Fortitude (Scattered Stars: Conviction Book 4)

by Glynn Stewart

  “What do you need to know, Jade?” she asked.

  “You’ve only been here for two years, yes?” the banker asked. “And yet you now command a mercenary fleet that is arguably the third or fourth most powerful fleet in the sector? That seems to have been a…rapid rise, Commodore.”

  Kira snorted.

  “I arrived in this system with a recommendation for a lawyer, instructions to talk to John Estanza, and six not-quite-stolen nova fighters,” she told Jade. “I started flying for John Estanza off of Conviction and saw the first fight against the Costar Clans’ ‘Warlord Deceiver’ first-hand.

  “Until then, I didn’t buy the whole Equilibrium Institute spiel that John had,” Kira admitted. “But Davies—Warlord Deceiver—had multiple Mid Rim ships, nova fighters, even a class two nova-drive production line. Someone outside the Cluster had provided all of that.

  “And we captured a man who confessed to being an Equilibrium Institute agent,” she told Jade. “He tried to recruit me—and re-recruit Captain Estanza, who used to work for them.”

  There was a pregnant pause as Kira took a large swallow of her tea, then refilled it from the pitcher. She noted that Voski had retreated to lean against the entrance to the gazebo—still close enough to hear but far enough to secure their privacy.

  If Kira had been worried at all, though, she also noted that one of the servers had positioned themselves to watch the gazebo and Voski. As she picked up the glass of tea again, she half-saluted the commando over it—and got a thumbs-up back.

  She smiled. She thought she’d recognized the woman as one of the commandos who’d gone into Ypres with her.

  “I’m surprised you’d admit that Estanza worked for the Institute, if they’re all the Cluster says they are,” Jade finally said into the silence.

  “John Estanza, important as he was to me, is dead,” Kira said quietly. “He died saving this Cluster from the Equilibrium Institute. I would fail at the task he set me if I protected his memory over telling the truth.”

  She did not note that there were still other former Equilibrium agents in Memorial Force. Konrad Bueller had been recruited by the Institute and sent out to the Syntactic Cluster with K79-L, the cruiser that had become Deception, and she had several no-longer-blackmailed agents among her pilots and crew.

  “I see,” Jade allowed.

  “As for the rest of the last two years…” Kira shook her head. “K79-L was brought out here by an Equilibrium cover company. They used her to support the coup against the Ypres Hearth faction—and Institute agents murdered the president of Sanctuary to enable Hearth’s conquest of the system.”

  She smiled thinly.

  “Thanks to my mercenaries, and some Redward commandos, K79-L fell into friendly hands. My hands. Others dealt with the attempt to unify Ypres by force—and then Their Majesties helped birth the Ypres Federation as an alternative to conquest.”

  “Which almost brings us here, to a solidified Free Trade Zone and peace,” Jade noted. “You believe the Institute story, then?”

  “More than believe, Jade,” Kira said. “I have been the one providing proof and weaving the pieces together for Redward. Three times we have encountered Institute agents in the Cluster—the first time, supporting Davies; the second time, aboard K79-L, trying to unify Ypres by force.

  “The third time was when Queen Rossella Gaspari took control of Bengalissimo and waged war against the rest of the Cluster,” she concluded. “Gaspari was an Equilibrium agent herself, but the key player in that mess was Cobra Squadron—and Cobra Squadron, Em Jade, was always an Equilibrium asset.”

  “You sound very sure of that,” Jade noted drily.

  “John Estanza was a friend and mentor…and a former member of Cobra Squadron,” Kira pointed out. “Jay Moranis, on Apollo, was a friend and mentor and my commanding officer—and a former member of Cobra Squadron.

  “And Lars Ivarsson, who died aboard the assault carrier Equilibrium when John Estanza rammed Conviction into her, was Platinum Cobra, the commanding officer of the rebuilt Cobra Squadron—and the last person to attempt to recruit myself, John Estanza and some others I won’t name to the Institute.”

