UnArcana Stars

by Glynn Stewart

  “Hand Montgomery, Commodore Jakab, Commodore Cruyssen, Admiral Vasilev. Task Force Peacemaker has arrived in Ardennes. We are moving in pursuit of the RIN battle group. We’ll see if they have the nerve to stick around and fight.”

  He shook his head.

  “If they come for you—and they may still—I don’t need you to beat them. I don’t even need you to hold them in place. That battle group is outnumbered and outgunned, and they have to know it. This battle is already decided, officers.

  “I need you to stay alive until I get there.”

  The transmission ended and Jakab chuckled aloud.

  “I think we can follow those orders, don’t you?”

  “If you were going to have a problem, I’d have to reiterate them,” Damien told him. “Set your missiles for self-defense and watch that fleet. They can still range on you before Medici ranges on—”

  “Republic force is changing course! They’re vectoring to retrieve their gunships and evade us.”

  “Time to intercept?” Jakab asked.

  “Depends on how rough they’re prepared to handle the gunships,” the tactical officer responded. “Thirty minutes if they can handle a couple thousand KPS velocity differential.”

  “We don’t know enough about their engines,” Damien admitted slowly. “It’s possible they can jump with the gunships simply nearby.

  “In any case, people, it looks like our part in this battle is over. Let’s keep to battle stations for a bit yet, but we can start to breathe. Admiral Medici just saved our butts.”

  34

  “First Hand, arriving!”

  It had taken Damien at least half a year to stop Duke of Magnificence’s crew from insisting on ceremony every time he left or came aboard the battlecruiser. He wasn’t really surprised to find himself greeted by a full formal greeting party of dress-uniformed Marines when he exited his shuttle onto Peacemaker.

  That, at least, was the extent of the formality. Mage-Admiral Medici and his flag captain, Mage-Captain Eilish Estevez, were the only people waiting for him.

  Medici was barely taller and no more heavily built than Damien himself, which made Mage-Captain Estevez a study in contrasts. She shared her Admiral’s dark coloring in skin and hair, but where he was at most only a hundred and fifty-five centimeters tall, Mage-Captain Estevez easily topped two meters.

  She towered over Damien and the Admiral alike as she saluted the First Hand.

  “I see at least some of my opinion of ceremony is starting to make it around the Navy,” Damien observed as he returned the salute. “It’s damn good to see you, Mage-Admiral. Things were getting dicey.”

  To no one’s surprise, the Republic carrier group had declined to engage multiple battleships. They’d jumped clear of Ardennes well before they would have been engaged by either Protectorate force. From the speed of their maneuvers and escape, Damien had half-expected them to leave their gunships behind.

  They hadn’t, but they’d jumped clear of the system as soon as they’d picked the parasite craft up. Ardennes remained in Protectorate hands, though he wasn’t sure how much longer that would last.

  “I’ll admit I had hoped that we’d catch them a bit more out of position,” Medici told him. “This battle is, for all intents and purposes, a draw. I think the Protectorate could use an unquestionable victory now.”

  “I agree, but I’m as happy to still be here,” Damien said. “We’ll want to set up a meeting with all of the flag officers to establish what our plans going forward are, but I think we can assume the Republic will be back.”

  “We’ll be waiting for them,” Medici replied. “Both my Protectorate and Tau Cetan forces have been seconded to your command until you no longer need us, Hand Montgomery. I don’t think anyone is expecting this to be over soon.”

  “Agreed.” Damien glanced around the landing bay. They could probably trust the Marines in the area, but taking security for granted was dangerous. The Republic had already demonstrated their ability to infiltrate assassins into spaces he believed to be secure.

  “Can we speak in private?” he continued. “I want to make sure you and I are on the same page before we begin to plan our next steps.”

  Medici inclined his head.

  “Of course, my lord Montgomery. My office?”

  “Assuming it has coffee and a holo-display, that will work perfectly.”

