“All of this is secondary,” Ronoxosh said, the first thing any of the Wendira had said since the meeting has begun. “Secondary to the treachery the Laians inflicted upon my people.”
“Treachery?” Tidirok demanded.
Rin was…surprised by how unsurprised he felt. One battle as allies, and the Wendira and Laians were already having troubles.
“One hundred and eleven thousand, two hundred and sixty-eight starfighters destroyed,” one of Ronoxosh’s unnamed Warrior companions listed off. “Six star hives lost. Twenty-seven star shields and sixty-three lesser escorts wrecked.
“Versus total losses for the Laian and A!Tol fleets of less than sixteen ships,” the Warrior concluded. “The numbers alone lay bare your plot, Voice. We are to be used as drones, freely expended to protect your ships while weakening the Grand Hive.”
The conference was silent for several seconds.
“My understanding is that losses in the fighter strike were lower than expected,” Tidirok said quietly. “And all of our ships were on the same line, Commandant. Ronoxosh had complete tactical command of your ships. I did not order your fighter strike. Your ships were not positioned in front of ours.
“I regret your losses. Your presence here helped save this system, and I would be a poor ally if I did not honor your dead as my own today. I swear to you, we did nothing to make your ships a target.”
“And yet the Infinite focused their fire upon us when the final clash was joined,” the same Warrior officer said. “One must wonder, then, what drove them to target us. One must wonder, given how intact this system is, if the Infinite are truly as much your enemy as you claim.”
“Enough,” Oxtashah suddenly snapped, the Princess’s voice cutting through with a tone that sent a shiver down Rin’s spine—and he wasn’t biologically programmed to follow Wendira Royals.
The Warrior Fleet Commandant physically quailed and seemed to retract into himself.
“I do not believe there was treachery today, merely the tides of war,” she said grimly. “But we can see, I think, the vulnerabilities we face in joint operations. While this alliance is utterly essential to us both, I fear that this combined fleet may prove to be a dangerous proposition.
“Nonetheless, I will consult with our Queens before any further action is taken,” Oxtashah told them all. “There will be no more talk of treachery,” she said flatly, glaring at the images of her subordinates. “But I do ask that an analysis be performed, to see if we can identify why the Wendira ships were targeted over all others.”
“That analysis is already underway,” Tan!Shallegh said calmly. “I have guesses, but we will freeze the water of guess to the ice of data.”
“Thank you,” Oxtashah said. “I think we should cut this meeting short before any of our people say something they may regret.”
“One last thing, in that case,” Tidirok interjected. Every eye drew to the Voice of the Republic. “I will need the names, Princess Oxtashah.”
It took Rin a moment to realize what Tidirok was asking—but the two Wendira Warriors clearly picked it up instantly.
“The names, Voice?” Oxtashah asked, her voice slow and careful.
“Of your dead. All of them,” Tidirok told her. “It is my understanding that your Drones fight so that they will be remembered. Regardless, I would have the name of every Wendira who died to save a Laian system.
“Whatever else happens between our peoples, I will see those recorded and a memorial built. They died for the Republic, not the Hive, and so the Republic will remember them.
“You have my word.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Morgan watched the footage in the holotank warily. It was a recording of the bridge of a Laian supply ship, a bridge that would normally hold at least seven people.
In the image she was watching, it held one. A large metallic-black Laian male, his carapace carefully patched over where age had grown his flesh past what his chitin could handle. She’d only seen Laians of that age a few times before, and she suspected the ship’s pilot was on his last years.
“Course is locked in,” he announced. “I’m transmitting everything. I don’t know if this will work, Tosonak.”
“If it doesn’t, twenty thousand people are going to die,” the person on the other side of the radio announced. “Night-Moon-Light Station doesn’t have the fuel to maintain their power cores for more than twelve hours more.
“I still think you should send someone else. You have thirty captains willing to take this flight, sir.”
“And every one of them younger,” the pilot replied, going through controls with the kind of care that suggested rusty skills. “I may own the company, Tosonak, but I’ve lived my life. I won’t send others to die for me when I’m more expendable.”
“Bioform is heading your way, boss,” Tosonak told the Laian—apparently a transport company CEO named Tosolor. The voice on the radio was a child of the CEO’s group marriage.
“I see it. Transmitting the messages now.”
Morgan couldn’t see or hear the message Tosolor sent, but Shotilik was standing at her shoulder.
“From what I’ve seen, it’s a mediocre translation into Alavan text of ‘this is a mission of mercy, we are unarmed,’” the Rekiki told her. “I don’t know how Tosolor managed to pull that off, but you’ll see the effects.”
The bioform grew larger on the freighter’s scanners. It was only a Category Two, but that was more than enough to obliterate the three-hundred-meter in-system freighter Tosolor was piloting.
“That thing is more than close enough to kill me,” the Laian muttered. Morgan wasn’t sure if Tosonak could hear him, but he had been recording and sending everything his sensors saw. The recording she was watching was directly from the ship’s internal cameras, though.
“Wait!” he said loudly. “I have a response? Tosonak, I’m forwarding you a message. I need to… Wait, it’s in the Tongue?”