  The gazebo was quiet again. The sound of conversation from the rest of the party was more muffled than it should have been, suggesting that there was a lot more gear built into the unassuming structure than Kira had realized.

  “You are very passionate about this, Commodore Demirci,” Jade finally told her. “It is reassuring. It is easier to disbelieve the dry and measured words of politicians than the fury of a warrior who has lost friends.”

  “I’m glad,” Kira said grimly. “I’ve paid enough for that certainty.”

  “You have, and I apologize for doubting you,” the banker said. “I needed to be certain that the Institute was involved here. I thank you for your time, Commodore, though I have one more question, if you will indulge me with speculation.”

  Kira exhaled a long breath, intentionally forcing her shoulders to relax as she met the banker’s gray eyes. Jade’s expression was more sympathetic than she expected. The Crest enby was telling the truth, she realized, when she apologized.

  “Very well,” she told the banker.

  “Do you think the Institute is going to come back?” Jade asked. “My napkin-math estimate says they spent somewhere in the region of eighty trillion crests on their various projects here, and I’m likely underestimating that.”

  “Sunk cost,” Kira said bluntly. “I suspect the Institute has its fingers in a lot of different sectors across our region of the Rim. I hope that their influence isn’t spread across the entire Rim, but I don’t know.”

  Given that “the Rim” was every star system more than a thousand light-years and less than fifteen hundred light-years from Sol, Kira really did hope the Institute’s influence was limited to only a portion of it.

  “That said, my understanding is that the Institute is an entity of either the Heart or the Inner Meridian,” Kira continued. “The funds they’ve spent to almost destroy this Cluster are a rounding error for a decently sized operating entity of those regions.

  “But money they spend here isn’t money they spend influencing other regions—and if their Seldonian calculations say that a free trade zone like ours is doomed, then why not simply wait for us to fail? Then they can give the strongest of whoever is left a hand up to become what they think the region needs.”

  Something in Jade’s expression twisted at Kira’s words.

  “I see,” they said, in a tone that sounded vaguely ill. “And what do you believe they think the region needs?”

  “What they told me,” Kira said pointedly, “was that their Seldonian psychohistorical calculations showed that free trade zones and similar egalitarian structures are doomed to failure within two to three decades.

  “They believe that only strong central military-economic hegemons can maintain stability in a region. Anything else can only result in chaos and death on a massive scale, which clearly enables them to engage in the most immoral and vicious actions to avoid that.”

  Kira knew how much vitriol was dripping from her voice at the end—and Jade clearly picked up on all of it.

  “There are some believers in similar projections in the Bank of the Royal Crest,” they warned. “That is one of the impediments the SCFTZ is facing in their quest for financing arrangements.”

  “It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy at that point, doesn’t it?” Kira asked.

  “Not if I have anything to say about it,” Jade replied—and their tone told Kira there was more going on than the banker was telling her just yet.

  6

  The politically required parties added a degree of glitz and glamor to the life of a mercenary fleet commander, but even those were merely more decorative meetings in Kira’s mind. Her meeting aboard the battle station Green Ward the next day was more typical.

  She’d traded the dark jewel-green jacket of her dress uniform for a plainer black jacket. Ko
nrad and Zoric wore the same outfit—though only Zoric had insignia, wearing the stylized golden rocket that was the near-universal marker of a ship Captain.

  The Redward Royal Fleet officers they were meeting were similarly dressed, though their uniforms had a profusion of insignia. In theory, at least, only two of the six officers didn’t match or exceed Kira’s rank.

  On the other hand, no one in the room was going to pretend that Kira didn’t stand on the same level as an RRF Vice Admiral these days, let alone the two Commodores or the Rear Admiral in the room.

  Kira didn’t know any of the RRF officers in the room well, though Vice Admiral Saga Idowu was known to her by reputation and role. The dark-skinned woman ran the Redward military shipyards—Konrad knew her significantly better than Kira did, as he’d been working through recurring contracts with the yards.

