“As my lord commands.” Tanaka nodded.
The air filled with the buzzing of HEXL cannons and the hissing stream of particle accelerators. The tactical display shifted, zooming in to show the orbit of the Kageryū relative to the Skellys cruisers. Red lines representing the ship’s laser and particle-beam fire connected to their diamond icons in short bursts.
“They’re returning fire,” Tanaka-san reported. “Minimal damage. They did not penetrate our aegis field.”
“Another advantage of having a capital-class ship: strong shields,” Armstrong mused. “
Ichiro nodded, watching the battle data scroll up the right side of his vision. He opened a window in his implant’s UI and loaded the feed in from the Kageryū’s visual scanners. The blurry image of the cluster of cruisers came into view and sharpened as the ship’s computer enhanced it. Skellys-class cruisers were standard corporate self-defense forces for the baronies that didn’t wish, or couldn’t, produce their own. They were also popular among mercenary forces sponsored by baronies since the price was artificially inflated above what normal mercs could afford. It hadn’t occurred to him until he was staring at the image of their rectangular design that the Yulong Gongsi, much like the Shiragawa, produced their own SDF fleet and wouldn’t use Skellys-class cruisers. Puzzled, he checked their IFF signals and verified that they were putting out Yulong Gongsi signatures. Something was amiss. Either they were mercs who wanted the Shiragawa forces to think they were Yulong Gongsi, or Zháo was were employing mercs in an attempt at plausible deniability later. Either way, he vowed this attack would not succeed.
“How is the colony?” he asked Tanaka-san.
“Parts of it were bombarded before we arrived but approximately eighty-percent remains. The drones have engaged the bombers and the bombardment has lessened.”
He nodded, turning his attention back to the cruisers in time to see the Kageryū’s HEXLs overload its aegis field and make mincemeat of its hull. The image flared and the enemy vessel broke up before his eyes.
“Two left,” he whispered to himself.
The ship shuddered to a sound like distant thunder. The lights dimmed then came back up.
“What was that?” Armstrong said with alarm in her voice.
Tengu growled, turning around to face the bridge door.
“Damage report coming in,” Tanaka said. “Something exploded on deck four. Bulkhead doors are engaged to prevent atmospheric loss. There is a power failure on deck two, section seventeen. That’s the brig, my lord.”
Ichiro’s eyes narrowed. “My uncle.”
“Security is non-responsive in that section, dispatching jinzōbushi.”
Ichiro disengaged his restraints.
“My lord? Security can handle this,” Tanaka said.
“I’m sure they can, but my uncle…” he said, gripping the armrests of the command chair. He realized he was about to run off to handle a problem others could do perfectly well, like he did on Elmorus. He gritted his teeth and looked down at the glossy plates of his mechanical arm. He froze, listening to himself breathe for three full seconds before he re-engaged his restraints. “You’re right, of course. Carry on.”
Armstrong caught his gaze. The ghost of a smile appeared on her lips but vanished when he scowled. Sitting on the bridge was not where he wanted to be.
“Very good, my lord. Jinzōbushi in route.”
Ichiro forced his body to relax. The jinzōbushi would find his uncle and recapture him, as there was no doubt in his mind that this explosion was an escape attempt. Where did his uncle think he was going? The colony? Tanaka-san warned him earlier that his uncle had supporters, and those same persons were on this ship. This was something that required his attention after the battle.
A flash in the sensor feed brought his attention back to his UI. The cruisers were hopelessly outmatched. No full-sized capital ship had shown up inside a planetary system since the early days of human deep space exploration. All ships that were capable of getting close to a planet up until now hadn’t been designed to take on an eight-hundred meter long warship—except the Abyssian vessels, he reminded himself. Perhaps the Kageryū-maru could offer them some payback in this respect.
“The last cruiser is neutralized,” Tanaka-taisa reported. “And it looks like the drones have mopped up the enemy attacking this colony. Shall I recall them and prepare for a jump to the next, my lord?”
