The Lost Stars: Shattered Spear (26 page)

Diaz nodded back, his expression serious. “We will die defending this star system, Kommodor.”

She shook her head at him. “I don’t want you to die defending this star. I want you to kill anyone who attacks it. Are you clear on that?”

Diaz’s sober face split into a grin. “Yes, Kommodor. They are to die, not us. I understand and will comply.”

“See that you do. The defense of Midway Star System will be in your hands once this flotilla jumps for Iwa, but we’ll be out of position to stop attacks coming in from some vectors well before that. Listen to Captain Bradamont, but also listen to your gut. You’ve got good instincts.”

“Thank you, Kommodor. Give Granaile Imallye my respects when you kick her butt back to Moorea.”

“I’ll do that.” Marphissa ended the call and tried to relax, feeling suddenly small and far too inexperienced for this command. That sensation only lasted a moment, though. She had fought and beaten the Syndicate. She had fought and beaten Imallye. She had outwitted the enigmas and snatched stranded ground forces soldiers from right under their noses. If they had noses. And she had the confidence of not only Captain Honore Bradamont, one of Black Jack’s own battle cruiser commanders, but also that of President Iceni.
I will not be overconfident, but I think I have every right to feel qualified for this command!

She touched the flotilla command circuit control. “All units in the Midway Offensive Flotilla, at time two zero come port three five degrees, down zero four degrees, and accelerate to point one five light speed. Marphissa, out.”

The small multitude of warships swung around under the push of their thrusters, lining up on the same vector, then accelerated together toward the jump point for Iwa Star System. Every ship maintained its position relative to the battleship
Midway
, which formed the physical guide of the flotilla as well as its figurative heart.

The cruisers and Hunter-Killers of the Midway Guard Flotilla split away from the others, one group heading to an orbit guarding against attacks from the hypernet gate or the jump point from Pele Star System, and the other group moving to take up position to guard against
Syndicate attacks from most of the other jump points that Midway boasted. In terms of commerce, those many jump points were a major blessing. In terms of defense, they were a major headache. But Kapitan Diaz would be able to handle whatever came up, Marphissa was certain. And if he needed any advice, Captain Bradamont would be there with him.

But, still, she worried. The Syndicate had surprised them more than once already, and the Syndicate wanted Midway back very badly. If the CEOs running the remnants of the Syndicate had heard that most of Midway’s warships were heading to Iwa, they might make another attempt at reconquering the star system.

Though any reconquest would also require getting past General Drakon and his ground forces. That thought reassured Marphissa quite a bit.

*   *   *

TWO
and a half days later, Captain Bradamont saw the Midway Offensive Flotilla vanish as it had entered jump space about three hours before. In the seat next to her sat Kapitan Diaz. On most of the warships in Midway’s fleet, she would still be eyed with suspicion and even hatred by many in the crew, but not on
Manticore
. Bradamont had become theirs, by that odd process of comradeship that forged bonds where none ought to exist. She knew it, too, acting calm and cheerful around the specialists instead of tense as she usually was on other ships.

But Bradamont was all business at the moment. “Assume that they’re going to come,” she warned Diaz.

“The Syndicate or the enigmas?”

“The Syndicate,” she said. “From what we’ve seen of the enigmas, they focus on one objective at a time. Right now, that would be Iwa. Once they have that installation working they’ll be able to bring in warships. I warned Kommodor Marphissa to expect enigma ships to conduct reconnaissance of Iwa so they’ll know if humans try to retake
the star system. Hopefully, she’ll have finished with Imallye before any more enigmas show up. So what we have to worry about is Syndicate Worlds attacks coming in either through the hypernet gate or one of the jump points from stars they still control. I would advise telling Kapitan Stein to patrol closer to the hypernet gate so she can intercept whatever comes out of it faster.”

“And if the enigmas do show up?” Diaz asked, then answered his own question. “I can’t defend every possible entry into this star system with the warships I have. I have to prioritize. That’s what you mean? So if Kapitan Stein takes
Gryphon
and her other ships nearer the hypernet gate, where should I prioritize do you think?”

