by Rachel Ford
Nikia understood her fellow MP’s concerns, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that there was as much face-saving going on as anything. It had been parliament, after all, that set the priorities for the military. High Command’s cyber security division could have been more proactive. So, too, could parliament have been. They could have allocated resources and set priorities. They could have spent more time listening to the concerns of High Command’s intelligence branch. But they hadn’t.
Somehow, that side of the issue wasn’t getting much time on the floor today. A good deal of breath was being expended on how the technical side might have done things differently. But parliament didn’t seem to be in an introspective mood.
Nikia didn’t particularly like that. The air of parliament of late concerned her. There was a kind of enmity where the military was concerned that hadn’t been there before.
Or, perhaps, it had been, and she’d just missed it. There’d always been undercurrents of animosity, she knew. There were MP’s who felt the military complex was too big, too privileged, too powerful. They resented how many retkas had gone to military concerns all these long years while the people starved and suffered.
But that was the old military, and the old regime. She’d assumed that her fellow ministers saw the divide between the past and present as clearly as she did.
Now, she began to see, that she’d assumed wrongly. Even Giya, now and then, would let into the bespectacled technical lead, a nervous man called Ikar, berating him for his department’s failures.
It was in MP Raylor Elkar where she found her first ally on the topic. Nikia mentioned, “I do feel the record should reflect that Head Ikar’s office did mention cybersecurity risks in their weekly briefings more than once. I don’t think we can rightly assign the blame-”
“It’s not about blame, Nik,” Minister Telari interrupted. “But I feel that the failure to emphasize the seriousness of our situation, much less to direct existing staff to address it, cannot be understated.”
“If we’re going to prevent similar issues in future,” Mira agreed, “we can’t ignore where the process broke down. And the – pardon my bluntness – gross negligence from Head Ikar and his team is a source of significant failure.”
Now, Raylor stood. “Presider, you’ll have to forgive me if I’m missing some context here. I am, as you know, new to this Body. But…” She lifted a digital pad. “I have a series of reports from High Command Intelligence identifying potential weaknesses in Central’s defenses, that might be posed by a rebel force familiar with the empire’s systems and technologies. They date back almost two months. Among them, cybersecurity is more than mentioned…it’s repeatedly noted, dozens of times. Head Ikar’s office offered a list of very specific recommendations to investigate and address weaknesses, and so did several other departments. To Minister Idar’s point, I feel that Parliament would do well to recognize its own part in the current crisis.”
“If we are going to learn from our missteps,” Nik put in, “as our esteemed colleague notes, we must identify them first.” She wasn’t normally given to sarcasm, but Mira and Telari’s tag-teaming was starting to rankle, almost as much as his recent insistence on familiarity.
Head Ikar, meanwhile, nodded gravely, relief painting itself across his pinched features. Parliament erupted with a chorus of “hear, hear” on the one side, and grumbles of disagreement on the other.
Minister Trigan stood, now, and after the Presider called for order, said, “I must concur with Ministers Elkar and Idar. And I would further suggest: we have learned a good deal about the process already, but we are in a moment of crisis. Our time – and, certainly, Head Ikar’s – would be better spent addressing the impending invasion. Would it not, Ministers?”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The first strike came two days later. It was an early morning attack on Kelja Station, one of the military installments on the outskirts of the frozen asteroid belts in Kelja sector. Two dozen loyalist starships appeared, their signatures masked to the station’s sensors until their final approach.
It was a short battle. The fleet launched the same cyberattack they’d used on the Supernova, but the station, with its new modifications and the new security measures, was impervious to the hit.
It was not impervious to munitions, though. Kelja Station managed to get a message to Central before being boarded, but it fell within fifteen minutes. Hundreds were killed in the onslaught.
The fate of the rest, Lenksha broadcast to all the home worlds.
Nikia had been asleep when Giya showed up at her door, urging her to get dressed. “There’s been an attack, Nik. An attack on Kelja Station. Parliament’s being called into session.”
Throwing on her day clothes, she’d practically raced out to his waiting car. The minutes crawled by as they drove, but at last they reached the House of Parliament. They joined the throngs of still yawning ministers, all making their way for the chamber.
Brek Trigan ran up to her, wincing as he moved more quickly than his cast allowed. “Nikia.”
“Brek. Have you heard what’s happening?”
He shook his head. “Just that there’s been some kind of attack, on one of the space stations.”
“Kelja. It’s a military installation in one of the asteroid belts.”
“It’s the loyalists, then?”
“Who else?” Giya wondered.
“Will our ships reach them in time?”
Nikia shook her head. “I don’t think so. Even if we have a few within hours, if the whole loyalist fleet is at their door…”
He nodded grimly. “It’ll be a bloodbath.”
They moved in silence after that until they reached the House of Commons. The chamber was in disarray, with ministers sitting wherever they could snag a seat. Her own usual spot was taken by one of the moon delegations. Giya excused himself with, “I need to talk to Grik. Save me a seat, Nik.”
She and Brek settled in beside Raylor and the Krians. The former gave them a sharp look as they approached. “There you are, Brek. And Nikia too.”
