The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight

Something didn’t feel right, and Iceni finally knew what it was. “They’re trying to warn us off. We’ve ignored the warn-offs. You know how things work. If the first admonition or threat doesn’t work, you escalate until you find something that the other side has to pay attention to. What do they have that we would have to pay attention to?”

Marphissa’s frown only lasted a moment. “A battleship.”

“Yes. If they swing out that battleship and say ‘Stay out, this is a restricted area,’ even CEO Janusa would have to listen. They haven’t done that yet, though.” Neither had the flotilla commander replied to her direct order to contact her. That was also odd. “Still not a word from any unit in that other flotilla?”

“No, Madam President. Nothing.”

Iceni frowned. “When I was executive rank and even sub-CEO, that would have been very unusual. We always contacted by back channel other units we encountered to pick up the latest unauthorized information so we could anticipate events or prepare personal defenses against negative actions.” But no one in their right mind would ever have admitted to a superior that they did it. She had sometimes wondered how much more the Syndicate Worlds might have accomplished if its executives didn’t expend so much effort working internal politics. The war had often seemed to take a backseat to inner power struggles.

“Really?” Kommodor Marphissa asked, trying to project surprised innocence. “If that sort of thing still happened, and of course I’m not saying it ever does, but if it somehow did, I would expect it to happen under these circumstances. But it hasn’t.”

“Somebody has even the back doors locked down,” Iceni mused. “Have the snakes slaughtered the crews on those warships like they did on HuK-6336?”

“If they did, they could be at a disadvantage in a battle. They’ll only be able to operate the units using automatic controls since they might lack the crew to do the jobs otherwise.” Marphissa eyed her display. “Or there could have been a revolution, and the crews of those units don’t want to give themselves away to us since we have superior numbers.”

“All possibilities.” Iceni stabbed an internal comm control. “Colonel Rogero, have you been monitoring ground forces communications in this star system?”

“Yes, Madam President.”

From the way he always carried himself and spoke, Rogero seemed to be even more professional than Drakon’s praise had indicated. It made all the more mysterious his lapse in getting emotionally involved with an enemy officer. Unless that enemy officer was something truly exceptional herself. And there’s no sense asking Rogero that question because if he’s in love, he’ll think she’s the only woman like her that has ever been or will ever be. Love has far too negative an impact on anyone’s ability to think clearly. “Is there anything out of the ordinary at all?”

“Only one thing. All communications appear to be routine.”

“And that is out of the ordinary?” Iceni asked.

“It is when we’re here, Madam President. There should have been some reaction, some discussion, something to reflect our presence. There has been nothing.”

“Can you tell me what that means, Colonel?”

“No. It is unexpected and unusual. That’s all I can say. Wait.” Rogero had turned and was talking to someone else, then faced Iceni again. “My comm analyst has found no signs of comms with any ground forces that might indicate those forces are aboard a battleship near the gas giant. They wouldn’t be communicating directly with such forces if they wanted to hide their presence from us, but there are always leaks in other comms where someone references supplies or a personnel movement or something else that compromises the secret. We haven’t seen anything like that.”

“So all we will face are crew members?” That was good news.

“Madam President, it appears unlikely that there are any ground forces aboard that mobile unit, but if a force of vipers or other snakes is on that battleship, we wouldn’t be able to tell. The ISS is very good at concealing information within apparently routine communications.”

Perhaps not good news after all, then. “I appreciate your assessment, Colonel. We will be at the gas giant in twenty hours. How long will it take your soldiers to board the shuttles when I order an assault on the battleship?”

“Two minutes. We will be armored up and ready.” Rogero hesitated. “You do realize that if a major portion of the battleship’s weaponry is active, our shuttles will not survive to reach the mobile unit. A shuttle’s survival time on that kind of an approach is measured in seconds.”

“I understand.” She hadn’t realized the odds against the shuttles would be that bad, but it probably depended upon just how much of the battleship’s weaponry had been activated.