“Maybe. But I owe you, Damien Montgomery,” she said. “My entire damn planet owes you, and things may be tense right now, but we will remember what you did for us.
“God speed you, Hand Montgomery. We may never meet again, but know that we will remember you.”
13
The trip to Ardennes was as fast as humanly possible. The Mages aboard Duke of Magnificence, from Mage-Captain Jakab on down, were clearly feeling the same pressure and worries as the Hand giving the orders.
They crossed the thirty light-years from the rendezvous point to Ardennes in a day. That was…too fast, Damien knew. Even Navy Mages weren’t supposed to jump more than every six hours. To travel thirty light-years in one day, the six Mages aboard Duke had jumped every four and a half.
He hadn’t given any orders to push that hard, but he couldn’t argue with the need. In other times, he’d have achieved the same goal by stepping into the jump rotation himself, but the jump runes on his palms had melted along with the Runes of Power on his forearms.
“Mage-Captain Jakab,” he said calmly as he opened a link to his bridge. “I see we are already in Ardennes. That seems…fast.”
“They volunteered, my lord,” Jakab admitted. “And once my juniors had pushed themselves that hard, what was I to do but push myself harder?”
Damien shook his head.
“If I see or hear of you—or any of your jump Mages—on duty in the next twenty-four hours, I will be most upset,” he said quietly. “I’ve walked too close to the line of fatal burnout myself to blithely allow my subordinates to risk it. I trust you and your Mages to have been careful—but you will rest now.
“Am I clear?”
“Yes, my lord.” Jakab inclined his head. “I wouldn’t have let them do this if we were going further. We need at least that level of rest.”
“Yes. You do,” Damien agreed. “Now go sleep, Mage-Captain. And thank you.”
He dropped the channel and looked at the map. They’d arrived quite close to the planet, less than four hours’ flight at the standard acceleration of the battlecruiser. Not quite close enough for a live conversation, but it wouldn’t be too bad.
“System, get me the Coms Section,” he ordered. The image of a young man in a Lieutenant’s uniform promptly greeted him, the officer saluting crisply as he recognized who was calling.
“How may we assist, Lord Montgomery?”
“Lieutenant Parker, I need a link to Governor Riordan as quickly as possible. Can you get that for me?”
“Yes, sir!” Parker agreed instantly. “I’ll get in touch with his people and let you know as soon as I have him on the line.”
“Damien Montgomery, it’s good to see you,” Mikael Riordan greeted him a few minutes later. The former rebel rabble-rouser turned politician was an almost spectacularly unremarkable man. He could blend into any crowd.
Until, in Damien’s experience at least, he opened his mouth. He’d been a recruiter for the Ardennes Freedom Wing during their revolt, and he’d talked his way into a position with the new, Mars-appointed Governor after Damien had used that revolt to overthrow the corrupt previous government.
“You may not be as pleased to see me by the time you’re done getting the news,” Damien responded. “We were attacked by Republic forces while carrying out a humanitarian mission in the Korma System. We eventually managed to get a rough truce allowing us to complete our mission, but…”
“Damn. You need the RTA,” Riordan said after a few seconds of lightspeed delay. “At least this time, we don’t have to arrange a distraction, huh?”
During the rebellion, Damien had helped the Freedom Wing to break into a high-security prison holding a number of their people, as a distraction to get him access to the RTA.
“Not unless you’ve got something going on I don’t know about,” Damien agreed. “We’ll be in orbit in a few hours and I’ll be dropping immediately. Can you make certain the RTA is available for my use?”
“Of course. Any assistance that Ardennes can provide is yours, Lord Montgomery. We have not forgotten your service.”
“I may take you up on that,” the Hand replied as he glanced over the scan data showing him the ships of the Ardennes System Defense Force. “I see Julia has been busy.”
There was a major Navy refueling station in the outer system there. It had once been host to an entire squadron of Martian cruisers, but the Navy was starting to feel the pinch of the various losses inflicted by Legatus’s shadow war.
