The Lost Stars

by Jack Campbell

  “Move!” Rogero bellowed at one group that had unaccountably stopped dead, completely clogging a major intersection of passageways. As the workers bolted into motion like frightened deer, he heard his name being called.

  “Donal!”

  Colonel Rogero recognized the man and woman pushing their way toward him, but he had to search his memory for a moment to place them. Sub-CEO Garadun and Executive Ito. From . . . a battle cruiser. He couldn’t remember which one. They had met several times at official meetings and official social events related to those meetings. Not that social events were casual or that he had learned all that much about the other Syndicate officials he met there, including these two. Everyone at official social events assumed there would be covert snakes salted through the attendees, not to mention plenty of surveillance gear, all listening for any hint of disloyalty. Official Syndicate social gatherings did usually have unlimited, free drinks, but since that was aimed at getting people drunk enough to blurt out compromising statements, wise citizens limited their intake. It all made for “casual” gatherings that were extremely formal, everyone watching their actions and words, as well as the actions and words of those around them.

  Garadun stopped before Rogero, his face split by a huge grin. “Then it’s true! You came for us! For once the ground forces have bailed out the mobile forces!”

  “We’re from BC-77D,” Ito said, coming to a halt beside Garadun. “in case you don’t remember. A lot of our crew got off when the unit was destroyed, and they’re with us now.” She was smiling almost as widely as Garadun. “Is it true? The Syndicate government is gone?”

  “Not gone,” Rogero advised. “It still exists on Prime. But we’ve thrown them out of Midway.”

  “The snakes . . . ?”

  “Dead. We took them down.” Rogero heard pride in his voice as he said that. Well, why not? It was true.

  Garadun and Ito exchanged glances. “It’s obvious you’ve got ground forces. Do you have any mobile forces?” Garadun asked.

  “Why do you think we’re here? We need trained crews.”

  “How did you know to come here?” Ito asked. “How did you know any of us were alive?”

  Rogero cleared his throat before speaking to buy a few seconds. “How much do you know? About what happened after . . .”

  “After we were captured?” Garadun said. “Not much. The Alliance guards claim that the war is over, that they won. Maybe they did. We didn’t believe them, but we don’t know. Since you’re here to get us, maybe we won.”

  “They won,” Rogero said. “Black Jack.”

  Ito shook her head, her eyes dark. “He is not human. A demon. He has to be.”

  “He saved us,” Rogero blurted out, seeing the shock on their faces. “After he broke the Syndicate government and forced an end to the war. He led his fleet to Midway and threw back an enigma attempt to take over the star system.”

  “He beat the enigmas?” Garadun stared at Rogero.

  “A demon,” Ito repeated.

  It was not a good time to bring up the complicated events that had led the infamous Black Jack to be the savior of Midway Star System, Rogero thought. “Anyway, the Syndicate government failed. The Syndicate way of doing things failed. It all failed. President Iceni and General Drakon are running things at Midway now. We are free.” He saw the reactions to the word “free” and smiled again. “We’ve got an escort waiting at Atalia. Cruisers and destroyers loyal to us and commanded by Kommodor Marphissa—”

  “Kommodor?” This time Garadun shook his head. “The name Marphissa isn’t familiar to me.”

  “She was an executive on a heavy cruiser. Clearing out the Syndicate loyalists left some big gaps in the chain of command and improved promotion opportunities. Listen, we have very limited ability to screen all of you. What can you tell me about the physical condition of everyone? Most of those we’re picking up in seem to be in good health. I’m not spotting any old, untreated injuries.” He didn’t have to explain why he had looked for those. In a Syndicate labor camp, something like that was routine.

  Garadun looked away, glowering.

  Ito gave him a sympathetic glance, then nodded to Rogero. “The Alliance scum took good care of us, much as we hate to admit it. Nothing great. Bland food, but enough of it. Some cleanup duties at the camp where we were held, but no hard labor. Medical care when needed, though nothing but what was needed. They treated us as prisoners, but we weren’t abused.”

  “It was Black Jack,” Garadun grumbled. “The guards talked about him. He crushed our flotilla, he killed so many of our friends, and yet we owed decent treatment to him. We’re fine, Donal. You shouldn’t find any serious health problems.” He focused on Rogero skeptically. “There are no CEOs? You said Iceni and Drakon are still running things.”

  “Not as CEOs.” Rogero nodded to the personnel streaming past. “They sent us to get you. Very risky, very expensive, but they sent us to get you.”

  That went home. The casual callousness of Syndicate leaders toward workers and junior executives was simply taken for granted. “I guess if they did that, they aren’t just CEOs with different titles,” Garadun remarked.

  “What do you need us to do?” Ito asked.

  “Help keep things under control. Keep people moving. We have to cram ten kilos of workers into a five-kilo bag. After that, we’ve got a long ways back. Sort out anyone who wants to stay loyal to the Syndicate. We’ll drop them off in a Syndicate-controlled star system. Are there any snakes among you?”

  “Oddly enough,” Ito commented with a gentle smile at odds with the lack of feeling in her voice, “none of the snakes with our flotilla survived.”