  “I assure you, my lord, that it has both,” Medici said with a chuckle.

  By the time Damien had sorted out where his Secret Service detail was going to wait for him and Captain Estevez had returned to running her ship, Medici’s steward had produced two heavenly-smelling cups of coffee and a plate of pastries.

  Medici looked at Damien in concern.

  “Do we need to get you anything specific for you to be able to…”

  Damien floated the coffee cup across the room to him and took a sip in answer to the unfinished question. He carefully set it down on the Admiral’s desk and then took a seat across from Medici.

  “You should know better,” he suggested. “I may lack the use of my hands, Admiral, but I still command the Gift in full measure.”

  “It’s easy to forget,” Medici replied. “Such things grow in the retelling, after all. The story of your saving the Council has spread far. Such acts are things of legends, after all.”

  Damien snorted, shaking his head uncomfortably.

  “Protecting the Council was part of my job,” he pointed out. “Hardly legend. Simply the task before me.”

  “Right.” Medici let the one sardonic word hang in the air as he took a drink of his own coffee.

  “I have to ask, Admiral. Was bringing Tau Cetan ships your idea or theirs?” Damien said.

  “Theirs,” he admitted. “I was busy running around, trying to scrape up any ships we could spare beyond the battleships when Admiral Sakshi Felix approached me. She commands the Second Heavy Defense Squadron of the Tau Ceti Security Fleet; I imagine you’ll be meeting her shortly.”

  Medici chuckled.

  “She was actually offended that we hadn’t asked the TCSF for help,” he noted. “It took me five minutes to talk her down from being angry at me and convince her that we hadn’t even thought of it.”

  “A blind spot hardly unique to you,” Damien admitted. “I’ve been building my plans for defending Ardennes around their Militia without even considering the wider potential.”

  Medici paused, then sank his face into his hands.

  “I’m a moron,” he said, only partially joking. “God, Admiral Felix promptly offered me her entire command as soon as I convinced her we weren’t insulting the TCSF, and the thought of reaching out to the other Militias…”

  “A Hand comes with certain authority,” Damien told him. “I’m going from here to the RTA; I’ll reach out to as many systems as I can, but I need to talk to you first. Will the Navy cause problems if we bring in…well, Militia and mercenaries and whoever else I can find?”

  Medici spread his hands wide.

  “Some people may have a problem, but I swear to you: they will not be permitted to cause a problem,” he said fiercely. “God, right now I’d shake hands with Mikhail Azure if you could resurrect the Blue Star Syndicate and bring their fleet here.”

  Damien chuckled.

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” he admitted. “But then, Azure did come quite close to killing me personally.”

  It had been Mage-Admiral Medici and Hand Alaura Stealey who had prevented that. Of course, Damien had killed Mikhail Azure himself, but the mob lord had hunted his old ship across half the Protectorate.

  The Blue Star Syndicate hadn’t survived that clash, though its death throes had been…impressive.

  “If you can get the System Militias here, I will gladly share command with whoever you order me to,” Medici told him. “I, at least, think it would make the most sense for me to be in ultimate command, but I understand political reality: if you pull together this force, you will be in command. I wil
l serve as you direct.”

  That thought hadn’t even occurred to Damien. He’d assumed he’d put Medici in command.

  “We will do what we must,” he finally allowed. “No matter what, Admiral…Ardennes must not fall.”

  “We serve His Majesty,” the Mage-Admiral confirmed. “What use is his Protectorate if we don’t protect people?”

  35

  At this point, Mage Alanna O’Malley seemed completely unbothered by having the First Hand of the Mage-King arrive on her doorstep. Given everything else that had occurred around the Ardennes RTA, Damien was no longer that big a deal.

  The old landing pad was gone. A new one had been set up by the Marines to help run search-and-rescue and supplies into the blast zone, and exosuited troopers with Geiger counters were everywhere.

  The Marines didn’t need to worry about exposure. Their job was to make sure that no one else got too much exposure. Especially not, say, a Transceiver Mage or the First Hand.