They’d only had fifteen squadrons of cruisers—ninety ships—to begin with. Now, until the new construction came online, they were down to eleven squadrons and a handful of extras like Duke of Magnificence. Seventy ships. Ardennes’s Martian defenders now consisted of two squadrons of destroyers.
The ASDF, however, had two destroyer squadrons of their own and three cruisers. All Tau Cetan–built, if Damien recognized the designs.
Tau Ceti shipyards built many of the Royal Martian Navy’s ships. They also built “export” versions of similar hulls with only jump matrices for the many system militias in the Protectorate.
“I gave her a budget,” Riordan agreed. “I’m not entirely sure how she got fifteen warships for that budget, but I know when not to ask questions of my wife!”
“I’ll want to sit down with both of you once I’ve spoken to His Majesty,” Damien told the Governor. “Unless Julia has changed dramatically in the last two years, she almost certainly is better up to date than I am. I’ve been out of the loop for two weeks, and I’m worried the galaxy may have changed behind my back.”
“If it has, Julia will know,” Riordan agreed. “I’ll get our intel people talking to the Navy squadrons, see if we can pull together a briefing for you. I think you’re bearing the biggest news, my lord, but we’ll see what we scrape up when we poke at the barrel.”
A robed Transceiver Mage ushered Damien into the central nexus of the Runic Transceiver Array. She’d already given the spiel about shutting down the rest of the space, and he gently waved her away as she paused hesitantly.
“Thank you, Mage O’Malley. I know how this works,” he told her.
She glanced at his hands.
“Will you be all right, my lord?” she asked.
“I don’t need interface runes for this, Mage,” Damien reminded her. “I know my limits; don’t worry. Now, if you don’t mind…”
She bowed her way out and he shook his head with a smile. It seemed like most of the people around him were more concerned about his injuries than he was. Despite how they wanted to treat him, he was most definitely not a cripple.
He just had crippled hands. He was sure there was an important difference in there somewhere—one the fact that he remained the third most powerful Mage alive made very relevant.
Resting his hands gently against his sides, he reached out for the construct surrounding him with his power, linking energy into the layers upon layers of runes that made up the RTA. Silver inlays in the obsidian around him flared to life in his sight, his Rune Wright gifts allowing him to trace the flow of power.
Long practice allowed him to shape the energy, directing it toward the Sol System. Only one RTA could be built in a star system, because the catchment area for the transmission was actually somewhat larger than most systems.
The one in Sol was on Mars, on the slopes of Olympus Mons, where the Mage-King could rapidly reach it.
“Solar RTA, this is First Hand Damien Montgomery,” he said aloud. The magic picked up his voice and flung it across the stars in the blink of an eye. “I need to speak with His Majesty if he’s available. I am at the Ardennes RTA and will remain here until I hear from him.”
“Hand Montgomery, this is Transceiver Mage Rodriguez,” another voice answered him. “We will make the connection with His Majesty and begin securing the Solar RTA. We will advise as soon as we have a timeline on His Majesty’s arrival; please hold on.”
With the arrays secured on both ends, both Ardennes and Sol w
ere now removed from the Protectorate communication network. Incoming coms outside of the secured line would be magically routed to a side chamber where they would be recorded for review once the lockdown lifted.
The Protectorate had learned a long time before that the only thing that would be transmitted was a Mage’s voice. It didn’t even seem to be their speech so much as their intention to speak. No data transmission, no video communications. Just the voice of one Mage on each end.
“His Majesty will be here in roughly five minutes, my lord,” Mage Rodriguez informed him. “Please hold on.”
“Of course.”
Damien wasn’t watching the time closely, but he suspected it was less than five minutes before the familiar voice of Desmond Michael Alexander the Third, the Mage-King of Mars and Protector of Humanity, sounded in his ears.
“Damien. It’s good to hear from you. How did the Korma mission go?”
