The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight

He had fallen back into CEO speaking habits without even thinking, talking as someone whose words were not to be debated or questioned. And the Free Taroans, with a lifetime of conditioning to fear and obey, sat straighter as their smiles faded.

Colonel Malin stepped forward slightly, drawing everyone’s attention, sounding reasonable as well as firm. “As General Drakon said, we can no longer depend on Prime to pay for our defense. Instead, Prime has become a threat. We also have to deal with the enigmas. Yes, we are officially admitting that the enigmas exist and pose a threat to humanity. If they are to reach Taroa, they have to come from Pele, and through Midway. We must pay for the mobile forces to defend all of the star systems in this region out of our own pockets. Those mobile forces will be available to help defend you as well if we can reach the necessary agreements.”

“Mobile forces aren’t cheap,” Sub-CEO Kamara agreed. “And we have none,” she added for the benefit of the rest of the congress. “We’ve had a graphic demonstration of what the mobile forces under Midway’s control can do to help us. I think it would not be wise to balk at paying less than we have in the past for use of Midway’s hypernet gate when we are also gaining potential defenders as a result.”

“Speaking of defense,” another representative said, “we’ll be happy to accept control of the dockyards from you as soon as we can lift soldiers up there.”

“The dockyards?” Drakon asked.

A pause followed, then the representative spoke more cautiously. “Yes. The primary orbiting dockyards. They belong to us.”

“We took them from the Syndicate government,” Drakon replied. “They were never under control of the Free Taroans.”

Kamara was watching him, her eyes hard. “You’re going to keep them.”

“We have every right to keep them,” Drakon pointed out.

A woman representative burst out loudly. “You won’t be able to sustain that facility without support from this planet!”

“You’re not threatening me, are you?” Drakon asked. “What happened to ‘thank you for the victory that gave us this planet mostly intact’? What happened to your gratitude? We’re not taking anything that you ever possessed. If you want to talk about joint-use agreements, I’m sure we can come up with something, but control of those docks will remain in our hands.”

“Threats would be meaningless,” Kamara said, as much to the other representatives as in reply to Drakon. She leaned forward, hands clasped on the table, her eyes fixed on his. “We know that there’s a partially completed battleship in the main construction dock. I assume you intend keeping that as well.”

Drakon nodded. “There’s a lot of work yet to be done before it can even leave the dock, but once the battleship is finished, it will be an important part of the defenses for our star system. And yours, should you choose to work with us.”

“Choose?” someone asked scornfully. “We have no choices here.”

“Yes, we do,” Kamara corrected. “We had no choices before because all we could do was hang on against the Syndicate forces and the Workers United. Now we can decide how to deal with control of this planet, and the control of the star system that comes with that. The orbiting docks are critical, but we can’t take them by force, not when Midway’s ground forces and mobile forces protect that facility.”

“We give in to blackmail?” the first man cried.

“We deal with reality.”

No one replied to that for a while. Drakon waited, impressed by how well Kamara was herding the other representatives into handling the situation. She might end up in control of this star system on her own.

“There are strong grounds for negotiating the status of the orbiting docks,” another woman finally said, trying to look bold as her gaze flicked nervously toward Drakon. “Any forces from Midway that remain here to protect those docks will also, of necessity, protect us. Unfortunately, we are an interim government. We need to establish the exact form of our government, win the approval of the citizens for that, then hold elections for all offices. But it will be hard to gain the people’s acceptance for the loss of the partially completed battleship.”

“If I may suggest,” Malin said, sounding somehow even more reasonable than before, “there is no certain time for such a government to be established, while the dangers that face us all exist now, and the need to keep commerce active and revitalized in this region is also a current requirement. You might consider granting a group of trusted citizens such as yourselves the power to reach temporary agreements on matters such as trade and mutual defense, those agreements to be subject to eventual ratification by whichever government is finally established. That would ensure that the government you establish has the final word but also enable us all to pursue actions necessary to the good of the citizens in the meantime.”

The congress members looked interested and impressed by Malin’s words. “But, the battleship . . .” one pressed.