Raven's Course (Peacekeepers of Sol Book 3)

by Glynn Stewart

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Ser, do you have a moment?”

  Henry looked up from the command seat to see Ihejirika standing just inside the central pit of Raven’s bridge. A wave of his hand closed the screens he’d been working on—though he didn’t let himself actively sigh in relief.

  As was entirely reasonable, Chief Engineer Song was still on his case about the heat radiator usage rates. Keeping the battlecruiser at Status Two with the gravity shield up required at least three of her four fusion reactors to be online, which produced a lot of heat.

  Raven’s hull was covered with featherlike heat-radiator vanes. Fully extended, as they currently were, they made the ship look even more like her bird namesake that she normally did. Unfortunately, any given radiator vane had a limited useful operating life. Most of the time, the ship was only running two reactors outside of combat or skip space, which meant Song could cycle through the radiators and stretch that life.

  Right now, that was proving harder than usual and they were burning through the stock of spares almost twice as fast as expected. That meant they only had enough spares for two months instead of four, but it was Song’s job to be concerned about that and find ways around it.

  But Henry still found heat-radiation charts to be the single most boring part of his job.

  “What do you need, Commander?” he asked Ihejirika.

  “We found something odd, going over the Drifter and Kozun ships, ser,” the tactical officer told him. “May I show you?”

  “Is it dangerous?” Henry asked.

  “Probably not,” Ihejirika said. “Just…interesting.”

  “Go ahead,” Henry told him. A mental command surrendered control of several of the large screens around the pit to the tactical officer.

  Two images appeared on the screens, two-dimensional projections of a ship part that Henry instantly recognized. They were superheavy plasma-cannon turrets, the main weapon of every Kenmiri and most Vesheron capital ships.

  “One of these is the forward turret from one of the Kozun cruisers,” Ihejirika told him. “The other is a randomly selected turret from one of the Guardians. If you can pick out which is which, I’d be surprised, but that’s not entirely relevant right now.”

  “What is relevant, then, Commander?” Henry asked.

  The two images moved together, overlaying on top of each other. One was shaded in red, the other was shaded in green…and very little red was visible.

  “I thought you said these were from two different ships,” he asked. Even the Kenmiri only had so much consistency between turrets.

  “I did,” Ihejirika confirmed. “The red-shaded turret is from the Kozun cruiser. The green-shaded turret is from the Drifter Guardian. Their profiles are fundamentally identical. And to make the point very clear…”

  A third turret projection, shaded in blue, appeared next to the overlaid pair. As Henry watched, it converged with the others to overlay again.

  A lot more blue was visible than red now. The blue turret was distinctly different from the other two.

  “The blue turret is the standard schematic projection of a Kenmiri dreadnought’s heavy turret,” Ihejirika noted. “It would have slight variations from the actual construction of any given turret, but it would be close. I would expect, in fact, to see about the variation between the Kozun and Drifter turret between any two Kenmiri turrets.”

  “You’re suggesting the Kozun bought their turrets from the Drifters?” Henry asked.

  “Not just from the Drifters,” Ihejirika said. “From Blue Stripe Green Stripe Orange Stripe specifically. Not all of them, though.”

  A fourth turret, this one shaded yellow, appeared on the diagram. This one was clearly different from all of the other three.

  “This one appears to be homebuilt, but it’s from the same ship,” Ihejirika explained. “Each of the cruisers carries four heavy plasma guns, but only five of the turrets across three ships are homebuilt.

  “The rest were built by Blue Stripe Green Stripe Orange Stripe,” he concluded. “Even their most powerful homebuilt warships relied on the Drifters for their armaments. I…I’m not sure what that means, ser, but I couldn’t help but think it was important.”

  Henry nodded slowly, looking at the four overlaid turrets.

  “If nothing else, it tells us that these particular Drifters have their fingers deep in that particular pie,” he said. “Not as neutral as they’d have us believe.”

  “That’s a problem, isn’t it, ser?”