He nodded, then tapped into the feed from the jinzōbushi closing in on his uncle. A new window opened showing a dark, octagonal corridor with red lights pulsing down the ceiling. Icons across the bottom showed there were four jinzōbushi in the unit. Using their built-in magnetic propulsion to fly down the corridors of the damaged deck. Ahead of them the closed iris of the bulkhead door displayed his House’s symbol in white. The warrior drones drew up on it with the lead continuing to approach while the others hung back. It commanded the door to open but nothing happened. It tried one-hundred more times in the span of a millisecond, then moved up to the manual override panel in the wall to the right of the bulkhead. Ichiro watched its black, armored hand reach out and touch the yellow and black striped panel door.
The feed blinked and went black.
[CONNECTION LOST]
“Something’s wrong,” he said. “I’ve lost the jinzōbushi.”
Tanaka looked over and frowned. “That is correct. All contact with them has been lost. I’m dispatching security officers to the area.”
He frowned. “My uncle must be getting help.”
“I’ll make sure the forces dispatched are loyal to you,” Tanaka said.
“You know—” Europa cut in.
“—it seems to me this situation calls for a more personal touch,” Enéas finished. The look Tanaka shot them could have cut steel.
Ichiro wanted to go down there himself and handle things. Perhaps he could talk sense into his uncle, or, if it came down to it, it seemed it was his responsibility to dispatch him if they got physical—and yet, Tanaka was right. Rushing in had cost him dearly before, and he couldn’t afford to make any more mistakes. His people needed him to be the level-headed, strong warrior his father was, so he gritted his teeth and took a breath through them.
“Commander Armstrong, how fast can you get suited up?” he asked.
“Under three minutes,” she drawled.
“Do it. Take these two with you and aid the security forces. Find my uncle, stun him, and bring him up here.”
She stiffened and bowed her head. “Consider it done. C’mon you two. The hunt’s on.”
The twins looked gleeful as they pushed off the railing and followed Armstrong off the bridge. Ichiro watched them float down the corridor until Tengu let out a quiet bark and met his gaze. He sensed an odd feeling coming off the cerberai. It was something like apprehension, but it was imploring too, as though Tengu wanted him to think harder about the situation, to come up with some solution or—
“If my uncle makes it off this ship will he have support among the Shiragawa forces?” Ichiro said.
“The support will not be total, you have many loyalists, but it will be enough to cause a rift. With the support he will get from Zháo on account of whatever deal they made, there will be a civil war in our ranks,” Tanaka said. “His leadership philosophy is very different from your father’s. Many of our people would not accept it.”
“We have to prevent that,” he muttered more to himself than Tanaka-taisa. A schism would mean the death of the Mitsugawa and of his family’s legacy, the Shiragawa Zaibatsu. He couldn’t allow that. “Have we detected any FTL vessels in the system yet?”
Tanaka nodded and the tactical hologram zoomed out to show the planetary orbits around the system’s sun. A red dot appeared 35-AU out.
“My lord, neutrino emissions consistent with an anti-matter reactor place a possible FTL vessel in this orbit. I’m having the computer display its projected course and position.”
“IFF signal?” Ichiro asked, feeling a rush o
f adrenaline in his veins.
“None. I presume whoever gave the attack forces a ride doesn’t want to be identified.”
Ichiro nodded. Typically, mercenaries hitched rides on civilian FTL ships, or used AlCas drives for shorter jumps. Using a civilian ship for such an attack, however, would leave too many witnesses. Given that, it was more likely that the FTL ship was a corporate vessel, and it was possible that identifying the vessel would give him the true identity of their assailant. He would know soon enough.
“Set an intercept course and engage the AlCas drive as soon as possible. Keep the weapons hot.”
Tanaka nodded. “You’re going to deprive Lord Einaga of the chance to rendezvous with forces on the colonies, I see. That is, if you are in time. What about the weapons systems? No Confederate FTL vessel has ever been attacked in Confederate space before.”
“There’s a first time for everything,” Ichiro said. “AlCas ready?”
“Pylons deployed and charged.”
