The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight

But naming it Midway, as Marphissa suggested, would avoid those problems. And if she acquired allied star systems, the next battleship or battle cruiser could be, say, Kane. That would stroke the egos of an entire star system. A useful thing to be able to do.

What about the smaller warships? The Alliance, it seemed, named its heavy cruisers for armor or fortifications or simply hard substances, like Diamond. The light cruisers were named for both offensive and defensive things, and the destroyers, larger than Syndicate HuKs but with the same kinds of missions, were named after weapons.

She needed that kind of category system but couldn’t use the Alliance system. No one would like that. What else was there? As she had with the rank system, Iceni called up historical files, searching for ships once associated with the Syndicate Worlds or parts of it that had names. She had to go back a long way, to the period when the star systems in this region were first being colonized, some by very long voyages from Old Earth itself to stake a human claim to as much space as possible at a time when there were worries about quickly encountering another intelligent species.

There were some names in those old historical files. A lot were human names, individuals whose meaning and onetime importance had been long since lost. Perhaps some of those names had belonged to politicians, but if so, their quest for immortality through that means had fallen far short of eternity.

But there were other names. Manticore, Basilisk, Gryphon. She knew some of those. Mythical creatures. Powerful mythical creatures. And the names were also linked to long ago, to the ships used by the ancestors that the crew members had covertly continued to worship despite official disapproval. Good. Very good. That took care of the heavy cruisers.

Phoenix. Iceni kept her eyes focused on that name, thinking about that creature. She had been increasingly bothered by the scorched-earth tactics of the snakes and even non-ISS types like the late CEO Kolani when they were cornered. The thought had already occurred to her that such people wanted to leave behind nothing that Iceni could use, nothing but ashes that would provide no benefit for the citizens of rebelling star systems.

But in mythology, the phoenix rose from ashes. A rebirth. That particular symbol was not for any one ship. No. She would hold that one ready, to symbolize what might become far more than one star system linked by association, ready to work together against their former masters and any other threat. They would build something new from the ashes of the Syndicate Worlds.

But that was a matter for another day. For now, what about names for the light cruisers? Iceni looked at her display in hope of inspiration. On the display, the detached flotilla still hung moving slowly against the image of this part of the star system. The projected vector for the flotilla curved toward the second planet, like the path of a bird of prey swooping down upon its victim.

A bird of prey? Hawk, Eagle, Raven? Was a Raven a bird of prey? Never mind. She liked the imagery.

That left the HuKs. What to signify with them? Something she wanted to encourage. But what? The sort of thing she had seen with Sub-Executive Kontos, standing sentry on the bridge of the battleship until relieved.

Standing sentry.

Sentry.

Sentinel. Defender. Guardian. Scout. Warrior. There were a lot of options there. And crew members who had been happy to be changed from being line workers to being called specialists would surely like the idea of their ships having similarly less generic titles.

Decision made. No bureaucracy to be consulted.

Iceni looked to Marphissa. “So, Kommodor, when do you want to be formally appointed the commanding officer of the battleship Midway?”

Marphissa’s face lit. “She will get a name?”

“Yes.” She. I guess that I’d better get used to hearing that.

“Madam President, I am honored beyond measure that—”

“Kommodor!” the operations specialist said. “Activity near the second planet!”

Iceni swiveled her gaze back to her display. An hour and a half ago, the snake-controlled warships had done something. But what?

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“ACCELERATING and vectoring away from the planet,” Marphissa commented after watching for a few minutes.

“What about shuttle activity to them?” Iceni asked. “There wasn’t any alert on that before they started moving.”

“There have been a lot of shuttle runs to those units ever since they achieved orbit. The half hour before they started moving had plenty, but not an unusual amount compared to the hours before that.”