  “Commodore, Captain, Commander,” Idowu greeted them as an aide poured coffee for everyone.

  A sniff confirmed that it wasn’t Astonishing Orange, Kira’s preferred purchasable Redward coffee brand, but it also wasn’t Redward Premium Choice, the planet’s main export brand.

  While Premium Choice was drinkable to most people, Kira had been spoiled since arriving in Redward, and the export brand was mediocre at best by the system’s standards. Whatever variety Idowu was serving was decent, though not fantastic.

  “I wanted to touch base, first and foremost, and get your impression of the new Parakeet-class ships,” Idowu told Kira after everyone had started their coffees. “You have a quarter of them and, from what I understand, they have now seen action under your command?”

  “Action might be stretching it,” Kira admitted with a chuckle. “Captains Michel and McCaig ran down a pirate near New Ontario, but they had her so outclassed, it barely qualified as a fight.

  “That is a recommendation all on its own, I suppose.” She paused thoughtfully. “The ships are maneuverable and their sensors and targeting systems are good. We didn’t have to test their defenses, but their optical systems were enough to disable a freighter at a hundred thousand kilometers with a single shot.

  “My comparison point is such that most Syntactic Cluster ships come up short, Admiral Idowu,” she warned. “But the Parakeets are much less so than most things I’ve seen out here. An Apollo ship has better miniaturization, which allows them to simply pack more into the same volume.

  “Without the ability to include that extra Harrington coil or to put in that heavier plasma cannon, I’d say the Parakeets are as good as you’re getting out here.”

  At least one of the Commodores—Kira’s headware said her name was Rachel Ermacora—looked positively mutinous at Kira’s comments but remained silent at a sharp look from her superior.

  “I appreciate your bluntness, Commodore,” Idowu said with a chuckle of her own. “Part of the sale agreement, of course, was that your Captains would provide their impressions and sensor records.”

  She left that hanging and Kira swallowed a grouchy response.

  “Of course,” she finally said. “I will make certain that Captains Michel and McCaig pass on their reports to your people.”

  “That is all we ask,” the Admiral said with a slight nod. “We’ve already begun construction on the second wave of Parakeets, but we’re still early enough that changes can be made.”

  Konrad coughed next to Kira and she managed not to twist in her seat to look questioningly at her partner. There was clearly something he was prodding the Admiral on.

  “In terms of general background information for you to be aware of as part of your defensive contract, Commodore, we are expanding the yards underneath the Green Ward,” Idowu told her.

  The Green Ward was one of several massive asteroid fortresses that orbited Redward. Most inhabited systems had defensive stations of a similar ilk, vastly outmatching any nova ship that could be deployed by a comparable power.

  Attacking an inhabited star system was a long way to commit suicide. Nova warships fought over trade-route stops, the mapped points that were safe to nova to, not star systems.

  Most relevant to Kira, though, and likely the reason Konrad was poking the RRF Admiral, was that the Green Ward yards contained the three slips where the RRF was building their new capital ships. As part of the deal that had seen her keep Deception, Konrad Bueller had helped the RRF’s engineers develop a 12X class one nova drive.

  A class one nova drive couldn’t be smaller than one thousand cubic meters—and the standard unit was a 10X unit, creating a ten-kilocubic ship. No one in the Rim, so far as Kira knew, had managed to build a class one that was larger than ten thousand cubic meters.

  Redward hadn’t even been up to that size when Konrad had got involved—but he’d changed all of that, allowing them to build a ten-thousand-cubic-meter 12X nova drive. And with that drive, a one-hundred-and-twenty-thousand-cubic-meter capital ship.

  Three had been under construction for well over a year. They still had nearly a year left, but one of those slips was supposed to be used to build Kira a new carrier when it was ready.

  “You’re building new one-twenty yards?” she asked.

  Redward already had smaller yards, currently building less-rushed versions of the Baron-class cruisers that had defeated the Bengalissimo and Equilibrium fleets. Without an active blockade, there was no reason to accept the outright dangerous pace that had built the first generation of those light cruisers.