“Jump.”
There was no lurch, no sensation of movement, just the increase in the background hum of the ship’s systems. AlCas drives moved the space containing a ship, the ship itself didn’t actually move. Without the visual of the starlight twisting around the ship, it was impossible to tell they went anywhere until the tactical display blinked and updated their position fifteen seconds later. The ship’s engines fired as soon as they came out of the bubble of warped space, adjusting their momentum to match that required by their new orbit around the sun. The FTL vessel now lay a mere thirteen-hundred kilometers away from their position.
“FTL transition completed,” Tanaka-san reported.
The tactical map zoomed in, showing their position on the arc of their orbital path. Ahead of them, the kilometer-long FTL ship was represented by a red triangle.
“Restore aegis fields,” Ichiro said.
“Done, my lord. Weapons systems seeking targets.”
He looked down at Tengu, who moved to sit next to him on the deck beside the command chair. The cerberai gazed up at him with faintly glowing-green eyes, and a strange sensation washed over him. The change in Tengu’s eyes mirrored his own. What did it mean? Both of them had Setha’s Cephalon nanomachines in their bodies for years, why was there a change now? And why was he thinking of this in the midst of a battle?
“My lord, target is energizing their aegis fields,” Tanaka reported, bringing him back to himself.
“Charge the mass driver.”
“That’s only used for planetary bomba—of course. Very clever, my lord.”
“Target their aegis field generators and fire HEXL and particle beam batteries. Don’t let on about what we’re going to do. I don’t want them scoring a lucky hit and disabling our mass driver,” he said.
“Yes, my lord.”
The air filled with the hum of weapons batteries opening fire and a buzzing swell as the ship’s aegis field deflected and absorbed the enemy’s response.
“Target their power core with the mass driver, and prepare all batteries to fire on that point to weaken its aegis,” Ichiro said. “I want enough of the ship left intact to identify it.”
“Aye, my lord. Mass driver reports seventy-percent charged.”
He connected to Armstrong’s comm channel. Any word on my uncle?
“We’re with the robots you sent down.” A window opened in his vision, and he found himself looking through Armstrong’s eyes. The jinzōbushi floated in the hallway before the closed bulkhead door, stiff as metal rods. “Looks like they’re all fried along with the panel an’ door control. I’m guessin’ an EMP weapon did this.”
A weapon. His uncle was receiving help from the crew. He would have to deal with that as soon as possible. It was too dangerous to proceed with disloyalty around him. His family’s legacy was in too precarious a position now to risk it.
“We’re headin’ around to the other side of the deck via the maintenance tubes. Don’ wannna risk openin’ the door here.”
Good luck, Armstrong. Keep me posted. He cut the connection.
“Mass driver charged and ready,” Tanaka said.
Ichiro opened his mouth to say “fire,” but hesitated. A new idea popped into his head. “Hail them, inform them they need to identify themselves or they will be destroyed.”
“Hailing them,” Tanaka-san said. He blinked before speaking again. “I have received a curious response.”
“What was it?”
“’You wouldn’t dare,’” Tanaka quoted.
Ichiro frowned and looked at the tactical display. He connected to it and zoomed the image out to show the whole solar system again. His eyes fell on the black dot that was once his vibrant, blue world. He pressed his lips together so hard they hurt.
“Fire.”
Tanaka-san responded with the mass-driver cannon. The background hum of the ship swelled and dropped like a plucked string. Ichiro connected to the outside sensors and watched as the silvery, bullet-shaped chunk of metal sped out from the fore of the ship. It crossed a third of the distance before it began to glow from the FTL vessel’s attempt to vaporize it.
“Target their defenses and fire,” he said.
Tanka-san nodded. “Firing.”
The hum of the ship swelled in pulses.
“Sixty-five seconds to impact,” Tanka-san reported.
Ichiro used the visual sensors to zoom in on the FTL vessel. It was a fairly standard model, produced by Cosmos Corp, but it could have been purchased by anyone. The only thing he could tell was that the attackers were going through pains to make him believe it was House Zháo attacking the system, which meant it wasn’t. It seemed there wouldn’t be any more information forthcoming until his forces retrieved the ship’s flight computer and recovered enough data to tell its origin.