Someone had apparently run the translation software at higher levels than normal, Morgan realized. At this level, places like the Sahara Desert tended to be translated as “Desert Desert.”
“Tosonak, I have a transmission from the bioform,” the pilot declared. “It says… It says, ‘Course and cargo?’”
“Then send them the suns-burnt manifest, Tosolor,” the Laian on the radio begged. “Send them it now!”
It took the older pilot a minute to find the data according to Morgan’s time stamps, while the bioform calmly matched velocity and repeated its request two more times.
“There,” Tosolor finally declared. “Manifest sent.” Apparently to make certain, he picked up a microphone and tapped it on.
“Um, I’m bound for Night-Moon-Light Station with helium-3 fuel, water and food supplies,” he declared into the microphone. “They have less than twelve hours of fuel and three days of water and food.”
Silence. Shotilik accelerated the playback and the time stamps said it was five minutes before anything changed.
There was no response. The bioform just veered away to hunt another ship.
“They’re leaving,” Tosolor said, his astonishment clear even without the translation. “Maintaining course for Night-Moon-Light Station. Tosonak—pass on the Alavan code and…and…everything to every suns-burnt shipper in the system.
“I think they’ll let us keep the stations running. I…wouldn’t try getting to the fleet base or leaving the system, but I think they’ll let us make sure people can eat and breathe!”
The recording froze.
“Tosolor is a billionaire by Imperial standards and owns roughly twenty percent of the civilian shipping in the Tohrohsail System,” Shotilik observed. “Tosonak is his declared heir. They were likely being more formal than usual, as the recording was to be distributed if their delivery was successful—as it was.”
“So, the Infinite let the locals travel around the system unimpeded?” Morgan asked.
“Eventually,” Shotilik said. “They wipe
d out everything that fired on them. No surprise there. Initially, they also fired at any vessel that maneuvered anywhere near them, and they were everywhere in the system.
“By the time they drew their forces more toward the fleet base, everyone in the system had gone to ground,” the Rekiki noted. “The fact that the Infinite hadn’t attacked—or even interacted with—any of the settlements that hadn’t tried to fire on them was considered a good sign, but Tosolor was the only one crazy enough to try to make a supply run.”
“To a station that was almost out of everything,” Morgan said.
“Yeah. The station in question was due for its five-cycle resupply when the Infinite arrived. Their reserves were just about gone when Tosolor decided to risk himself to make the delivery.”
“And the Infinite continued to allow deliveries after that?” she asked.
“Except for one half-cycle period after someone tried to make a run for hyperspace, yes,” Took confirmed, the Yin looking through her own data. “Interestingly, they told the locals that. Omnidirectional transmission telling all ships to lock down and that any ship making for hyperspace would be destroyed.”
She shook her head.
“It wasn’t great Laian, but it was understandable to the locals. They weren’t good at communicating, but they were capable of it.”
“That’s promising,” Morgan replied. “Do we think they’re likely to follow similar allowances for mercy missions and necessary supplies in other systems?”
“Probably, but…” Took and Shotilik exchanged looks.
“So long as we don’t betray the trust,” Morgan guessed. “Everything we’ve seen says they were relatively calm to the Alava, even, until something changed.”
“While we have no confirmation that Swarm Bravo was in communication with the main body in the Astoroko Nebula…um…” Shotilik shook her head. “I would suspect that any abuse of their goodwill will result in a lot of long-term pain.”
“So would I,” Morgan agreed. “I’ll include the recommendation against using that in our report in the strongest language possible.”
“Whatever you’re planning, find a way to make it even clearer,” Took suggested. “If the Infinite had locked down all shipping in Tohrohsail, best guess is about a million people would have died before we liberated the system.”
“There might come a time when we need it anyway,” Morgan warned. “Rumor has it we’re going to be stepping back from full tactical coordination to operating as separate fleets with operational and strategic coordination.
“It’s not a good plan; it’s just the one that stops our allies from thinking the other is backstabbing them.”
“I’m glad that's the Fleet Lord’s problem,” Shotilik said drily. “And that I just have to work out what a brain the size of a planet thinks is appropriate war strategy.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
“I don’t know why Tan!Shallegh wants me in the meetings,” Rin admitted, passing Morgan a glass of wine as he settled onto the couch in her quarters. She was still standing, pacing back and forth in the small space with the nervous energy of a caged tiger.
“I suspect we’re well past the point where anything I know about the Alava or the Infinite is really going to have an impact,” he continued. “That war is fifty thousand years dead and so are the Alava.
“We don’t know what they did to turn the Infinite genocidal and we don’t know how to avoid doing it ourselves. They already seem to have adopted a shoot on sight policy with us and everybody else.”
“I suppose the Queen tried to talk to me originally, but that conversation didn’t go for very long,” Morgan told him. “I think the local shippers had more constructive conversations with the Infinite than I did—and theirs were basically just ‘Please don’t shoot me.’”
“I’m surprised that worked,” Rin admitted. “It suggests that the Infinite are both more able to communicate with us now than they were when we took Defiance into the Nebula and, well, more…reasonable, I guess, than we’ve been anticipating.”