“Strangely and dangerously,” Damien replied. “First and foremost: we came under attack by Republic forces. They appear to have perfected the gunship carrier concept that their agents were working with during the Antonius Incident, and are deploying carrier groups reinforced with heavy warships somewhere between our cruisers and battleships in weight.
“I don’t know where they’re getting the Mages for them, but it makes some sense. A five-ship group can run with five or ten Mages, and if that group outguns any of our individual formations…”
“We could be in trouble,” Alexander agreed. “And Kormar?”
“We managed to negotiate a truce long enough to deliver the food, but I am apparently specifically persona non grata in the Republic of Faith and Reason.”
“That’s not really a surprise,” the King pointed out. “You pissed them off pretty badly.”
“I’m checking intelligence reports after this, but their aggression in Korma worries me,” Damien said. “I can’t see their local commander being that aggressive unless they were already moving towards war. The Governor of Korma warned me that their Assembly has already voted to give Solace the authority to wage war on us.”
“Damn. Our intelligence networks in the Republic are a disaster right now, Damien,” Alexander told him. “We didn’t know that.”
“Their local commander also seemed to be receiving orders directly from Legatus in something approximating real time,” Damien added. “I think we need to double down on the assumption that they have some form of technological FTL communicator.”
“Capturing one of those is going to be a high priority once this war starts.”
“I think the war may have already started, my liege,” Damien said grimly. “We haven’t heard anything yet?”
“Nothing,” Alexander confirmed. “I’ll double-check reports on my side as well, but I think we’ll want to investigate our systems along the border without RTAs. I’ll see the orders passed to the Navy.”
“I’m going to check in with the border RTAs myself,” the Hand promised. “Potentially via taking Duke out to investigate. This whole situation is making the back of my neck itch.”
“Mine hasn’t stopped since the Secession,” the Mage-King said. “We’re months away from new ships. A year from the dreadnoughts. It’s on you for the moment, Damien. Ardennes and the other fleet bases along the border are essential.
“You have my authority to do whatever is necessary to hold.”
“I always do,” Damien said quietly. “I’ll protect our people, my liege.”
“That is what I pay you for,” Alexander said with a chuckle. “Good luck, my Hand.”
14
Roslyn lifted the personal locker onto the second bed in her room and punched in the override code the XO—now Acting Captain—had given her. She tried not to look at Michael Kor’s possessions too closely as she carefully and gently packed away the scattered personal items that always made their way out into one’s room.
Their relationship had been as much one of opportunity as anything else. They’d met in the Academy and she’d thought he was cute, but her focus there had been on proving herself worthy to belong in the Navy.
With just the two of them sharing a room on the destroyer, however, there’d been an opportunity to act on that impulse without it getting in the way of her career. Neither of them had had any illusions it would last beyond the end of their tour of duty together—maybe through to the end of their time at the Academy.
But he’d been gentle and caring and funny. And now he was dead. She’d watched Dance of Honorable Battle come apart in Samos’s upper atmosphere. There hadn’t been any escape pods, and there was only a tiny chance anyone could have survived the debris falling to the surface.
As she finished packing his possessions away, there was a sharp rap on the door.
“Come in,” she replied, then scrambled fully to her feet as Mage-Commander Herbert stepped into the room.
“Are you finished with his things?” he asked gently.
“Yes, sir,” she replied crisply.
“Good. We’ll put them in storage for his family. We’ll move you, as well,” he told her. “Even if you hadn’t been lovers, asking you to stay in this room would be cruel. Besides, there are specific quarters for the tactical officer.”
“The…what, sir?” Roslyn asked, confused.
He held out a black velvet jewelry box.
“Commander Katz is now acting as my XO. Every other officer in the tactical department was elsewhere when the penny dropped. They’re MIA at best, presumed KIA.”
She took the box in shaking hands, opening it to reveal the silver bars of a Royal Martian Navy Mage-Lieutenant.
