The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight

“This is Senior Ship’s Controller Hafely.” Hafely had the fixed expression characteristic of those executives who couldn’t conceive of doing anything contrary to directions. In Iceni’s experience, most executives like that couldn’t do anything without clear and detailed directions, either. “My ship is owned and operated by the Yegans Syndicate. I am under orders from my Syndicate not to deviate from my assigned transport movements except as required by authorities of the Syndicate Worlds or if threatened by Alliance raiders. I am continuing on my movements as scheduled by my Syndicate.”

“Not even a courteous sign-off at the end,” Iceni commented.

“Madam President,” Marphissa said, looking and sounding angry, “should I take appropriate action?”

“Oh, no, Kommodor. I want to respond to this individual personally. He needs to be motivated.” Another moment to prepare, then Iceni hit the transmit command once more and began speaking in a calm voice. “Senior Ship’s Controller Hafely, this is President Iceni of the independent Midway Star System. You seem to be under the mistaken impression that I care about your orders from the Yegans Syndicate. You also seem to think that you are not required to obey my orders. I will say this once, Senior Ship’s Controller Hafely. Listen carefully.”

Her voice had hardened and deepened, lowering slightly in volume. “I am in command of three heavy cruisers, six light cruisers, and eight Hunter-Killers. Any one of those units is capable of totally destroying your ship. If I do not as soon as possible receive an acknowledgment of your orders from me to assist the evacuees from the mobile forces facility, as well as your intent to obey those orders, and see your ship begin to carry out those orders, I will send one of my light cruisers to intercept your ship and obliterate it. But that cruiser will be under orders to attempt to ensure that you personally survive the destruction of your ship, so that you can be placed in an escape pod that will be launched on a vector that ensures it cannot be reached by anyone before its life support gives out.

“You have one remaining chance to get this right, Senior Ship’s Controller Hafely. You should be extremely grateful that I am giving you that chance rather than immediately ordering your execution for disrespect toward me.”

Her voice returned to calmness. “For the people, Iceni, out.”

Feeling tired, Iceni stood up. “Let me know if we don’t receive a positive reply from Senior Ship’s Controller Hafely within half an hour, and if we don’t see his ship begin to turn around to meet the citizens who evacuate from the facility. As soon as you see the ship begin to move, contact the mobile forces facility and tell them the merchant is coming to pick them up. Am I forgetting anything?”

“How do we ensure that the merchant actually takes them to the second planet?” Marphissa asked. “That might require detaching a warship to shadow the merchant until it gets there.”

She didn’t want to do that. It would tie up a warship for even longer than the commitments she was already dealing with. Iceni pointed at another symbol on the display. “That’s the light cruiser that wanted to go to, where was it, Cadez? Why haven’t they left?”

The comm specialist answered. “I’ve talked to them, Madam President. They have some people on the second planet that they wanted to pick up before they left, so they’ve been waiting around to see if the snakes would leave.”

“Good. Contact that light cruiser, Kommodor Marphissa. Tell them we chased away the snakes from the second planet, and tell them what I’ve ordered the merchant to do.” Iceni paused. Could she just order the light cruiser to do something? They might refuse, and she had no means of catching them to enforce an order. Giving an order you couldn’t enforce was a bad idea. It could make you look very weak, indeed. “Ask them if they will intercept that merchant and escort it to the second planet to ensure that the citizens from the mobile forces facility reach the planet safely.”

It all felt very . . . humanitarian. Hopefully, no one would interpret that as a sign of weakness in her. She needed the goodwill of whoever ended up ruling this star system and didn’t want to burn any bridges with any factions, that was all. That didn’t mean she would return the battleship, but it did mean issuing a few threats to save a few lives to earn the kind of intangible currency that could purchase important dividends in the future. “I’m going to work in my stateroom for a while.”

As Iceni left the bridge, with every intention of lying down and trying to rest, she noticed out of the corners of her eyes that the specialists all seemed to be happy for some reason.

* * *