  “Potentially,” Henry stressed. “Not definitely. I assume we’re watching the Drifters as much as the Kozun, yes?”

  “Yes, ser,” Ihejirika confirmed. “Everyone is sitting at much the same status as we are. Not full battle stations, but capacitors are charged and shields are up. We’ve got better eyes on them than they have on us, though. We’ll have at least fifteen, maybe twenty seconds’ warning before they can bring the plasma guns online—and we could bring the grav-driver up without anyone noticing.”

  “We are not blowing up the negotiations,” Henry said drily. The image of the four overlaid turrets made him nervous, though. He couldn’t put his finger on why, though.

  “Of course not, ser,” his tactical officer said quickly. “So far, everything actually looks completely honest. Everyone is doing exactly what they said.”

  “The negotiators have only had one meeting so far. Todorovich is due to update me on how that went in a couple of hours,” Henry said. “But you’re right. So far, everything I see suggests everyone is doing exactly what they said they’d do.”

  “That’s good, right?” Ihejirika asked.

  Henry chuckled.

  “Yes,” he agreed. “And yet I keep expecting the trap. I could be wrong. I could be paranoid. But there’s nobody here I actually trust, Commander. So, we keep our eyes open.”

  “That’s the job, ser. We’ll warn you if anything changes.”

  “Thank you.” Henry looked at the overlaid turrets again. “Good work on this, Okafor. I don’t quite know what it means, but I think it’s important.”

  “One of the junior petties noticed it, ser,” Ihejirika told him. “Second Class Lau Yi. I flagged the comparison with the Kenmiri and helped ID the locally built turret, but PO Lau noticed the similarities between the Kozun and Drifter installations.”

  “Make a note of that, Commander,” Henry said. “That goes in their file.”

  “Already done, ser.”

  “I’m reasonably certain I would have noticed everything exploding, so I presume the situation outside is progressing calmly?” Sylvia Todorovich’s holographic image asked.

  Henry snorted and poured himself a cup of black tea.

  “That’s a way to describe it,” he told her. “I think everybody is just waiting for somebody else to pull a trigger. We’re not going to, but we’re expecting everyone else to. I have the vague feeling that everyone else is in the same boat.”

  “That sounds about right to me,” she agreed. “I don’t have a feel on the Drifters, though. They don’t have anyone at the negotiations.” She shrugged. “Not their part in this. They’re here to make sure no one else does anything stupid.”

  “I’m wondering if we even needed them now,” Henry admitted.

  “We needed someone to play courier with the Kozun, if nothing else, and the Kozun wanted a neutral third party,” Todorovich pointed out. “It wasn’t our call.”

  Henry nodded, trying not to draw too much warmth from even her holographic presence. He was surprised by how unconflicted he was feeling with regard to Todorovich these days. The smarter part of him was convinced it was a trap, in more ways than one, but his emotions didn’t seem to care.

  “Well, we’re here and everyone is watching each other like hawks,” he told her. “You’ve met the Third Voice now. What do you think the chances are?”

  “Of peace?” Todorovich asked. “High. I’m surprised to say it, but I think Aval is actually under orders not to
leave here without a deal. I suspect there are probably prices she won’t agree to, but I think she is honestly here to negotiate.

  “I think she’s going to drag it out as long as she can to cover for whatever else the Hierarchy is up to right now and to convince us to let them off as easily as she can, but she’s honestly here for peace.”

  “Are you sure you can read her that well?” Henry asked. “Cross-species and cross-culture…it’s hard to read someone that clearly.”

  The microexpressions that all Ashall shared could help, but they were limited in what they communicated. Enough, in his experience, to win a poker game. Not enough, he would guess, to carry high-stakes interstellar negotiation.

  “It’s not just that,” she told him. “With a few exceptions, she’s negotiating the way I would with those orders. Though she did start with the Cluster having to compensate them for everything they’d lost in the failed invasion.”

  Henry had to pause at that.

  “Seriously?” he asked.