“I’d say congratulations, but this kind of battlefield promotion sucks for everyone,” Herbert said frankly. “You’re going to have to take on responsibilities and duties you wouldn’t be expected to take on for years yet. Thankfully, you have Chief Chey, but neither Katz nor I will be able to provide you the support you’ll need.
“You’d preferably spend at least a year as the junior ATO on a bigger ship before you became assistant tactical officer on a destroyer, let alone the tactical officer…but we don’t have time. I need someone in secondary control and I need someone on tactical.”
Roslyn was frozen, staring at the insignia. Taking the insignia would skip the entire last year of her Academy training. She’d be a fully-commissioned officer in the Royal Martian Navy—and that acceleration would probably haunt her career for the rest of her life.
“You can turn it down,” he reminded her.
“You need me,” Roslyn finally said. “Someone’s got to do the job. I won’t let down my shipmates or the Protectorate, sir.” She swallowed hard and took the box. “I’ll do my best.”
“Having seen your best, Lieutenant Chambers, I think we’ll be fine,” Herbert told her. With the box open, he took the silver bars out and gestured her closer to him.
“Allow me.”
He carefully removed the ensign’s pips on her collar and pinned the new bars home, flanking the golden medallion that declared her as a Mage of the Guilds of the Protectorate. She swallowed hard, then stepped back and saluted crisply.
“I won’t let you down, sir,” she told him.
“I don’t expect you to,” he replied. “But we’re all running short and hard right now. We’re still two days from Hoisin, and I need you to make half the jumps.
“Are you up for it, Mage-Lieutenant Chambers?”
“Without question, sir,” she said firmly.
Chief Petty Officer Chanda Chey was significantly taller than Roslyn, a dark-skinned athletic woman with short-cropped black hair and brilliant green eyes. She surveyed Commander Katz’s old office with a calm gaze, clearly unsurprised to find Roslyn sitting behind the desk.
“Have a seat, Chief,” Roslyn instructed. “I’d offer you coffee but, frankly, I don’t even know where the coffee machine is in here. Commander Katz finished moving out about ten minutes ago.”
Chey chuckled and pointed.
/> “That cupboard there. Shall I?” she offered.
“Sure.”
The Chief popped the cupboard open to reveal a standard Navy coffee machine. A few moments later, it was happily burbling its way toward coffee for them both.
“Commander Herbert has promoted me to Lieutenant and made me acting tactical officer,” Roslyn told the other woman after the coffee was going. “I had to actually look up if he could do that; it’s sufficiently rare for us.”
“So is war,” Chey said bluntly. “The RMN has never fought one. Two centuries of police actions and anti-piracy. No wars.”
“Exactly.” Roslyn shivered. “I know enough about being an officer to know that I can’t show hesitance or uncertainty in front of the crew, Chief, but if I can’t be honest with you, we’re all already doomed.
“I think I can do this, but I know how underqualified I am.”
“Well, that’s three right statements out of three, so you’re not doing too badly,” Chey said with another chuckle. She poured two cups of black coffee, then paused, studying the cabinet the coffeemaker was tucked away in.
A practiced slap opened a concealed compartment that Roslyn would never have guessed was there, and the Chief produced a mostly empty bottle of whisky.
“Thought so,” she said with satisfaction. “Tradition says you leave the booze behind for the next officer.” Without even asking, she poured the alcohol into both coffee cups and then put one in front of Roslyn.
“So, boss,” Chey said calmly, “if you know how far out of your depth you are, you’ve got me in your office because you have a plan.”
“I do,” Roslyn confirmed. “First off, I want you to flag two Petty Officers that we’re going to jump to second-class Chiefs and stick on the bridge. I can run defense, sensors, or missiles on my own. I can’t run all three, and that’s why we have a bridge crew.”
“You don’t want me on the bridge?” Chey asked carefully.
UnArcana Stars Page 9