  “Good.” Rogero stopped speaking as silence fell around him. He saw Garadun and Ito staring behind him and turned to see Bradamont there. She had been in the comm compartment, out of sight. Only something urgent would have brought her out.

  “Admiral Timbale says we need to leave as soon as possible,” Bradamont reported. “A courier ship has left the star system. Timbale suspects that he may be relieved of command when it returns.”

  “We’re already getting everyone on board as quickly as we can,” Rogero agreed. “Sub-CEO Garadun, Executive Ito, this is Captain Bradamont of the Alliance fleet. She is the official Alliance liaison officer to President Iceni and General Drakon.”

  Garadun and Ito were still staring at Bradamont, their expressions like stone.

  Bradamont faced Rogero. “Do you require anything else, Colonel Rogero? If not, I will continue to monitor the situation and inform you of any significant developments.”

  He barely suppressed a grin. Bradamont’s statement had sounded very much like a subordinate reporting to a superior. She had done that on purpose, establishing before these others that he was in charge here. “No, Captain Bradamont, I do not require anything else. Keep me informed.”

  As Bradamont left, Rogero gestured to Garadun and Ito. “She’s the only Alliance citizen on any of these ships.”

  “She’s answering to you?” Garadun asked in a disbelieving voice.

  “That’s right.” Rogero paused to slap the nearest comm panel. “Executive Barchi,” he called to the freighter’s commander, who was on the ship’s bridge. “Tell the other ships to ensure they are getting people aboard as fast as they can move them. The moment we have the last individual off the last Alliance shuttle, we are heading for the jump point at the best acceleration these ships can manage.”

  As he finished, Ito came close, grasping Rogero’s chin to stare into his eyes. “Donal, is this real? You haven’t been turned? This isn’t some sick Alliance trick to break our morale, where just as we’re about to leave this star system, they’ll jump out of the bulkheads to tell us it was all a game to mess with our heads? Is this real, Donal? Is that Alliance officer really doing what you say and have you told us what is really going on at Midway?”r />
  Rogero gazed back into Ito’s eyes. “It is all true. You’re going home. We’re going to jump for Atalia as soon as we can reach the jump point, and there you’ll find Kommodor Marphissa’s flotilla waiting for us.”

  Ito nodded and let her hand fall. “Even a CEO couldn’t lie that well. Keep that Alliance bitch away from our people, though. There’s no telling what they might do.”

  Rogero stiffened. He could let the words pass, and after all they were what any Syndicate citizen would have said, but this was Bradamont. “Executive Ito, that officer, that Alliance Captain, is the only reason we are here. She told us of you, she helped convince our leaders to send this mission, she helped us get here, and she convinced her own leaders to release you to us. Her fleet, her people, took losses defending our homes from the enigmas. During the war, she was captured and spent time in a Syndicate labor camp. Yet she fought for us.”

  Neither one wanted to hear it, but Garadun finally answered in a gruff voice. “A labor camp? All right. As long as she answers to you.”

  Ito was watching Rogero closely. “Yes. Since it seems to be important to you.”

  “Colonel Rogero?” Lieutenant Foster sounded worried as he pushed through the crowd toward him. “We need you to talk to the Alliance shuttle pilots. There’s some problem with timing between deliveries. And, sir, there’s another Alliance destroyer on an intercept with us.”

  Rogero nodded briskly to Garadun and Ito, dashing off with gratitude for the interruption. Ito had plainly sensed that his opinion of Bradamont was not purely a professional matter.

  He reached the small command deck of the freighter and squeezed in near Foster and Executive Barchi. “Where’s the destroyer?”

  Barchi pointed. “Here. There’s its track. It will be here in about half an hour if I’m reading this right.”

  “What happened to the other two? Sai and, uh . . .”

  “Assagei. They headed back for the jump point a few hours ago.”

  “Velocity . . .” Rogero muttered, trying to find that data. He was used to displays for ground equipment, not those for spacecraft. “There it is. Point zero three light. Is that fast?”

  Barchi made a dismissive gesture in response to Rogero’s question. “On a planet? Fast as hell. Up here? A mobile forces unit? He’s loafing along.”

  “He’s not in a hurry?” Rogero pressed.

  “A ship like that, they don’t think anything of ramping up to point zero five light or point one light,” the executive explained. “He’s taking his time. But then, he knows we can’t outrun him. Why rush when we’re sitting ducks? Even if we bent on full acceleration, he could catch us within an hour or so.”

  Rogero kept his eyes on the display, not wanting to look at the freighter executive who simply accepted his helplessness. Rogero had always been in the ground forces, always been able to fight or run or perhaps fight and run. It was easy to forget how things were for those without weapons or speed to serve them. Men and women like this freighter executive, who had spent the years of the war knowing that if the enemy appeared, they had no good options, no chances unless distances were great enough or the freighter too small a prize for the enemy to bother with. Without them and the cargoes they hauled between stars and planets, the war could not have continued, but they had always been prey in that war. It was a strange and ugly irony.

  He called down to the tiny comm compartment, where Bradamont had again taken up her watch. “Captain, there is an Alliance destroyer on its way to intercept us.”