The brothers glanced up at this. Niil looked rattled. Niyol was a little more collected, but his foot was tapping in a nervous way. “Any idea what the hell’s going on?”
“Just that there was an attack.”
“Attack? Bloody massacre, more like,” Niil snorted. “The station already fell.”
“Hell,” Brek said. Then, glancing at her, he apologized. “Sorry.”
Another time, and she might have laughed. There was something very quaint and chivalrous in the way he caught himself when he cursed in her presence, as if she was too fine to hear certain words. She’d made a point, now and then, to drop a few swears of her own, if only to set his mind at ease. So far, it hadn’t worked. Now, though, she ignored it. Niil seemed to know more than she did. “It fell? What happened?”
“We don’t know. Not yet.”
“We got a transmission, from Kelja. Saying they were being boarded. The cannons were down, shields were down. Their fighters lost.”
“It was a massacre,” Niil repeated.
“Dammit,” Nik said, settling into a seat.
Brek took the spot next to her. “Do we know how many were lost?”
“Not yet,” Raylor answered. “But my hunch is, this Lenksha character isn’t trying to earn a reputation for mercy.”
It was an eerily prophetic guess. A few moments later, Presider Grik’s voice sounded. “We’re getting a transmission. From Kelja Station.”
“Finally,” Giya said. He’d taken his place beside the others.
“Let’s pray it’s good news,” Niyol declared.
A moment later, a gray-blue apparition appeared in the center of the chamber.
“Lenksha,” Nik breathed.
It was indeed the admiral, standing tall and proud. His hard eyes glistened; his lips turned upward. “Traitors to the empire: this is Admiral Lenksha of the Tribari Fleet. Today marks the first day of the war for rec
lamation of the empire.
“It begins on the borders of Tribari space, but it will end when we retake parliament itself. And all of you pretenders will answer for your treason.
“We will give no quarter, we will show no mercy. You have murdered the Supreme Leader and disbanded the lawfully elected representative government. You will meet the fate of all such traitors: death.”
He smiled coldly, and Nikia shivered at the sight. There was something a little grimmer, a little more malevolent about the expression coming from a holographic form. “But today, another traitor will demonstrate what lies in store for you.”
He nodded now, and a pair of soldiers materialized, their own gray forms taking shape as they neared him. They were not alone, though. They dragged another figure between them: a man in uniform, like themselves, but with battered, blood-soaked features. The two men pushed the third to his knees before the admiral.
“This is Commander Bol, the fool who lost this station. And for his failure to surrender, his allegiance to the cause of treason, I sentence him to death.” Lenksha drew his pistol and leveled it at the bloodied man’s head.
Nikia drew in her breath sharply, turning away a moment before a shot echoed out. She felt Brek’s arm around her shoulders as she shivered, unable to look back. It was too familiar, too close to home, to dare to look. Not after she’d lost her mother and father in a similar execution. Not after Grel – poor, sweet Grel – had been murdered.
Lenksha, meanwhile, was continuing to speak. “In accordance with article eight of the Tribari Constitution, I’ve ordered the death of every man and woman on Kalja Station. The wages of treason are death. And soon, pretenders, you will pay them.”
The weeks passed in a haze of blood and death. Two more stations fell before they could be evacuated. The first surrendered, and its civilian population was spared. Lenksha ordered the military commanders executed for treason, and broadcast the execution to all corners of Tribari space. The second fought and fell quickly. The loyalists marched the inhabitants into airlocks and jettisoned them into space – even the children. This, too, Lenksha recorded and sent on with more threats to Parliament and the core planets.
After the second station fell, Parliament fell in line with Captain Mercer’s plan to deploy ships along the empire’s borders. Too many had died already, and the impact on morale – well, the good ministers fretted at length over that.
Brek found these discussions a little chilling. People were dying, but that seemed to rattle some of his peers less than the public perception of those deaths. He understood the importance of morale, of course. The people needed to maintain faith in their leadership, in the military’s abilities, and so on. But the preoccupation with perception while body counts were still coming in didn’t – couldn’t – sit well with the Thetan.
In this feeling, he found allies in Raylor, the two Krians, and Nikia Idan. The other off-worlders and he tended to disagree on as much as they agreed, and while he valued their arguments, he put no particular weight on their opinions. But he and Nik seemed to be of one mind on most issues, and he found that her opinion carried a weight with him that no one else’s did.
So, too, did her pain. She’d lost so many close to her, and the wounds were still so fresh, that each new round of losses seemed to hit her on an almost personal level. She’d grown accustomed to masking her pain, but Brek didn’t miss the sadness in her eyes, the faraway gaze, the drooping of her expressions.
She was happiest, he found, when lost to her work. And so Brek worked a lot, those early days of the war, alongside her. And Nik, in turn, confided in him often. She’d read her addresses to him, she’d practice her delivery; she’d hear his advice, and adjust accordingly. They’d rehash the day’s business, and discuss bills waiting on the floor.
