The Lost Stars: Tarnished Knight

SETTLING into her seat on the bridge of the heavy cruiser, Iceni called up a close-in look at the mobile forces facility. Though that was orbiting the gas giant just like the battleship, it was distant enough to be almost invisible around the curve of the planet and no threat to the ships with Iceni.

But something was definitely happening there. “We don’t have comms that might indicate what’s going on?”

“There’s fighting taking place,” the specialist currently occupying the operations console offered.

“Is there?” Iceni put all the crushing force of a CEO’s sarcasm into that reply.

Marphissa turned to face all her specialists. “Find out who is fighting and any indications of why. Someone on there must be talking to someone else.”

“President Iceni?”

“Yes, Colonel Rogero.”

“I understand there is fighting on the mobile forces facility. Will you require any of my soldiers to conduct operations there?”

That was a very reasonable question. Iceni felt like slapping herself at having forgotten for a moment that she had ground forces available.

But only three squads. And that mobile forces facility might not be large by shipyard standards, but it was damned big by most other criteria. “Do we have any idea how many people are on that facility?”

The operations specialist, perhaps trying to make up for his earlier gaff, answered her quickly. “That design should have a standard base-occupancy level of six hundred, with up to one thousand more possible based on current work under way.”

“I’ll need more ammunition,” Colonel Rogero said. “If that facility actually has that many workers on it.”

“There’s no sign of other ships being worked on,” Marphissa said. “If we could see inside the primary dock—”

“We have a blowout on the primary dock,” the operations specialist announced as the information flashed onto their displays. “Something blew up inside. Our systems are estimating a Hunter-Killer with partial core collapse.”

“That’s as good as a look inside. It means there is nothing inside that dock,” Marphissa said to Iceni. “Nothing left, that is. Nothing left of the dock, either.”

“Somebody was trying to get away,” Iceni guessed. “But who?”

“Madam President, we have a message for you from the facility.”

“Show me.” Iceni saw the window pop up before her, revealing a stern-looking woman in the uniform of a senior maintenance line worker.

“This is . . . this is Stephani Ivaskova. I am a free worker!”

Oh, damn. That’s not good.

“We have taken this facility from the ISS and from the Syndicate Worlds. Our workers’ committee is in charge. We want you to . . . to recognize our control!”

Iceni waited a moment longer to see if Free Worker Ivaskova was done, then replied. Since the orbiting mobile forces facility was only a couple of light-seconds distant, the delay in communications wouldn’t really be noticeable. “This is President Iceni of the Midway Star System. We have no reason to attack you as long as you refrain from any actions against us.”

“You . . . whatever president means, we don’t want any more CEOs or executives telling us what to do.”

“This isn’t my star system,” Iceni said. “I have no interest in trying to control anyone here.”

“You are holding property belonging to us,” Ivaskova declared. “We insist that you turn it over to our workers’ committee.”

“What property would that be?”

“The battleship.”

Iceni shook her head, keeping her expression unrevealing. “We took that battleship from the Syndicate Worlds, not from you. I intend keeping it. As soon as we know it’s safe to move, we’ll take it to Midway to finish readying it for full operational capability.”

Ivaskova turned her head, talking to what seemed to be more than one other person, the off-side conversation rendered deliberately unintelligible by the comm software. Based on the changes in Ivaskova’s expression and the way her gestures became more and more emphatic, the talk rapidly escalated into a vigorous argument of some kind.

“Workers’ committee?” Marphissa asked Iceni. “What is that?”

“Another word for anarchy. Workers’ committees are like a virus, Kommodor. A plague. We need to ensure that plague does not spread to our warships. Get our comm experts to work blocking every means of communicating with that facility except through one channel that you personally control.”

“The back doors—”

“Shut them down as fast as new ones open,” Iceni ordered. “This is top priority for your comm personnel.”

“Yes, Madam President.”

“And ensure that someone is watching the comm personnel to make sure that they aren’t talking to the workers’ committee either.”

As Marphissa worked, Ivaskova finally turned back to Iceni. “We demand the battleship.”

“Your demand is noted. Are any of your executives still alive?” Iceni asked, fairly sure that she could easily distract the workers’ committee.

“Uh, yes, a few. Most died, either fighting the snakes or fighting us, especially when the HuK in the main dock blew while they were trying to get away. We know that Sub-CEO Petrov died there.”