  “She knew it was a nonstarter, but it was a place to start that gave her room to concede,” Todorovich replied. “I shut it down, I think, but she’s playing for ground she can give up without costing the Hierarchy anything.”

  “And here I thought the Hierarchy was rich and powerful,” Henry murmured, considering the discussion he’d just had with Ihejirika. “Now I’m wondering…”

  “Henry?” she asked.

  “We ran an analysis on the cruisers’ weapons,” he told her. “Most of the heavy turrets are Drifter construction. They either bought or were given heavy weapons by Blue Stripe Green Stripe Orange Stripe.

  “My general impression is that the Drifters don’t sell heavy weapons without more than money on the table,” he concluded. “There’s more going on here than I know, and it’s making me twitchy.”

  “The Council didn’t make it sound like they were that close to the Hierarchy,” Todorovich said. “But playing games is what they do. Their job is to protect the Convoy, after all.”

  “So long as we can make peace with the Kozun, I don’t give a shit about the Convoy,” Henry admitted. “They’re far from harmless, but so long as they’re heading in the opposite direction from us, they can do whatever they want.”

  “I’m not sure they are,” Todorovich warned. “Part of the price they demanded for playing third-party security here was the right to set up a trading post in UPA space. I think they want to get out into our stars and see what trading they can do beyond the former Kenmiri Empire.

  “Where else are they going to find truly new opportunities, after all?”

  “That could work out well for all of us,” Henry said. “Every time I add up the numbers, Sylvia, I come up with the fact that nobody wins if this conference goes sideways.”

  “But?” she asked.

  “But I still feel like someone painted crosshairs on my back,” he told her. “Be careful, Sylvia. There’s a point where our paranoia becomes a threat to someone else…potentially one worth acting on.”

  “That’s why nobody knows about Bicycle,” she replied. “Everything is under control, Henry. I promise. Nothing is going to happen to Carpenter. Or me.”

  Henry wasn’t sure why she’d added the last, but it helped. He gave her a wan smile and bowed his head slightly.

  “I know,” he conceded. “But it’s my job to worry. And yours, I suppose, to bring this whole mess to a conclusion.”

  “And we are both very good at our jobs,” Todorovich told him with an uncharacteristically bright grin.

  Chapter Thirty

  The conference room filled more quickly the second time, with all three groups arriving simultaneously and being expertly guided into the room’s three separate doors by Carpenter’s crew. Sylvia wasn’t sure where the Cluster had found that many diplomatic junior officers and spacers, but it had probably been part of the refit to make Carpenter a diplomatic vessel as well as a warship.

  She waited for Aval and Rising Principle to sit down with the rest of their staff, while remaining standing herself. She met each of their gazes in turn with a small smile before speaking.

  “Good morning. Are we ready to get started on this?” she asked them. She didn’t wait for a response before plowing on. “The way I see it, we have two fundamental choices here.

  “Firstly, we can decide whether we are all here for peace,” she said. “If we are, then everything after that is details, is it not? If we start from that point, we are more likely to end this in a deal for everyone.

  “Secondly, we can either start with the easy parts or the hard parts. We all know reparations are going to be the hard part. So…” She spread her hands. “While the UPA has a role in this, the main discussion is between the Hierarchy and the Cluster. I leave those two decisions to you.”

  She took her seat, watching and waiting to see just what happened next.

  For a few moments, what happened was nothing. Then Oran Aval gestured for Rising Principle to speak and leaned back in her chair.

  “The Cluster wants peace,” Principle said calmly. “But we must-will require that the Hierarchy pay for their crimes. We did-could not bring war to our own fate-time-place. The Hierarchy did-could that. All that followed is-was by their choice.”

  “War happens,” Oran Aval countered. “Tens of thousands of our soldiers and spacers died as well, killed by your alliance and the UPSF. You deny us any claim for compensation for those deaths but demand that we pay compensation for the deaths of your soldiers and spacers?”

  “We did-would not invade your worlds,” Principle said. “We did-would not instigate the conflict. You did.”