  “We are,” Idowu confirmed. “Making sure that those yards remain protected will be a key strategic and operational objective if this system comes under attack, hence briefing you on them. While the Green Ward is capable of withstanding most threats, a surprise nova-fighter strike remains a concern.”

  All of which was true, Kira reflected, but didn’t cover what she was thinking of. Konrad had almost certainly been involved in the process of laying out the new building slips and new ship designs—and he had clearly been thinking of accelerating Memorial Force’s access to a new carrier.

  Raccoon’s limitations were very much holding the organization back at the moment, and all of Kira’s officers were daydreaming of the day they would have a real carrier again.

  So, she smiled at Admiral Idowu.

  “Forgive my forwardness, Admiral, but the Redward yards are committed to providing Memorial Force with a one-hundred-and-twenty-kilocubic fleet carrier,” she said. “Given this expansion of the yards, I expect that one of those slips will be put at our disposal for that project?”

  There was a long silence as the RRF officers traded looks, then Idowu sighed and took a long swallow of her coffee.

  “I am not aware of the exact details of the agreement between yourself and Their Majesties on that point,” she noted. “The specification that I was advised of was that we would build you a carrier, at cost, once our own capital-ship needs are met.

  “We currently have no one-twenty kilocubic ships in commission, so it is impossible to claim that our capital-ship needs have been met,” Idowu concluded. “These new yards have already been flagged for the construction of two new battlecruisers and a fleet carrier for the Redward Royal Fleet.

  “Once our first wave of construction is done and we have commissioned capital ships of our own, then—and only then—will we be able to spare heavy construction yards for the construction of capital ships for sale, even to valued and close friends such as Memorial Force.”

  There was a long pause, long enough to make it clear that Idowu had hoped to brush over that aspect of the situation.

  “Which does bring us to the main point of this meeting, of course,” she noted with what Kira suspected was false calm. “While most of our current construction is spoken for, we will have both seventy-five-kilocubic and thirty-kilocubic slips coming up available in the next six months, and you are on the very short list of organizations we are authorized to sell warships to…”

  “That void-frozen lying chunk of iced waste.”

  Kira had felt Konrad seethe the whole way back to t
he shuttle, but it wasn’t until they were back on their own spacecraft that the engineer let loose.

  “Bueller?” Zoric asked carefully.

  “I helped them design the new yards, even make some refinements on the battlecruiser and carrier designs,” Konrad told the two women. “I’m sure you both figured that. I’ve been doing contract work on the side for the yards whenever we’re in-system.

  “I kind of felt like I owed them that, after I drafted the plans that got so many workers killed.”

  Kira squeezed his arm. The rushed construction program that had put three Baron-class cruisers into commission for the war against Bengal had been hard on her lover. He’d worked with Redward’s shipbuilding leaders and workers to assemble a plan that maximized efficiency…at a conscious sacrifice of worker safety.

  No one had worked on those ships without knowing that was the deal, but Konrad had been the one making the final calls—and hundreds of workers had died to build those ships.

  She wasn’t sure he’d ever forgive himself for that.

  “But…the big yards, I pushed back a bit,” Konrad said. “I know we’re a bit trapped here until we get that carrier, so I thought I’d got a commitment that we’d get a shot at one of those slips.”

  “And?” Kira asked.

  “Idowu is very careful in her damn phrasing,” the engineer snapped. “When we’ve met our own needs. Gods. That…”

  “Breathe, Konrad,” Kira said with a long sigh.

  “After everything we’ve done for them, they pull that on us?” Zoric demanded. “‘Just for your information, we have new yards that could get you what we promised but we’re not making them available to you?’”

  Both of Kira’s main subordinates were apparently spitting nails. Kira didn’t even disagree with them, but there was only so much they could do.

  “Yeah, that was…frustrating of them,” Kira admitted. She’d barely managed to keep her own focus on the meeting after that. “We did get them to commit to putting one of the seventy-five-kilocubic yards at our disposal.”