by K. B. Wagers
“At ease, Admiral. Are you in contact with Vice Admiral Tobin?”
“No, ma’am. My people just arrived. They’re off-loading passengers and crew from the damaged ships now, and we’ve got some engineering crews with them to see if they can fix the damage to the Utalia enough for a warp back to Earth. Are you injured?”
“We weren’t in the fight, Admiral,” Captain Saito answered. “The Hailimi suffered minimal damage from the debris of one of the freighters before Admiral Tobin ordered us to bug out for the station. Is the rest of the task group okay?”
“Vice Admiral Tobin engaged the unknown hostiles several minutes after you warped out.” Admiral Bolio looked to the side, and my stomach clenched. “They destroyed the targets, Majesty. The Light of All was severely damaged but she can warp; I’m told Li is in critical condition. Three of the five Jal fighters were lost in the battle and one of the Sarama destroyers, the Rising Tide, was lost.”
“Lost?”
“All hands, ma’am. Direct hit to the reactor.” Admiral Bolio swallowed. “I’m told they put themselves in between the passenger liner and the hostiles as they were fleeing.”
I put a hand to my mouth. Captain Khalifa had just taken over the command of the Rising Tide after his promotion from the Battle for Pashati. I could call up his bright smile with ease, and it was a punch in the gut.
“Why am I hearing chatter that it was the Farians who fired on us?”
Kartia shook her head. “Because we think it was, ma’am. I’m getting sensor confirmation once the undamaged ships return to station. I’ve got a carrier group who should be at the location now to keep the damaged ships safe.”
“We’ll be on station in a few minutes,” I replied. “I want Admiral Hassan on the line and up to speed by the time I get there. I want to know who’s responsible for this. Tell whoever you sent out there to give us some answers and do it fast.”
“Yes, ma’am.” The screen went blank.
“Fuck.” I slammed a fist into the console. “Emmory, get the teams ready to disembark as soon as we’re docked.”
“Majesty—”
I could see all the reasons why he should say no to me scroll through Emmory’s eyes and come up against his own feeling of helplessness.
“I’ll be on a naval station, Emmory. My naval station.”
“We have no idea what the situation is, and most of my support was on those ships.”
“Major Gill is on the station, isn’t she?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Get her on the com now and tell her to meet us in the hangar. I’d be surprised if she’s not there already helping out with the incoming wounded. I’m heading off this ship for answers as soon as we dock.” I checked my smati. “You’ve got five minutes.”
Emmory nodded once and turned his attention to his Dve. “Gita, get teams One through Three ready to disembark. I’ll let Admiral Bolio know we’re coming on board.”
“Tell her no fuss,” I said. “That’s an order. She’s not to interrupt search-and-rescue protocol for me.”
The scene in Draupadi Station’s docking bay was one of organized chaos as I came off the Hailimi with my BodyGuards around me.
“Your Majesty. Commander Bisley.” The naval officer snapped to attention, dropping her salute when I nodded. “I’m Admiral Bolio’s aide, if you’ll follow me.”
The forward momentum of my BodyGuards facilitated the ease with which people moved from our path, and I acknowledged the greetings as best as I could.
“We’re on board the War Bastard, Hail, headed back out,” Johar said over the com link. She and Hao, along with Gita and Muna, were going back to the attack site to gather as much data as they could.
“Tell Gita to be nice,” I replied.
“I can hear you, Majesty.”
“Good. Behave yourself, both of you.”
Johar chuckled. “I’ll keep them in line. We’ll see you in a while.”
I took a deep breath and then followed Commander Bisley into the lift, grateful for Iza’s fingers curling around mine as the door closed.
Was this all my fault? Had the Farians hit us deliberately because I’d pushed about Fasé? Or were they panicking about Po-Sin? The sick certainty that I had messed up twisted itself in my gut.
“Her Imperial Majesty, Empress Hailimi Bristol.”
The entire bridge came to attention as I stepped off the lift and the announcement rang out into the air. I forced a smile, extending my hand to Admiral Bolio.
“Welcome aboard, Your Majesty. My ready room is over here. Several of the freighter captains have joined us, and Admiral Hassan will be on the com shortly.”
I followed her across the bridge, waiting by the door with Iza as Emmory and Zin went into the ready room and then gave the all clear.
“Your Majesty, this is Captain Rushi and Captain Hando of the Chennai Pharma Freighters Lightning Crashes and Opa’s Revenge.”
“Your Majesty.” The pair bowed. One was soot-covered; the other much cleaner, though her uniform bore several smudges. They both saluted.
The man cleared his throat. “Apologies for my appearance, Majesty. I was—”
“In the middle of a firefight.” I interrupted him with a soft smile. “I don’t need an apology, Captain. Are you injured?” I asked.
“No, Your Majesty.”
“What happened?”
“We were making our normal run from Bismouth to Mathura and had dropped out to see the white dwarf binary because it’s such a big draw. It’s a regular part of our route. I don’t know if they were waiting for us or what. We never even saw the ships.”
“Bugger me.” I muttered the curse into my hand.