  Damien allowed himself and O’Malley to be hustled inside the massive sphere of the RTA, his own bodyguards trailing in their exosuit armor.

  “It’s getting better,” the other Mage told him as the new airlock sealed behind them. “They’re moving in with cleaning gear now; the civilians have all been evacuated.” She shook her head. “I almost wish they had managed to deliver the bomb into the array, though. A lot fewer people would have died.”

  Damien nodded silently as he followed her. Unmentioned in O’Malley’s wish was that she would have been among that “a lot fewer” people who died. The RTA’s shell had survived the blast unscathed and would likely have contained the blast if the bomb had managed to get inside.

  Everyone inside the stone sphere would have been vaporized, however. He understood where O’Malley was coming from. The current count was over fifty thousand people who had died in the explosions, and tens of thousands more were being treated across the continent.

  “And we’d be out of touch with the rest of the Protectorate,” he pointed out. “That connection may save a lot more lives.” He sighed. “I agree, though. No one ever wants to see this kind of wreck in their home.”

  “At least no other arrays have gone off the air,” O’Malley told him. “We’ve started a system of regular check-ins. If the Republic hits any other RTAs, we’ll know in short order.”

  That knowledge might not be enough to save anywhere, but that was why the Navy was deploying everywhere instead of just to Ardennes. Damien could see the logic, but he also couldn’t help feeling that this would be the turning point.

  “That only helps us with the systems that have RTAs,” he pointed out. “We need to stop them, hard.”

  “That’s outside my expertise, my lord,” O’Malley admitted. “Can we?”

  Damien grimaced.

  “That’s what I’m here to talk to people about.”

  Damien had done all of the calculations he needed aboard the shuttle, using a large wall screen to make up for his lack of fine manipulation. All of the results were loaded into his wrist-comp with a series of voice commands.

  O’Malley left him alone in the central chamber and he took a few minutes to study the runes around him. The Transceiver Mages assured him the Array was intact, but he had advantages they didn’t. They knew what it was supposed to do and whether it was doing it.

  He could look at the runes and see what they were doing. There was damage, he noted. Nothing that was affecting the ability of the Array to project his voice across the light-years, but cracks in the rune matrices would cause problems in the future.

  The RTA was fully functional, but the bomb had cut its life expectancy from centuries to years. He’d have to take some time to fix that once this was over.

  For now, however, it would do what he needed it to.

  “System, display calculations for Sherwood RTA,” he ordered aloud. The holographic projector built into his wrist-comp calmly chirped to life, hanging the numbers in front of his face. He studied them for a few moments, then channeled power into the runes around him.

  “Sherwood RTA, this is the Ardennes RTA,” he announced softly. “First Hand Damien Montgomery speaking. Please verify receipt of this transmission.”

  Several seconds passed, then a voice echoed out of the silence around him.

  “This is the Sherwood RTA, my lord. Transceiver Mage Gordon Elliot speaking. How may we assist?”

  “I need a message recorded and relayed to Governor Miles McLaughlin,” Damien told the Mage. “Please confirm when you are ready to record.”

  A few more seconds of silence passed.

  “Understood, my lord. We are now recording for forwarding to the Governor. You may begin your message when ready.”

  “Governor McLaughlin, this is First Hand Damien Montgomery,” Damien said firmly. “I’m sure you are aware by now that the Republic has launched an unexpected offensive against Protectorate space. The Navy is deploying across the border to protect our systems, but I have reason to believe that Ardennes will be the focus of the next attack.

  “We have already stood off one attack here, but with the broad defensive deployment, the RMN doesn’t have enough ships to reinforce me here.” He paused, considering how to phrase his request.

  He could, he supposed, formally draft the Sherwood Interstellar Patrol and require McLaughlin to send him ships. That struck him as a terrible idea, though.

