The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight

“It is hard to believe, isn’t it? That was more than a hundred and fifty years ago. These were star systems that, back then, had been absorbed into the Syndicate Worlds recently enough that they still retained some individuality.” “Absorbed” was a nice way to describe what had actually been a conquest without combat of a small group of star systems next to both Syndicate and Alliance space that had foolishly tried to stand apart from both powers. Neutrals had been low-hanging fruit in those days, and the Alliance had been eager to avoid outright fighting. If the idiots running the Syndicate Worlds hadn’t attacked the Alliance they might have been able, over time, to similarly acquire control of minor coalitions like the Rift Federation and the Callas Republic. Instead, both had ended up associating actively with the Alliance during the war. What will happen to their supposed independence now? Iceni wondered. Will the Alliance formally take them over? Surely, they wouldn’t just let them go back to acting on their own. I should ask Black Jack about that when his fleet returns. He must be the one making that decision.

Iceni raised her forefinger to point to parts of the display. “As flotilla commander, you will be Kommodor Marphissa. Depending on their seniority, their sub-CEO or executive rank, individual warship commanders will be Kapitan First, Second, or Third rank, and below that the lower executives and subexecutives will be Kapitan-Leytenant, then Leytenant, and Leytenant Second rank, and, finally, the most junior will be Ships Officers.”

“I think this change will be welcomed,” Marphissa said. “It’s good that it’s not the same as that of the Alliance and is also different from the structure put into place by General Drakon. The mobile forces, I mean the warships, will like being distinct in that way.”

“Is any part of the new rank structure unclear?” Iceni asked.

“Is there no rank above Kommodor?”

Iceni laughed. “You’re already worried about that? Atmiral.”

“Atmiral,” Marphissa murmured, as if trying on the title.

“We need a few more warships before there will be any call for an Atmiral, Kommodor Marphissa.”

* * *

THEY were thirty light-minutes from the jump point for Kane. Iceni, seated on the bridge of the heavy cruiser, turned to Marphissa. “Kommodor, take the flotilla to the jump point for Kane and order all units to be prepared for action upon exit at Kane.”

“Kane?” Marphissa asked, plainly having expected Taroa. “Is there an estimate of what we may face there?”

“I will brief you when we have entered jump.”

That left five hours at point one light speed. Iceni stayed on the bridge, watching her display where the warships, moving at about thirty thousand kilometers a second, crawled across the vast distances inside a star system. At the same velocity, a journey to the nearest star, Laka, would require nearly twenty-five years.

The old and proven jump technology would allow the flotilla to reach Kane in about six days, though, taking a shortcut through a still-poorly-understood dimension in which distances were much shorter.

As they finally approached the jump point, Marphissa looked at Iceni. “Permission to proceed with jump to Kane?”

“Permission granted. All units are to be at combat readiness status one when we exit at Kane.”

“Yes, Madam President.” Marphissa passed along those orders to the other warships with them, then ordered the jump.

Iceni felt the odd twisting as the endless bright stars against an eternity of black space vanished. In their place, the outside views now showed the monotonous, dull nothingness of jump space. Though human ships had been transiting jump space for centuries, it had never been explored because there was no known way to explore it. Ships could not deviate from their paths between the small areas in space called jump points where jump space could be accessed from normal space. Human sensors could detect nothing except the gray void.

And the lights. As Iceni watched, one of the mysterious lights of jump space bloomed ahead. No one had ever learned what those lights were, what caused them, or what they meant, if anything. There were rumors and superstitions, of course. When Iceni was in normal space or on a planet, she inwardly mocked those who thought the lights were signs of some powerful otherness watching humanity. But when in jump space, a region where no human really belonged, Iceni always felt a chill inside when she saw one, as if she were gazing on something whose face could not be comprehended by the human mind. At such times her father’s old stories of the living stars seemed to have extra force.