And as the grimmer early days gave way for more hopeful ones, her sadness lessened, a little bit at a time. She was practically giddy the morning of the first proper battle. She burst into his office, saying “Brek! Brek, did you hear?”
He hadn’t and told her as much.
“The fleet, they met Lenksha’s forces, near Antioch Station. We won – they lost two ships, and retreated back to the Wastes. We saved the station, Brek. All those people – they’re safe.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
War was an ugly business, but civil war was the ugliest face of it. Elgin sat on the patched bridge of the TS-Supernova, lost in thought and surrounded by new and old faces. He’d lost good men and women from his bridge crew. A junior grade lieutenant called Halari filled Ensign Vor’s spot. Vor was dead. He’d died when a bulkhead ruptured, two weeks earlier.
Permanence was never a feature of military life. People transferred, they reassigned, they got promoted.
And they died. He knew that.
Still, Vor was one of the officers who had stayed on after he’d first defied the Supreme Leader himself, who had risked everything to serve with him. Vor had gone all in for this new Tribari empire.
And he was dead. Him, and too many others. Not just the hands he’d lost on his own ship, or that the rest of the fleet had lost, but all the souls that went down with the colonies and stations Lenksha hit.
The admiral, realizing he didn’t have the cyberwar ace he thought he did, seemed to have shifted tactics from direct invasion to guerrilla warfare. It was the more prudent move, since his forces were smaller, his ships fewer, his supply lines weaker.
Elgin was not so much a fool as to think Lenksha was without allies, those willing to run him supplies and inform him of the goings-on on the home world. Central and her holdings teemed with loyalists, with disaffected contributors and businessmen who had lost much in the shifting of powers. Men who would gain much if the old regime was restored to power.
But it was more than that. When the Consortium fled, they’d taken as much as they could carry with them. That was fuel and resources that could be used immediately, but a veritable fleet of portable drilling rigs and extraction equipment too. They’d taken enough to sustain a small scale armada for months or even years.
And the idea of waging a war like this for months or years chilled the military man’s blood. Civilian populaces never fared well in war, but wars of attrition were the cruelest. They battered bodies, again and again. But, worse, they battered the psyche of a nation. They turned her hard and cruel. They made her desperate – so desperate, she forgot the finer points of her nature, until she reverted to the basest, most animalistic version of herself: the frightened animal with her back against the wall, willing to do anything to anyone to survive.
Over the years, the empire had waged enough wars like this against defecting colonies and neighboring powers to know how they turned out. The empire won, because the empire had the strength to outlast her opponents. But the truth was, the empire usually won long before the last shot was taken, the last rebel executed or sent to Zeta. The empire won when the colony grew more desperate than good.
Which is how, if this war lasted too long, he feared the empire would lose this time. Elgin didn’t mean for that to happen. Elgin didn’t intend for the empire to flee or abandon the outlying colonies and stations, to see their populaces exterminated. He wouldn’t let the Tribari worlds fall, one at a time. He wouldn’t sit back and let the loyalists set the pace of this deadly game. He wasn’t going to see his crew die, one at a time. There would be no more Vors, if he could help it.
No. Elgin was going to take the fight straight to Lenksha. He was going to find the heart of the beast, and cut it out. Cut it out, and make Lenksha eat it.
Nees smiled at Tig. It was his day off, and she’d taken the morning to spend with him. There was a war raging all around them, but that, oddly enough, had eased her workload. The empire had agreed, with a readiness that rather surprised her, to all of her proposals. Contracts were signed, supply lines formed, and oil production renewed in record timing. She’d never had less work as governor than now, when the entire empire hung in the balance.
But she wasn’t going to think of that this morning. Not when she was with Tig. It seemed a lifetime ago they had agreed to take things slow. The truth was, it hadn’t even been a month. There had been touch and go moments. She’d seen the fear in his eyes now and then. They didn’t speak about what put it there, but she’d worked it out. Enough to pick up on the certain touches, the certain gestures, that made him flinch.
They weren’t moving slow anymore. Nees was falling in love. Or maybe she was already in love. For the past week, Tig had spent the night with her, each night.
She’d asked him to come with her this morning, and he’d agreed readily enough. But she wouldn’t tell him where they were going. Instead, they drove for a long time, until they were a good hour from the settlement. Then, she parked the car.
For a while, they stayed inside, canoodling. But then she said, “Tig, wait.”
He paused. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing. I just…I took you here for a reason. I wanted to show you something.”
“Oh.” He inclined his head. “Will it wait?”
She grinned. “Yes. But so will you.” He groaned out a protest, and she ignored it, getting out of her car instead. “Come on. It’s just back here.”
“Fine, fine.” He rounded the car until he stood beside her. “This had better be damned special, though, to justify taking my attention away from you.”
She smiled and took his hand. “I don’t know about special. But interesting, maybe.”
They walked together in silence for a few minutes, down a long overgrown path. It was a byway she knew well enough, though it had changed in the intervening months. Walking it with someone else felt oddly satisfying, and terrifying at the same time.
“What is this place?” Tig asked after a few minutes.
“It’s…it’s an old farm.”
“Oh. Does anyone live here?”