  “I’ll see what I can find out,” Bradamont called back. “What’s her velocity?”

  “Point zero three light.”

  “That’s all? What are the Alliance shuttles doing?”

  “Still off-loading.”

  “They’d break off if there was impending action. Let me know if any start heading away before off-loading.”

  Lieutenant Foster had relaxed since Rogero arrived. Someone of higher authority was here to make the decisions, and Rogero knew his soldiers had confidence in him. I earned that confidence the hard way. But now I’m putting on an act for the lieutenant and everyone else. Calm. Confident. Everything may be hectic, but otherwise it’s fine. Except if that Alliance warship comes in shooting, we’re all dead.

  “Colonel Rogero?” Bradamont’s voice had rarely been so welcome.

  “Here.”

  “Destroyer Bandolier is being sent to provide close escort for us. Admiral Timbale is increasingly concerned that someone might try to interfere with the prisoner transfer or try to board one or more of the freighters. He’s also going to send the light cruiser Coupe over to us. They have orders to accompany us until we jump for Atalia.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” Rogero said, trying to sound as dispassionately professional as possible in a this-woman-is-merely-a-fellow-officer manner. Someone might try to interfere? The Alliance ground forces people. Or maybe their intelligence branch. Or maybe other people I don’t even know about. I hope Admiral Timbale can keep them off our backs. “That’s it, then,” he told Lieutenant Foster. “We’re getting an escort.”

  “An escort?” Foster asked. “Alliance mobile forces are going to escort us?”

  “I know it feels strange. Think how strange it will feel for them.”

  “More likely,” Executive Barchi grumbled, “they’ll be along to nail us immediately if we do anything suspicious.”

  “We won’t do anything suspicious. Let’s get those people aboard our ships and get out of this star system.”

  “Yes, sir!” Foster agreed.

  There wouldn’t be any need to motivate everyone to keep working quickly. Not this time. Nobody wanted to stay here, where the Alliance ruled and evidence of Alliance military power loomed with deadly menace on all sides.

  “Um, Colonel?” the freighter executive asked, sounding and looking like the bearer of bad news. “My line workers say we’ve got a problem in the internal communications. Some of that new stuff you installed seems to be interfering with it, so if you need to talk to anybody inside this ship before we get it sorted out, you’ll need to send a runner.”

  Rogero’s immediate frown caused the executive to look a lot more nervous. “Are external comms impacted at all?”

  Lieutenant Foster was already shaking his head when the executive answered. “No. No. No problem there. It’s your external comm gear that is somehow interfering with internal comms. We could probably fix the internals really fast if we shut down the externals for a few—”

  “We can’t afford to lose external comms,” Rogero said. “Not for any length of time.” Not being able to talk to the Alliance shuttles and the other freighters would be a major problem, but a temporary loss of internal communications in this freighter was only annoying, not serious. “Let me know as soon as internal comms are fixed.”

  The executive nodded with visible relief that Rogero’s response hadn’t been worse.

  “Lieutenant Foster, with internal comms down, I want you to check on conditions personally and report back here.”

  Foster saluted and rushed off.

  Another shuttle came and went. Another shuttle docked.

  “How are we doing, Lieutenant?” Rogero asked, as Foster returned, looking like he had just run a race.

  “We’re tight, but there’s room, sir. We can take more. No discipline problems.”

  “We’re almost done,” Executive Barchi reported. “Only two or three shuttle loads per freighter left to go. Another half an hour to forty-five minutes, and we can get the hell out of Dod.”

  “Just where is Dod?” Rogero asked, his eyes on the freighter’s display.

  “I dunno. Some star system nobody wanted to stay in, I guess. It’s not even on the charts.”

  Rogero had barely begun to absorb the executive’s good news when Bradamont burst onto the command deck. “What the
hell happened to internal comms on this ship? Commandos have launched from Ambaru! We’ve got to get moving now!”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  “COMMANDOS?” Rogero’s eyes were going back to the display as he felt a surge of adrenaline hit. His body was shifting to combat mode without any prompting. “I can’t see—”

  Bradamont shook her head. “They’re in stealth-configured shuttles. The best the Alliance has got. The sensors on these freighters wouldn’t see them even if those stealth shuttles were doing loops around us.”

  “Admiral Timbale—”

  “Is losing control of the situation! He still has the fleet units and the Marines responding to him, but both ground forces and aerospace forces in this star system are acting on orders from the generals in command of them. For the love of our ancestors, get these freighters moving!”

  Rogero pointed to the display, letting his frustration fill his voice. “We’ve still got shuttleloads of personnel to get on board. Are you saying we have to abandon them?”

  “How many?” Bradamont pushed people aside until she stood at the freighter’s maneuvering controls. “Give me a minute.” Her hands started flying over the controls and the display.

  “She’s setting up a maneuvering plan,” Ito said. Rogero abruptly became aware that both Garadun and Ito had followed Bradamont onto the control deck, making it very crowded indeed. “She was trying to get up here and being blocked by our workers in the passageways so we came along and told everyone to clear a path. What do you know about her? Does she know mobile forces?”