On the bridge of the heavy cruiser Manticore, Kommodor Marphissa awaited her flotilla’s imminent arrival at Indras Star System. She had just come from speaking with Captain Bradamont, who had spent most of the time since leaving Midway in her stateroom, where her presence was least disruptive to the crew. When Admiral Geary’s fleet came through Indras on the way to Midway months ago, the star system was still firmly loyal to the Syndicate Worlds, Bradamont had repeated. They didn’t try to oppose our movement through Indras, but then they lacked the means to oppose us or stop us.
What was at Indras now? Had they gained more warships, more defenses? Was Indras still loyal to the Syndicate or had its leaders, or its people, struck off on their own as so many other star systems had in recent months? She, and the rest of the Recovery Flotilla, would learn the answers in a few minutes.
Her display had a row of green lights indicating full-combat readiness on Manticore. The other warships of the flotilla should also be as ready as they could be. The freighters could do little but hope that the warships could defend them.
“One minute,” the senior watch specialist informed Kapitan Diaz.
“We are ready, Kommodor,” Diaz told Marphissa.
“Let’s hope so,” she muttered in reply. For a moment, she wondered where former Kapitan Toirac was right now. On President Iceni’s orders, Marphissa had sent Toirac under guard back to the primary world at Midway. She had wanted to avoid seeing him again, but a sense of duty had driven Marphissa to be at the air lock when Toirac was escorted off of the ship, her last sight of him being his accusing eyes staring at her from a slack and unanimated face.
She shook her head to dispel the image from her mind as the flotilla left the hypernet with the usual lack of any sensory effect. One moment, nothing surrounded the flotilla in its bubble of something. The next, the bubble was gone, the stars shone upon them, and the flotilla was moving away from the gate at Indras.
“What are communications telling us?” she asked the comm specialist.
The woman was watching her screens intently and listening. “They’re still Syndicate, Kommodor. All of the message traffic I can see and hear is consistent with that. There are snake ciphers being used for some of it. We can’t read them. The snake ciphers we captured at Midway must have been superseded.”
That settled the matter since those messages had been sent hours before the arrival of the flotilla and so couldn’t be a deception designed to fool the newly arrived ships. Marphissa adjusted her suit. As much as she detested Syndicate uniforms, it had been necessary to don one for this performance, though it was a suit for a much higher rank than she had ever actually achieved.
She adopted the look of haughty superiority that she had seen so many times in Syndicate CEOs, then tapped her comm controls. “To the authorities at Indras Star System, this is CEO Manetas, commanding a flotilla en route to an internal security mission at Atalia Star System. I do not require your assistance at this time,” Marphissa drawled with as much arrogance as she could manage. President Iceni had stressed the need for that. Syndicate CEOs never ask, and they never show any trace of humility or weakness.
“For the people, Manetas, out.” It had taken a special effort to say “for the people” in the standard Syndicate manner, rapidly, with the words slurred together into the meaningless phrase it was for the leaders of the Syndicate.
She ended the transmission and inhaled deeply. “We’ll see how well that works.”
Diaz bent an amused look her way. “I’ll bet you never expected to wear a CEO suit.”
“Never expected and never wanted,” Marphissa said. “I feel unclean in this thing. But the imposture is necessary. We need to convince the authorities at Indras that we’re a legitimate Syndicate flotilla on our way to hammer Atalia. If we can do that, then even if they learn the truth when we show up again on way back to Midway, they won’t have time to activate the hypernet gate block, however that works.”
“They might be able to do it from here,” Diaz suggested.
“But they won’t, not without approval from Prime,” Marphissa insisted. “Do you think Prime is going to authorize anyone but themselves the power to shut down hypernet commerce and military movements? Indras will have to ask permission, and by the time they get it, we’ll be home at Midway.”
“I see your point,” Diaz admitted. “What if they see through us before we leave for Atalia?”
“Then we push on and hope the gate isn’t blocked when we get back,” Marphissa said. She pointed to her display. “All they have here in the way of mobile forces is two light cruisers and two HuKs orbiting thirty light-minutes from the star. Enough to overawe the local citizens but not enough to stop us, and not in any position to threaten us.”
Diaz licked his lips, his eyes on his display. “Should we destroy them? Try to lure the light cruisers and HuKs in close and take them out so the locals have a chance to rebel against the Syndicate?”
Marphissa hesitated, feeling a strong temptation to agree. It took a major effort of will to suppress the desire to say yes. “We can’t. We have a mission, a primary responsibility.”
“But—” Diaz began, turning a disappointed look her way.
“No. Listen. You’re in command of a warship now. You have to see the big picture. One part of that is, if something happens to us when we try to take out the Syndicate mobile forces here, or if our action provides enough notice for the hypernet to be blocked against our return, how do we get back? Who picks up the survivors from the Reserve Flotilla? We are their only hope for rescue from the Alliance camps where they are being held.”
“That’s true, Kommodor, but still—”
“And if we succeed, if we destroy all four Syndicate warships here, can the local citizens do anything? What about the ground forces? What about the snakes? You know the snakes plant weapons of mass destruction in cities as a last-ditch means of defeating rebellion.”
“I had heard that,” Diaz admitted.
“It’s true. President Iceni received a full briefing on what General Drakon’s soldiers found when they captured the snake headquarters. The snakes had nukes under every city on Midway’s primary world, and they were trying to set them off when General Drakon and his ground forces stopped them.”
“That could happen here,” Diaz said, his eyes hooded. “If the citizens aren’t ready, if they don’t have the ground forces on their side—”
“And if we start things rolling, the end result could be their cities vanishing into nuclear fire and rubble,” Marphissa concluded. “President Iceni and General Drakon planned and coordinated their rebellion. That’s why it worked. We can’t just jump-start another rebellion here.”
Diaz gave her an admiring look. “You’ve picked up a lot in a short time. It seems like only yesterday, you were an executive.”
“It was only yesterday in some ways,” Marphissa said. “And now look at me in a CEO suit! I can’t wait to get this thing off, but I have to see what kind of reply we get first. Do you want to know where I’m learning some of these things?”
“Sure.”
“From the Alliance officer.” Marphissa ignored Diaz’s jolt of dismay. “Captain Bradamont has been around a while longer than you and I, and she’s been a senior officer a lot longer, too. She’s had to think about these things, and she’s telling me about them.”
“If she’s telling you what to do—” Diaz began.
“No. She is showing me how to think! What I should think about. The big picture. What might happen, as opposed to what I might want to happen. The consequences of my actions. I knew some of this, even if I didn’t think in those terms, but she’s helping me understand. She wants us to win, Kapitan Diaz. Not because the Alliance has designs on Midway Star System, but because… well, she has personal reasons for wanting us to be free and strong.”