The screen in front of me flickered, and Admiral Hassan appeared. “Your Majesty, Admiral,” Inana said. “Apologies for my clothes.” She gestured at her gray sweater.
“Why does everyone suddenly think I care what they’re wearing? We woke you up, Inana,” I replied. “It’s fine. Except it’s not. Are you up to speed here? Someone destroyed at least one of Chennai Pharma’s freighters, one of my Samaras, and possibly damaged Light of All beyond repair. We also lost three of our five Jal fighters in the engagement.” There was a second burst of pain in my chest. I’d met with all those pilots before we started off and now I couldn’t recall any of their faces or names. “I’ll need you to scramble some replacements and send them our way.”
“Yes, ma’am. I’ve already got another task group underway. We’ll have an ETA for you shortly. Did you lose any Vajrayanas?”
I glanced in Admiral Bolio’s direction and the woman shook her head in reply. “No. Inana, we think it was the Farians.”
She muttered a curse and rubbed a hand over her face. “Do we have confirmation?”
“Not yet, ma’am,” Admiral Bolio replied. “The freighters couldn’t get a reading before they bugged out, and the Light of All’s bridge took a direct hit.” She held up a hand. “I’m getting a com from Commander Fitz, I’ll patch her in.”
The screen split and a dark-haired woman appeared, whiskey-brown eyes taking in the details before Admiral Bolio could fill her in. “Your Majesty,” she said with a dip of her head. “Admiral Hassan.”
“Commander Fitz, what’s your status?”
“No additional hostiles spotted. We are headed back home, ma’am. Passenger liner is damaged, but we patched her enough to form a warp bubble back to the station. That seemed safer than making the long haul to Earth. I have the other two freighters intact and able to warp out. We’re leaving four ships here to watch out for Light of All.” She looked away from Admiral Hassan to me. “They were Farian, Your Majesty.”
The curses of the officers around me were drowned out by the rush of blood thumping through my ears. “You are sure?” I asked, and Commander Fitz nodded.
“Yes, ma’am. I had the crew go back into the bridge and pull what sensor data they could. Between the data from our sweep as well as reports that Captain Khalifa transmitt
ed before impact, it’s solid they were Farian ships. We’ve finished collecting the crews of the three freighters.” She gestured, and the screen widened slightly to show a slight, dark man at her side and two taller women behind him.
I heard the muffled sob Captain Rushi tried unsuccessfully to hold in and glanced in her direction. Her blue eyes were locked on one of the women, who caught her eye and gave her a little nod.
“Commander Fitz,” I said. “I sent the War Bastard back to collect more data. It’s got my Dve and my brother on it. I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t blow them out of the black when they arrive.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“We’ll see you in a few hours, Commander.” Admiral Bolio cut the com link and shared a nod with Inana. “Anything else, Admiral?”
“I want a full report as soon as you have something,” she replied. “I’ll talk with the others here, get them filled in.”
“Have Alice com me after. I want her on the line when I speak to the Farians. And Inana?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Meet with the Raksha, tell them to prepare for war.”
Inana met my grim smile with one of her own and nodded in acknowledgment before disconnecting the link. A chill had settled into the room along with the silence.
“Are you all right?” I asked Captain Rushi, putting my hand on her shoulder as she leaned on the console.
“Yes, Majesty.” She swiped away an escaping tear. “Captain Lewis of the Blue Diamond is my wife. I thought—I thought I’d lost her when her ship blew.” The slender woman exhaled and rubbed a hand over her face. “We’ve been together almost forty-five years. We went to school together on Leucht, got jobs with Chennai Pharma, and worked our way up to captain. We’ve been doing this run for damn near twenty years. I’ve never seen anything like this, not even during the Saxon War.”
These shipping lanes were too heavily traveled by non-Indranan interests for the Saxons to have outright attacked anything in the area. There had been some merchant raiders out here during the war that Mother suspected were being paid by the Saxons to harass our freighters, but she never could get proof.
Now there was a bigger problem than the Saxons lurking in the black. And my arrogance might have dragged us right into the middle of this fight that I’d been trying so hard to avoid.
32
Your Majesty, I am terribly sorry, I can’t—”
“I don’t care about what you can or can’t do,” I said, making the poor Farian who’d answered Ambassador Notaras’s com link swallow nervously. “You will get her on the link, and you will do it now.”
“Your Majesty,” he tried again. “The Itegas is not avail—”
“Enough!” I slammed my palm down on my desk. “She will make herself available. My people have been killed by Farian missiles and I want to know why. If you don’t want to be responsible for the severing of an alliance that is hundreds of years old, then get her on the com. Now.”
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
The screen flipped to the normally soothing blue of the hold image and I dragged in a breath.
“Hail, are you all right?” Alice’s face on the right side of the wall was etched with worry. Caterina was in the screen to her left. And above them Admiral Hassan was in her home office. It was still early morning back on Pashati, but despite my attempts to get them all to go back to sleep, these three women insisted on being there for my call to the Farians.
Given Alice’s hesitant question, it was probably to try to mitigate any potential incident I was about to cause.