  “Sherwood is clear of the likely areas of the Republic’s next offensives but is close enough that the Patrol’s frigates could reach us before I expect the next attack to arrive. While it is our responsibility to protect you, I find myself with no choice but to ask for your assistance.

  “Any ships of the Patrol that you could spare and deploy to Ardennes may help turn the tide of the battle to come. I fear we will see a major Republic deployment within days, a week at most.

  “I understand that all must look to their own defenses in these times, but I must ask for your help regardless. Anything you can spare will be appreciated. Please, Miles…this may be our darkest hour. Send help.”

  He swallowed, then spoke more formally.

  “That is the complete message, Mage Elliot. Please forward to the Governor as soon as possible. I am ending the connection on my side now.”

  It cut out before the Sherwood Mage could respond, and Damien sighed. He had no idea how McLaughlin would respond, but Sherwood was his homeworld. He had faith in Governor McLaughlin—and even more than that, he had faith in Commodore Grace McLaughlin, the commander of the Sherwood Interstellar Patrol.

  And his ex-girlfriend.

  Shaking his head, he looked at his wrist-comp. There were three more systems on his list, the only ones near enough to Ardennes to get there in time who had both RTAs and significant System Militias.

  Well, Míngliàng and Condor had System Militias. Amber… Amber was a different case entirely. The Amber Defense Cooperative had some jump-capable ships, but the main thing Damien was counting on was that Amber was the home base for many of the Protectorate’s semi-legal mercenaries.

  Amber’s laws, after all, were best described as “lax.”

  He sighed.

  “System, display calculations for Amber RTA,” he ordered.

  He had two messages for Amber. One was for the government, such as it was. One was for an old friend.

  36

  Admiral Grace McLaughlin was swamped. Saddled with an overambitious title and an even more overwhelming job, it was the job of the petite redheaded woman in the dark blue uniform to protect the Sherwood System and provide security for the surrounding jump zones.

  Not to mention being jointly responsible for the security of the Antonius System, a star system–sized mineral motherlode that her government shared with the Míngliàng System’s government. She and Admiral Yen Phan of the Míngliàng Security Flotilla were as close to friends as two women who’d almost started a war with each other could be.

  With the latest construction, the Sherwood Inters
tellar Patrol was now up to twenty frigates, big ships not quite up to the weight of a cruiser but out-massing anything else in space. Even Grace had thought that level of construction was overkill, but now she was grateful for it.

  It also meant that she had three subordinate Commodores and barely even saw the decks of Robin Hood, her theoretical flagship. She lived in an office buried in the new military orbital, crushed under approximately twenty metric tons of paperwork.

  When her aide stepped into her office, she barely managed to avoid biting his head off. The Navy was, quite reasonably, asking for a dramatic increase in the antimatter stockpiles the MidWorlds kept on hand for them. It was falling to Grace to be sure that their production could handle that and the demands of the Patrol itself.

  “What is it, Joseph?” she asked after swallowing her initial unnecessary reaction.

  “The Governor is on a direct encrypted channel,” Joseph Manderley told her. The stuffy man was at least twice her age, and she’d never met anyone less military than him. On the other hand, he was an extraordinarily efficient bureaucrat and was probably the only reason her office resembled anything other than an ongoing tornado.

  “Your grandfather wants to speak to you immediately,” Manderley continued. “Shall I tell him you’re available?”

  Grace chuckled, hoping it sounded only partially forced.

  “My grandfather is also my boss and runs this damn star system,” she replied. “Put him through. He’s seen the state of my office before.”

  Manderley bowed and withdrew. A moment later, the wallscreen came to life with the face of Miles James McLaughlin, patriarch of the McLaughlin clan, elected Governor of the Sherwood System…and Grace’s grandfather.

  “I thought I hired you a damn staff,” the old man said gruffly. His hair had gone from pure white to wispy and translucent over the last few years, and age was starting to drag his face down. His eyes were bright and sharp, but Grace couldn’t help wondering just how long he could keep up the current pace.