Pulled in by the FTL vessel’s planetary gravity, the projectile hit with a burst of light, tearing through the vessel’s aegis field and hull like they weren’t there. It exited out the other side with a line of fine mist and debris streaming out of the wound. The neutronium antimatter-reactor, having been pierced by the strike, lost containment and exploded. The Kageryū’s visual sensors cut out the moment the explosion’s light levels outshone the sun.
“Is there anything left?” Ichiro asked, returning his vision to his body.
Tanaka-san was quiet for several moments. “There is a debris field. The ship is scanning, but it will take a few seconds for the radiation levels to drop enough to get a clear reading. I’m moving us back away before the debris cloud hits.”
He nodded and decided to connect with Armstrong for an update while he waited. Commander, what is your status?
“We’ve gotten around the bulkhead usin’ the maintenance tunnels an’ we’re in the brig. There’s somethin’ wrong, though,” she came back.
Something wrong?
In response she opened a feed showing him what she was seeing. The brig consisted of a short, octagonal corridor with four, zero-G cells placed across from each other every two and a half meters down its length for a total of twelve. His uncle should have been in the last one above Armstrong’s head at the cul de sac, but Ichiro could see the bars covering the cell’s diamond-shaped door were open. Below it floated a man in an SDF uniform with his hands at his side. One of them rested on the butt of his sidearm. The name tag on his uniform identified his family name as Sato. His epaulets showed he held the senior enlisted rank of kūsōchō.
“Put your hands up,” Armstrong shouted as Ichiro continued to channel her senses. She raised her own sidearm to cover the crewman.
“I do not recognize your authority,” he said in Taiumigo. Her implant translated the words into Solan for her as he spoke them.
“I don’ care about that. I’m servin’ your baron, so put ‘em up or else.”
“I don’t know who that imposter on the bridge is, but my baron is Lord Einaga, and I do not recognize your authority,” he said.
“Crewman, if you don’ do what I’m
sayin’ right now, it won’ go well for you,” she responded, then transmitted to the twins, “You in position?”
“We’re ready,” Ichiro heard Enéas transmit back. Wherever he and Europa were, Armstrong couldn’t see them.
“I’m askin’ you for the last time. Put your hands up an’ surrender in the name of Baron Mitsugawa.”
“Baron Mitsugawa is dead.” he responded. Hearing one of his people say it made Ichiro flinch. “I serve Lord Einaga, and I will not bow to your authority or that of the impostor. I was told to wait here for him, but you will have to do. Lord Einaga has a message for your impostor. He should think about what will happen to the Taiumijin should he continue his destructive path. The loss of so much cannot be fixed with the violence your master will inflict on us through his actions. As the true ruler of the Taiumijin and the Shiragawa, Lord Einaga orders him to surrender now, or there will be no mercy later. Tell that to your false Shōgun. Long live Lord Einaga!”
Sato-kūsōchō drew his pistol and raised it.
“Now!” Armstrong transmitted.
Two blurs appeared on either side of the man. One grabbed his gun arm before it could reach his temple, and the other slammed his head into the wall behind him, rendering him unconscious. As his limp body drifted, the distortions shifted, fading into the twins as they deactivated the stealth fibers in their clothes, skin, and hair.
“Whatcha want done with him?” Armstrong sent as they bound the now unconscious Sato’s arms. Shaken by the man’s words, it took a moment for Ichiro to realize she was talking to him.
Lock him in a cell. I’ll have a trusted guard posted. I want to talk to him after the battle, he sent.
“I’ll guard him. Seems you’ve got a loyalty problem on your hands,” Armstrong said.
All right. He sighed and brought his attention back to the bridge. “I need the ship checked bow to stern, and a visual accounting of all escape pods.”
“Of course, my lord,” Tanaka said with a stern face.
“What is it?” He felt his blood chill.
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