  “I have to agree with Rising Principle here,” Sylvia said. “You attacked the Cluster. To claim that a blood debt is owed to the Hierarchy for those who died in the Hierarchy’s invasion is hypocritical at best.”

  “We are prepared to concede that point, perhaps, but we are not prepared to bear the weight of every loss the Cluster wishes to blame us for,” Aval said. “Military campaigns cause losses on both sides. We are not responsible for every death while we were present in the Cluster.”

  “We could-will accept the surrender of the architects of the plan to face justice under Cluster law,” Rising Principle suggested.

  Sylvia swallowed an urge to applaud. That was no concession to offer, and Rising Principle knew it. If nothing else, she was reasonably sure the First Voice had been instrumental in that planning. Plus, the Hierarchy wasn’t going to admit that their actions on La-Tar had been criminal.

  But since it sounded like a concession, and such a reasonable one, Oran Aval was going to have to backpedal hard.

  “We do not accept that our operations in the Cluster qualify as crimes requiring justice,” Aval replied after a few moments of silence. “A nation, a people, must follow their own interests. This is no crime.”

  “So, the Kenmiri your people executed on Kozun were innocent of crimes?” Sylvia asked.

  “They had invaded and enslaved our people!” Oran Aval snapped instinctively, only realizing that she’d walked into Sylvia’s trap a moment too late.

  “Exactly as the Kozun did in La-Tar,” she told the Kozun Voice. “Your own people’s actions suggest that invading and enslaving worlds for their resources, forcing entire nations to bend to another’s will…you have called these grand crimes and executed both invaders and collaborators alike.

  “Does that same standard not apply to the Kozun, Voice Aval?”

  “We came to La-Tar and the cluster of surrounding worlds to bring stability and prosperity,” Aval said. “Had we not been met with violence and agitation, everyone would have benefited.”

  “I have heard the same words in the mouths of Kenmiri, Voice Aval,” Sylvia reminded the other woman. “They, too, claimed that all they did was for the benefit of everyone. So, tell me, Oran Aval, does puppeting the words of your slavemasters taste like ash in your mouth?”

  The conference room was deathly silent for at lea
st twenty seconds.

  “What would you know of slavery, Terran?” Aval spat. “You from your glittering cities and untouched worlds beyond the reach of the Kenmiri?”

  “It is-was not the Terrans you invaded,” Rising Principle interrupted before Sylvia could speak. “It is-was La-Tar. La-Tar knows-knew slavery. The Kozun invasion is-was not the first fate-time soldiers marched our streets. It is-was not the first time innocents are-were murdered for the actions of others.

  “We know-knew your kind. We know-knew the Kenmiri. Your words change-changed nothing. You wore-wear masks, but you are-were the same. Between Kenmiri and Kozun, both is-are slavers.”

  Aval visibly exhaled, laying her hands on the table with her thumbs and forefingers pressed together.

  “While I will not offer reparations for losses incurred in open battle, I will accept that Kozun enforcers on La-Tar exceeded their orders and mandates,” she said, her tone surprisingly level. “We are prepared to consider a demand for reparations based on civilian deaths and collateral damage to nonmilitary sites on La-Tar.

  “What happens in battle is war. What was done after the annexation…while I will not call them crimes, I will call them errors for which we will consider making amends.”

  Rising Principle produced another tablet from inside their robes and slid it across the table.

  No one needed to ask what it was. Oran Aval picked it up and read the text on it. She scrolled through the data with ease—La-Tar and Kozun were both still using fundamentally Kenmiri tech. It would be a long time before the software diverged enough to cause usability problems.

  Aval’s poker face was perfect. She kept scrolling through the data, not even microexpressions showing her emotions as she went through the information Rising Principle had provided.

  “May I keep this, Envoy Rising Principle?” she asked. “I will need time to…consider this information.”

  “Yes.”

  The tablet disappeared into Aval’s tunic and she leaned back in her chair.