“They’re still pretty damn angry with us,” his lover replied. “Swarm Bravo didn’t attempt to talk at all before they came out ready for a fight.”
“They were here to eliminate the combined fleets, though, weren’t they?” Rin asked. “Threat management, I guess.”
“That’s my team’s guess, too. They’re trying to identify and eliminate threats to their base in the nebula, but with the Wendira in play, they underestimated our forces here. So, we came out ahead…but I have no way to judge how material the loss of Swarm Bravo is to them.
“Eleven hundred bioforms seems like a lot, except we know they have at least five hundred Category Fives and Swarm Bravo had four. It’s going to be a long, messy war—and that’s assuming we get the reinforcements and allies to hold.”
“It sounds like it, even if the Wendira and Laians are getting twitchy about working in the same systems,” Rin told her. “Tidirok has apparently been promised another hundred war-dreadnoughts in the next sixty cycles.”
“And we’re getting the rest of the HSM-equipped Imperial ships in the same time frame,” Morgan told him. “That’s classified, but you’re sitting in the damn meetings with Tan!Shallegh. You’re as cleared for it as I am.”
“And our associates?” he asked quietly.
“I’m assuming they’re part of why the Ren have actually pulled together a battle fleet to cover the Coreward side of the Astoroko Nebula,” Morgan said. “Apparently, they’re up to thirty billion tons of capital ships watching their borders, which is reassuring.”
“All right, so we’ve established everything is going as well as it can in this damn war, but we’re still talking work while you pace back and forth, wearing a trail in the carpet,” Rin told her. He took a sip of his wine.
“Everything is a mess, Rin,” she said. “I feel like I need to do more, but fuck if I can see any answers. Give me a squadron of ships with Final Dragons and we could end this in an afternoon!”
“There’s a reason the Empress hasn’t sent any Final Dragon starkillers out here,” Rin reminded her. The smaller strategic weapons were a stolen design, one that even most Core Powers couldn’t match.
The last thing the Imperium needed was for the galaxy to realize that the Final Dragon weapons existed—and Rin suspected that they’d need to lose a good chunk of the Laian Republic, allies or not, before A!Shall authorized deploying them.
“I know.” She sighed, and finally took a seat next to him with a surprising suddenness. “And I’m not writing home, and everything I say and do is work. But what else am I supposed to do, Rin?”
“Breathe?” he suggested. “I know, I know, we’re both workaholics, and out here, there’s nothing much to do but work. I’m trying to dig in to what we’ve got on the Infinite in the Alavan archives, but it's not much. I feel like I’m just looking at the same things over and over again.”
“That’s how I feel, looking at what we’ve got for data since the Infinite woke up,” she said. She sighed and shook her head. “I don’t know; rub my shoulders?”
Rin chuckled and gestured for her to sit on the ground in front of him.
“That seems like a good starting place.”
The night went about as well after that as could be hoped, including the rest of the bottle of wine, and Rin woke up in Morgan’s quarters the following morning. His communicator was chirping its usual alarm—as was Morgan’s—but finding the handheld devices took longer than it should have.
That was partially because they were both wrapped up in the blankets and sheets and partially because they were both naked and Rin found Morgan’s body rather distracting.
Finally, they were both sitting on the bed with their respective devices. Morgan favored the scroll-like device originally designed by the United Earth Space Force and updated with Imperial technology—two five-centimeter cylinders that pulled apart to unroll a thin-screen tablet.
Rin’s communicator was sma
ller, a single five-centimeter cylinder that could set up holoprojected screens and keyboards. It could also, however, interface with his cybernetics and feed information to his retinas directly.
He couldn’t control the data without using the holocontrols—the Imperium wasn’t a fan of permanent neural interfaces, and his own study of how the Alava’s interfaces had killed them didn’t help—but he didn’t need a screen.
“Strange,” he and Morgan said simultaneously, then paused and looked at each other.
“You first,” he told her.
“I have a brand-new appointment with Fleet Lord Tan!Shallegh in a twentieth-cycle, right when I’m supposed to go on duty,” she told him. “There’s a notation here, advising me that both Wendira and Laian officers will be present, but it’s still listed as a private meeting.”
“That is strange,” he agreed. “Related to your analysis?”
“Probably, though gods know I’ve written enough reports that I don’t know what they think I can tell them that isn’t in the paperwork,” Morgan said. “What’s strange for you?”
“I have an invite to a private meeting with Princess Oxtashah,” Rin said. “We’ve spoken in private a few times since the peace conference, but I didn’t even know she was aboard Va!Tola.”
Morgan checked something on her communicator.
“She’s coming aboard now,” she told Rin. “I might even guess that she’s coming specifically to talk to you. That’s definitely strange.”
“And intimidating,” Rin admitted. “That woman may not be one of their Queens, but she’s a post-childbearing Royal caste of the highest bloodlines. She’s going to be one of the Queens, sooner or later.”
There were only ever thirty-two Queens, the oldest Wendira female Royal castes of eight specific bloodlines. Oxtashah was one of those lines—that was what gave her her authority—and was post-childbearing.
Eyes of Tomorrow (Duchy of Terra Book 9) Page 19