Midway had meticulously hammered about two-thirds of the hull of the enemy battleship when the enemy abruptly stopped firing.
“Hold fire,” Marphissa ordered.
Mercia didn’t look happy at the command. “The Syndicate battleship is still dangerous.”
“I know, but if he starts firing again, you can continue reducing his defenses.” Marphissa pointed to her display, where an image mostly covered with red damage markers represented the enemy ship. “If they are ready to surrender, we can use that battleship, even if only as a source of parts.”
“The snakes won’t surrender, Kommodor,” Mercia insisted.
“I know that,” Marphissa said. “The snakes on my ships didn’t surrender, either. We got rid of them. If the crew on that battleship has finally had enough, they may be eliminating the snakes aboard as we speak.”
“How long do you want me to wait?”
“I’ll let you know.” Marphissa ended the call, feeling annoyed. Mercia might have said she was ready to acknowledge Marphissa’s authority when everything was going her way, but when Marphissa’s orders had conflicted with Mercia’s desires, there had been some obvious friction.
They waited, watching the mauled Syndicate battleship roll and tumble slowly through space. “Are we seeing any signs of what is happening inside?” Marphissa asked.
“Nothing, Kommodor,” Senior Watch Specialist Czilla said. “No messages, no signs of activity, nothing being detected by our other sensors.”
Another five minutes crawled by, while Marphissa tried to decide how much longer to wait before ordering Mercia to open fire again. She felt a perverse desire to stretch out the time before such an order just to punish Mercia for being less than enthusiastically compliant, but rejected the thought. “If nothing happens in five minutes more,” she told Mercia, “you are authorized to resume firing.”
Mercia kept her expression and voice professionally dispassionate as she replied. “Yes, Kommodor. I will have Midway in position.”
With just two minutes to go, activity finally occurred.
“Escape pod launch from the Syndicate battleship,” Czilla reported. “Another… three… four more. They’re coming out fast, lots of them.”
“Get me contact with one of those pods,” Marphissa ordered. “I want to know who is abandoning ship and why. Kapitan Mercia, continue holding your fire until we learn what is going on.”
“I am not to target the escape pods?” Mercia asked.
“No. We do not— That is no longer policy, not where President Iceni has authority.”
“O brave new world that has such people in it,” Mercia said, citing the old quote usually used sarcastically. But she gave Marphissa a look that was anything but sarcastic or biting. “Sometimes I don’t know whether these new policies are real until I see what President Iceni’s people do when presented with opportunities to violate those policies.”
“I hope you approve,” Marphissa said, her tone sharper than she had intended.
“Yes, Kommodor. My apologies if earlier I did not act with sufficient respect.”
She seemed sincere enough, so Marphissa waved a dismissive hand. “It takes time to adjust to new situations.”
“It does indeed.”
As far as the escape pods from the Syndicate battleship went, it also took a little time, a few more minutes, to gain contact with one of them while Marphissa waited with growing impatience.
“We have a pod,” Manticore’s comm specialist announced.
“Show me,” Marphissa ordered.
The virtual window that popped into existence before her showed the interior of a standard Syndicate warship escape pod, this one packed with personnel. Looking over the figures she could see, Marphissa judged that all were workers since no portions of executive or sub-CEO outfits could be seen under their survival suits. “I am Kommodor Marphissa of the Free and Independent Midway Star System. Who are you?”
The workers nearest the vid pickup looked at each other, then one middle-aged man licked his lips and answered. “Line Worker Tomas Fidor. Propulsion Section Five. Maintenance Office One. Engineering Department.”
“What is happening on the battleship that you left?”
“We left… um… honored…”
“I am the Kommodor in command of Midway’s warships in this star system,” she said, hearing the snap of command enter her voice. “We are not Syndicate. I know that you left your battleship. I want to know why. Was an order given to abandon ship? Is there fighting going on inside that ship?”
Fidor nodded quickly, then shook his head. “No. I mean, yes. There was no order to abandon ship. The word was passed among the workers. There is fighting. The snakes, they are crazy. There are so many of them. A lot are dead, but we couldn’t get them all.”
“How many of the crew are left aboard?” Marphissa demanded. “How many snakes?”
The image fuzzed as something interfered with the signal, then cleared, showing the worker grinning nervously. “I don’t know. Everyone was trying to get off. Everyone but the snakes.”
“Where is CEO Boucher? Is she still alive?”
The worker’s face spasmed with hate. “She is still alive. No one can get to her.”
“Is CEO Boucher sealed into the bridge citadel?”
“Y-yes. No one can get in there. No one can get close.”
“What about the weapons-control citadel and the engineering control citadel?” Marphissa asked.
“Weapons was abandoned. Nobody there anymore. The weapons-integration systems crashed, and the weapons couldn’t fire from central control, so everyone left. Except some snakes, but they couldn’t do anything.”
Marphissa narrowed her eyes at the worker’s image. “What about engineering?” she pressed.
“Engineering? Um… engineering…”
“I am trying to decide whether or not to board that battleship to gain possession of it,” Marphissa lied. “I will be very unhappy if there is something I should know before that happens, and you do not tell me.”
“I— You don’t want to go aboard that unit! Just don’t!”
“They’ve done something,” Diaz said. “Before they left the battleship. Engineering specialist, are we picking up anything from the battleship?”
The engineering specialist standing watch on Manticore’s bridge answered immediately. “Minor fluctuations in the power core, Kapitan. That’s understandable given the amount of damage the battleship has sustained. Different systems will be erratically dropping online and off-line in ways that cause core fluctuations as it copes with the variations in power demand.”
“Is that the only explanation or the most likely explanation?”
The specialist did not hesitate. “The most likely, Kapitan. There is a chance it could also be early signs of instability in the core itself.”
“What did you do?” Marphissa asked the worker, her voice low but commanding.
“I did nothing!”
“What is about to happen?”
The worker’s expression visibly wavered with indecision.
“I can ask anyone else in any other escape pod,” Marphissa said, her tone now implacable. “If you plan on living, one of my ships has to pick you up. Now, give me a straight and clear answer with no further delays.”
“Y-yes, honored supervisor.” The man swallowed, looking terror-struck. “There’s a mechanism that the snakes installed. To cause an overload. After all the snakes in the engineering control areas died,” he said, phrasing it as if the snakes had all just suddenly dropped dead of their own accord, “we modified it.”