“In my experience fighting the Syndics—Damn, sorry, I mean the Syndicate Worlds,” Bradamont corrected herself, angry that she kept slipping up by using the insult when talking to the people it had once been aimed at, “they tended to keep using the same lines of attack.”

“That’s so,” Diaz agreed, showing no sign of offense at Bradamont’s gaffe. “It wasn’t official doctrine, but in practice we would often be ordered to repeat attacks using the same approach and tactics. Syndicate CEOs think that if they make you do the same thing over and over, sooner or later the results will be different.”

“Then would the next Syndicate assault come through the jump point from Lono?”

“Very likely,” Diaz said. “Not just because of pursuing the same approach, but because the Syndicate can route forces to Lono through Milu Star System. That’s a pretty easy hop from the hypernet gate at Rota Star System. I could have figured all of that out by myself, couldn’t I?”

“You could have,” Bradamont agreed. “All I did was walk you through the steps to get there so you’ll know how to work it out by yourself next time.”

That’s what she was supposed to be doing, preparing these people to stand on their own once the orders Admiral Geary had given her were
changed and she was ordered to return to Alliance space. Bradamont had no doubt that would happen sooner or later, and little doubt that when she got back to the Alliance whoever had threatened to blackmail her would once again threaten her. She had never been a spy for the Syndicate Worlds, never wavered in her loyalty to the Alliance, but the Alliance’s own intelligence services had ordered her to play at that in hopes of using her relationship with Rogero to get secrets from the Syndicate. And the relationship with Donal Rogero had always been true, even if neither of them had ever expected any opportunity to pursue it.

She had given her adult life to serving the Alliance, and had fought hard on its behalf. Once, there had only been two real options, either the Alliance or the Syndicate Worlds, and Bradamont would never have turned to the enemy. But now there was Midway, which had been the enemy but was now working very hard to become something much more like the Alliance. Midway, which had good leaders, citizens happy with those leaders, men and women willing to fight for their freedom, and Donal Rogero. The taint of the Syndicate Worlds would take a long time to fade, but these people were trying. They were already partners of the Alliance in every way that mattered.

Could she go home when ordered, pursuing the same paths that duty had once demanded?

She still wore the uniform of the Alliance, but her loyalties were shifting. Not against the Alliance, but to include something else as well.

*   *   *

JUMP
space should have been tailor-made for meditation, Asima Marphissa thought. However wide across jump space was, the entirety of it was composed of gray nothingness. No human had ever detected anything else. In jump space, there was no external world to distract the senses.

There were the mysterious lights that came and went without any detectable pattern. The lights would flare into existence amid the gray
nothing, then fade again. Human instruments could detect the visual light coming off them, but nothing else, no heat or radiation or other hint as to what caused the lights.

Marphissa had heard from Bradamont that Alliance sailors considered the lights to have religious meaning. The Syndicate, of course, had no use for metaphysics, so the Syndicate had officially declared the lights to be just illusions created by human senses.

Marphissa sat in her stateroom aboard the battle cruiser
Pele
, watching her display where the outside view showed grayness and the occasional flare of a light that could be a million light years away or within touching distance. No one knew. All she knew for certain was that the view of jump space brought with it no sense of peace or harmony.

Her living area aboard
Pele
was a ridiculously large and well-appointed stateroom intended for someone of CEO rank. Marphissa, rapidly promoted from a midgrade executive rank, thought it far too pretentious. She thought she had grown accustomed to her rank as Kommodor, but that had been mostly within the confines of the heavy cruiser
Manticore
. Nothing aboard
Manticore
had this much luxury to it. She felt out of place.

Maybe her discomfort wasn’t rooted in the fact that jump space made humans increasingly uncomfortable and uneasy as days went by. Maybe it was because she still did not feel qualified for her responsibilities. The fate of Midway Star System rested in her hands. It was not a comfortable feeling, no matter what kind of stateroom she might be occupying or what kind of space existed outside the hull of this battle cruiser.

