The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight

There was also no way to send messages between warships, or any means of communication with the regular universe. Secrets could not be compromised. “Kommodor, it is time to discuss our mission.”

To her credit, the new kommodor took the news without flinching. “A battleship?”

“Yes.”

Marphissa made an uncertain gesture. “This should be . . . interesting.”

“Yes,” Iceni repeated, hoping that it wouldn’t be too interesting.

Six days later, the heavy cruiser at full combat alert and Marphissa looking fiercely determined, the flotilla prepared to exit at Kane. “If the battleship is combat ready and anywhere near that jump point,” she commented to Iceni, “then the result will be a short battle indeed.”

“Are you ready to find out, Kommodor?” Iceni asked, trying to look and sound completely confident.

“Yes, Madam President.”

The gray nothingness of jump space was replaced by stars and blackness, Iceni struggling to overcome the effects of exiting jump so she could focus eyes and mind on her display and learn what awaited them at Kane.

CHAPTER NINE

ALARMS sounded on the cruiser, targeting systems that hadn’t been impacted by the transition from jump space locking on to the large ship near the jump exit but waiting for human approval before they fired. Using tricks she had learned long ago, Iceni managed to fight off the disorientation caused by jump exit and grimly focused on her display.

There was something big there, all right.

Nervous laughter erupted on the bridge as everyone else recovered enough to view their own displays.

“A freighter,” Marphissa said. The huge, boxy merchant ship loomed within less than a light-minute of the jump point, clearly headed outward with its cargo. The Syndicate Worlds might be collapsing, violence and economic uncertainty might be breaking out everywhere, but business was still business. “Should we intercept it?”

“No,” Iceni replied. “We need trade to continue in this region. We need to encourage people to trade with us. Wish the freighter’s crew well and assure them that Midway remains safe for everyone who wishes to do business there.”

While Marphissa did that, Iceni studied her display. They had arrived at a jump point only five light-hours out from the star Kane, whose solar system was smaller in diameter than that of Midway’s. The nearest planet to the flotilla was only twenty light-minutes away, far enough from the star’s warmth to be very cold indeed. Closer in to the star were two gas giants, one at three light-hours from the star and another one and a half light-hours out. Beyond them, close enough to Kane to benefit from the heat of the star, were three inner planets, one a bit too cold for comfortable human habitation, one a bit too hot, and the third, at only seven light-minutes from Kane, just right in human terms. It was that planet that held the bulk of the human presence in the star system, in towns and cities clinging to the edges of continents that remained mostly unsettled.

But it was that gas giant one and a half light-hours from the star that held Iceni’s attention. She could see the mobile forces facility orbiting that gas giant and see one of the large moons that also orbited the planet, but there was no sign of the battleship. Either it truly was hidden behind the curve of the planet, or her information had been false and the mission a fool’s errand.

It would be nearly five hours before the people on Kane’s main inhabited world saw the arrival of the flotilla, but Iceni knew she should send them a message to arrive at about the same time as the light showing the arrival of the warships. What the message should be had depended on what she found when they arrived here.

“No fighting apparent anywhere in the star system,” Kommodor Marphissa commented. “Only peaceful communications and movement detected.” She pointed. “But we do have opposition to worry about.”

About four light-hours from the flotilla, orbiting Kane close to where the gas giant swung about the same star, were several warships. “One heavy cruiser, three light cruisers, and six Hunter-Killers,” the operations specialist confirmed with unusual speed. Since Iceni had ordered their line worker ratings changed to specialist designations, the morale of the crew had shot upward remarkably.