Another message flashed fromIllustrious ‘s transmitters.
“This is Squadron Commander Michi Chen to all ships in the Aspa Darla system. All crews are to abandon ship immediately. All ships in this system are to be destroyed. We will not fire on lifeboats.”
Missiles began firing shortly thereafter, to reinforce this order.
Time passed. It was becoming clear that the Naxids had no warships in this system.
“Message from Captain Hansen ofLord May, my lady,” said Lady Ida Li. “He…seems rather irate.”
Martinez saw a tight smile on Michi’s face. “Very well,” she said. “I’ll hear him.”
Lord May’s captain was a composition in scarlet: red hair, bristling red beard, red face, and bloodshot eyes that suggested Chenforce’s arrival had interrupted a bout of serious drinking. “Don’t kill my ship, damn you!” he boomed in a roaring voice that made Martinez wince and reach to turn down the volume on his earphones. “Ihate the fucking Naxids, there was just no damn way to get out of their clutches till now! I’m heading for Wormhole One—just tell me where the fuck to go from there!”
Lord Maywas in fact the closest ship to Chenforce, outbound from the system to Koel, and looked right down the throats of the oncoming missiles.
Martinez watched the smile play over Michi’s lips. “I’ll answer that one,” she said, and then touched controls on her comm display and looked into the camera pickup. “Captain Hansen, you will set a course Koel-Mazdan-Protipanu-Seizho. If you deviate from this you will be destroyed. From Seizho you may wish to continue into the Serpent’s Tail, as Seizho is dangerously near the enemy. Message ends.” Then she looked up at Martinez. “Captain, will you tell Command to retarget that missile?”
Martinez felt a smile break out on his lips. “At once, my lady.” He had a feeling that Aspa Darla was going to be lucky for him.
Martinez’s equilibrium had been restored during the long crossing of the Mazdan and Koel systems. There had been no nightmares ofBeacon ‘s loss, no lonely episodes of doubt or terror. The crew were cheerful, and the officers congratulatory, and gradually Martinez’s fury atBeacon ’s loss had faded. Even Captain Lord Gomburg Fletcher invited him to dine, alone without any of the other officers present, and endured Martinez’s accent for two entire hours without so much as a wince. Martinez tried to avoid being “clever,” on the theory that cleverness was what Fletcher would appreciate least. For the most part they discussed sports. Fletcher, like Martinez, had been a fencer at the academy.
After it was clear that no enemy warships lurked in the Aspa Darla system, Michi stood most of the crew down from action stations. Martinez rose from his couch with a growing optimism in his heart, and then a thought occurred to him.
“My lady?” he said. “Shall we send crew mail and dispatches withLord May?”
Michi agreed, and the crew’s messages home, plus a brief message from Michi to the effect that they’d entered Aspa Darla after a journey from Protipanu free of incident, were coded and sent to friendly territory courtesy of Captain Hansen. Included was Martinez’s long serial letter to Terza, plus briefer messages to other members of his family, all save Roland, to whom he had very little to say.
Martinez had, some time ago, asked Michi to censor his mail personally on the grounds that it might contain Chen family business, and Michi had agreed with perfect amiability. There was no Chen family business in the messages, not unless Martinez’s speculation about the development of the Chen heir counted as business, but Michi did not complain, and Martinez was pleased that Fletcher wasn’t reading his messages.
At Martinez’s request Hansen sent recent news to Illustrious. The Naxid news videos trumpeted the fact that Zanshaa had fallen without a fight, though they lamented that “pirates in the employ of the renegade government” had destroyed its ring. Civil government was in the process of being established on Zanshaa, and would be throughout the empire as soon as the renegade government was hunted down and received their just desserts. The Naxids admitted to a hard-fought action at Hone-bar, but did not mention its results. Martinez found the omission annoying. Anyone used to living under the censorship would find it obvious enough that Hone-bar had been a Naxid defeat, simply from the fact no victory was mentioned.
They might at least have mentioned my name.
We are continually involved in attacking the enemy’s ability to make war,Martinez began in a new letter to Terza.There is little or no danger to ourselves, but great harm to the enemy’s economy.
I think of you constantly, and hope you are well.
Sparing Lord May was the only deviation from the plan that Martinez had devised for the Aspa Darla raid. The Naxid administrators of the two planets’ rings, with no force to stand between them and the oncoming loyalists, obeyed Lady Michi’s orders. All ships on the ring were jettisoned; the repair and construction bays were all opened, and ships under construction shoveled out into the vacuum. Antimatter missiles found all these targets as well as the ships moving in or out of the system, and by the end of the raid a hundred and three ships were destroyed. A few managed to accelerate through Wormhole 2 to Bai-do before loyalist missiles could find them, but Chenforce would catch them there.
Two pinnaces passed close to each ring, cameras trained on the open construction bays to make certain that Michi Chen’s stern orders had been obeyed. The pinnaces were recovered without incident at the far end of the system.
As Chenforce flashed past, another order was given to the Naxids. “You will broadcast the following message on all communications channels every hour until we leave the system. We will be monitoring your communications to assure compliance.”
The message featured Squadron Commander Chen sitting in her office, wearing her viridian dress uniform and gazing at the camera with solemn eyes.
“This is Squadron Commander Chen,” she said. “Loyalist forces operating under the authority of the Convocation and the Praxis have returned to your system. Do not believe rebel propaganda claiming the war is over. Loyalist forces are advancing into rebel areas and have already destroyed two rebel fleets at Hone-bar and Protipanu.
“We will be leaving your system soon in order to fight the rebels elsewhere, but please believe that we will soon return. Those who cooperate with the rebel government or military will be judged and punished. Those who remain faithful to the Convocation and the Praxis will be rewarded. Until the return of lawful government, good citizens will not cooperate with rebels and other enemies of the empire.”
The message was still being broadcast five days later, when Chenforce left the system.
SEVENTEEN
Cousin Marcia gave birth to a boy two days after Sula’s meeting with Hong. Weight was not mentioned. Sula already knew the Naxids were landing, because she’d heard the sonic booms rattle the windows as the shuttles came in, and had been counting.
The Naxids were coming down in groups of eight. If the shuttles were standard military type, each would carry eighty Naxids plus their gear, and the total would not land an armed force very quickly. They had probably brought in just enough shuttles to secure the ground termini of the space elevators so that they could send their main force down from the ring. Without the ring, this deployment was going to take quite a while.