“Kommodor.” The image of Kapitan Kontos appeared next to her display. “I wish to inform you that we will leave jump space in one hour. My ship will be at full combat readiness when we arrive at Iwa, per your instructions.”

Marphissa tried to rouse herself from her reverie. “Thank you, Kapitan. I will be on the bridge in one half hour.”

“Yes, Kommodor. I am sorry to have disturbed your planning for our actions upon arrival.”

She couldn’t help smiling at that. “All you disturbed, Kapitan, was my attempt to understand something.”

“Something related to this battle cruiser?” Kontos asked.

“No. Something related to us. To humans.” Marphissa took another glance at the outside display as another mysterious light bloomed. “Why is it, Kapitan, that no matter how long the journeys we humans take, no matter how strange the places we go, we always manage to take all of our baggage along with us?”

Kontos looked baffled, then his expression cleared. “You mean emotional baggage. Even the Syndicate never figured out a system inefficient enough to allow us to lose that in transit!”

“Well, I fully intend losing some of mine at Iwa,” Marphissa said. “I’m going to unload it on whatever is waiting for us there.”

*   *   *

A
half hour later she was on the bridge, waiting through the final minutes before arriving at Iwa.

Marphissa had expected to find at Iwa Star System either a flotilla of Granaile Imallye’s warships laying claim to the star, or a force of enigma warships ready to defend their own possession of the star.

But as she shook off the mind-blurring effects of leaving jump space, Marphissa saw something else on her display, which was rapidly updating as the sensors on
Pele
and the other Midway warships tried to spot every change at Iwa since
Manticore
had left.

“Syndicate,” Kontos commented in wondering tones. “They didn’t care enough about Iwa to defend it when they controlled it, but now that they’ve lost it, they want it back.”

“Apparently they do,” Marphissa agreed. “And that is just like the Syndicate. The bureaucracy screws up and then they send citizens like you and me out to fix things.”

The Syndicate flotilla, which was about three light hours from the newly arrived Midway flotilla and barely twenty light minutes from the formerly inhabited world that was now the site of the hidden enigma base, contained an impressive mix of warships for the overextended Syndicate. Two battle cruisers, five heavy cruisers, a light cruiser, and nearly twenty Hunter-Killers, plus three troop carriers and four freighters.

“Kapitan Kontos, the Syndicate flotilla came in from Palau Star System,” the senior watch specialist on
Pele
’s bridge announced. “Their vectors track right back to that jump point.”

“Why so much for Iwa?” Marphissa wondered. Before Kontos could reply, a call came from Iceni. “We have company, Madam President.”

“Yes,” Iceni said, looking unruffled by the unexpected development. “I doubt this was originally intended for Iwa. The Syndicate was probably marshaling forces at Palau to strike at either Midway or at stars controlled by Imallye’s forces. They might have even come here along a planned attack route to hit either Midway or Moorea, but are now moving to reestablish a Syndicate base on that planet.”

“How would they know about the underground enigma base there?” Marphissa asked. “Our sensors have been studying the planet and we can’t detect anything now even though we know where it is.”

“I seriously doubt that the Syndicate forces know about the alien facility,” Iceni said.

“Kommodor?” Kontos interrupted. “The Syndicate flotilla is maneuvering. It can’t be in response to us. They won’t see us for another two and a half hours.”

Both Marphissa and Iceni fell silent as everyone waited to see what the Syndicate forces had done. “They’re coming around hard,” Marphissa finally murmured.

“Maximum push on their thrusters,” Kontos agreed. “They must have seen something that we haven’t yet.”

“The Syndicate flotilla is accelerating at the maximum rate the freighters with it can manage,” the senior watch specialist advised.

“Heading back toward the jump point for Palau,” Kontos said. “Something scared them. Imallye?”

“I hope not,” Iceni said. “If Imallye has brought a big enough force to Iwa to scare a flotilla of that size, we’re going to have some trouble dealing with it ourselves.”

The image of Kapitan Mercia appeared beside that of President Iceni. “If the Syndicate flotilla had seen some force of Imallye’s arriving from Moorea, then we should have seen it by now as well. Whatever they saw is way on the far side of the star system from us.”