis. But I’m not sure their power plants can generate enough juice to create holograms of that size and keep them stable long enough against all the radiation out there. Making shuttles seem like warships beyond increasing their emissions signature isn’t exactly something they teach at the Academy. But if anyone can figure out how it would be Commander Halfen.”
Cullop nodded.
“True. He’s a remarkably capable sideways thinker — for an engineer.”
“Careful, Lieutenant Commander Cullop, sir,” Zhukov rumbled with mock ferocity. “Or I’ll have a sideways thought you won’t enjoy.”
Kattegat Maru’s temporary captain gave Carrie Fennon an exaggerated wink and said, “A thousand pardons, Yulia. I wouldn’t want you to reverse the vacuum flow in my cabin’s toilet.”
A wide-eyed Fennon, uncertainty writ large on her fine features, glanced at the two naval officers in turn.
“Has that ever happened?”
“Yep. We once took a mercenary ship as a prize after the crew surrendered and a joker reversed the vacuum flow for the toilets aboard as revenge. A good thing the asshole fessed up before shit literally hit the fan.”
Zhukov grunted.
“Never a dull day in our part of the Navy. There, the first step is complete. The fusion reactors will seem as if they’re putting out fifty percent more power. Now comes the fun part.”
“Which would be?”
The engineer stood and turned a sardonic grin on her commanding officer.
“Make the capacitors feeding Katie’s pop guns come across as those of a warship but without destroying them. It’s a bit touchier.” When she saw Fennon’s alarmed expression, Zhukov shook her head. “Don’t worry, young lady. The worst that could happen is the Navy buys you a couple of brand new units which, considering how old your capacitors are, would be an improvement.”
With that, Zhukov left Cullop and Fennon to stand watch on the bridge by themselves.
“Do you think Captain Dunmoore’s bluff will make Enoc Tarrant tell us where Baba Yaga took my family, sir?”
“There are no guarantees, Carrie. But if anyone can talk her way out of a tight situation, it’s the skipper. She has a reputation for bamboozling the enemy.”
“How so?”
Cullop sat back in her command chair and glanced at the main display.
“I guess there’s time for a few war stories. Mind you, some of them happened when she was captain of the frigate Stingray so what I know about those days comes from Chief Guthren.”
**
“I’m sure you know before the war, many of the Commonwealth’s core star systems exercised a policy of depo
rting dissidents. They shipped members of banned political movements, habitual criminals, what they call social parasites and anyone else the regimes didn’t like, to colonies they owned along the Commonwealth frontier. It removed undesirables from society, kept political dynasties in power and seeded newly opened worlds with workers, albeit involuntary ones.”
“So I heard,” Dunmoore said. “It’s a tradition that goes back long before the first spaceship left Earth’s surface.”
“When the war broke out, involuntary colonization dwindled thanks to many of the target worlds coming under Shrehari rule. Not long afterward, the Senate ordered deportations stopped altogether, ostensibly to support the war effort. But it was mostly an attempt by a slim majority of senators hoping to end involuntary colonization for good.”
“Which means those worlds experienced an increase in what their governments consider undesirables with no way of getting them off-planet.”
“Just so, Commander. But several star system governments refused to acknowledge the Senate’s authority and searched for alternatives.”
Dunmoore’s chuckle held a grim edge.
“Let me guess. They found those alternatives out in the Unclaimed Zone.”
“Excellent, Captain. Well deduced. The Colonial Office heard about a whole new category of people appearing on planets such as Cullan, folks dumped into settlements segregated from the rest. Word filtered out that these were deportees from star systems who had previously used their own colonies as dumping grounds for unwanted citizens.”
“So they sent you to investigate.”
“I and many others, Captain, though I fear few of my colleagues are still alive.”
“Did you find proof that Commonwealth star systems are illegally deporting people into the Unclaimed Zone?”
Forenza nodded.
“Yes, on Cullan, but it’s not the only destination. What I found was disturbing. Tossing folks out of the Commonwealth sphere against their will and in defiance of the law is bad enough. Unfortunately, deportee settlements need administrators, security, and what not, to make sure there’s no commingling with voluntary colonists, lest the secret gets out, and to create economic activity capable of feeding people and producing enough profit to keep the enterprise worthwhile.