“No, I am not,” I said finally, dragging in a deep breath. My eyes still locked on the blank screen of the com link with the Farians. “People are dead. A good man sacrificed himself so we didn’t lose even more. If the Farians targeted us deliberately, we’re about to dissolve our treaty with them and go to war. If it was an accident, I—”
Shaking my head, I closed my eyes for a moment and replayed Captain Khalifa’s last message from the Rising Tide.
“This is Captain Khalifa of the Rising Tide. Our shields are nearly depleted; however, we have incoming Farian missiles headed for the unarmed passenger liner Utalia. We will do what we can to stop them. Better our lives than others.” He nodded once. “May the Star of Indrana shine bright in the black.”
“Not better your lives. Better no one’s lives,” I whispered. “If it was an accident, I need to know exactly how it happened, Inana.”
The screen flickered back to life. Adora stood in front of a white wall. She was wearing a high-collared gray dress, but other than that I couldn’t get any sense of where she was or what time of day it was on Faria.
“Your Majesty, I must ask you not to shout at my assistant. He was under orders not to put any calls through.”
The stray thought that Alba would have just hung up on me wandered through my head, but I wasn’t about to give that suggestion to Ambassador Notaras.
“I would think you’d train your people to understand when breaking instructions is necessary,” I said instead. “We need to talk.”
“Your Majesty, this is highly improper, I am in the middle of—”
“Fuck your propriety,” I said calmly, and watched with some satisfaction as Adora gasped at me. “I have Indranans dead, Itegas Notaras. I have scans from my naval vessels confirming that Farian missile strikes destroyed three civilian freighters and damaged three others. I have a civilian passenger liner with wounded Indranan and Solarian nationals on board. So you tell me what kind of propriety I should follow when you’ve caused the deaths of my people?”
Adora seemed shaken by the news, and judging from the rise in the noise level she wasn’t alone in whatever room she’d answered my com in. “Your Majesty, I—I am truly sorry for the loss of your people. I will need to make some inquiries and get back to you before I can say anything more.”
“I’ll send you the data I have and the location of the incident. You have seventy-two standard hours, Adora. If I don’t have an answer I’m happy with at that time, then the first thing I’ll do is speak with the Matriarch Council about dissolving the treaty between Indrana and Faria.”
“Majesty—”
“And if I find out this was an attack on my empire authorized by the Farian government, things will get much worse from there.” I disconnected the com link, crossed my arms over my chest, and looked at Alice.
“Tell the others to start going over our options. Keep the names of the freighters and the ships out of the press for now. I want a chance for Chennai Pharma to notify the families. I’ll call Captain Khalifa’s family myself.”
Alice nodded. “Yes, Majesty.”
Caterina echoed her nod and both women’s screens went blank. Inana stayed on the link, her mouth pulled into a grim line.
“Majesty, we can’t go to war with the Farians.”
“I know.” I sighed. “We can’t go to war with anyone right now. I’m hoping it won’t come to that, or if it does, the Solarians will back us. They lost people in this attack also and they can’t afford to let the Farians run wild like this.”
“What if it was the Shen?” Inana asked. “They’ve stolen Farian ships. There could have been a battle.”
“I know, and the thought occurred to me, but Aiz has been fighting to keep us out of this. It doesn’t make any sense for him to make a move that would drag us right into it now.” I rubbed both hands over my face. “Go over the data on your end. We’ll send you more as we get it. Gita is back from looking over the incident site, and they brought back the wreckage of one of the Jal fighters. I’ll let you know if we find anything new.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Inana saluted and then cut the connection.
“Okay,” I said. “Emmory, get Zin and the others in here; let’s look at this data and see what we can make of it.”
There was a brief pause and then the door of my rooms slid open and Stasia came in with a tray, followed by Admiral Bolio’s people, my BodyGuards, and Hao. I snagge
d a cup of chai and bent over the console to look at the sensor data from Commander Fitz’s ship.
An hour later my BodyGuards had gone through a shift change and the members of Team Two were standing near the door in quiet conversation with Emmory while Hao and I continued to go through all the data.
“Johar and Dailun are crawling through that Jal wreckage with a few techs,” Hao said. “We’ve also got sensor data from the Light of All on the battle itself. We know the fighters were taken out by other similar-sized craft, not the missiles or other larger weapons on the Farian ships, but look at this.”
“This timing is impeccable,” I said.
“Tell me about it.” My brother raised a metallic eyebrow at me. “I don’t think those fighters have pilots.”
“You think they’re automated?”
Hao nodded. “Watch the pattern. It’s good, but—” He pointed at where one of my fighters juked at the last second and avoided the shot. “The only reason those two pilots survived is they figured it out and used the predictability of the computer against it.”
“Where are they?” I waited as Admiral Bolio checked her smati.
“Docking bay, Majesty. They just came back with the Nadi carrier Vishnu’s Chariot. Commander Resnik, leader of the freighter group, and Captain Mocki of the passenger liner Utalia are there also.”
“Let’s go down, then.” I rubbed at my face and drank the last of my chai, grimacing at the cold dregs. “Where’s Fasé?”
“She’s still helping with the wounded,” Emmory replied as we headed out the door.
“Majesty, a ship just dropped out of warp.” Admiral Bolio’s voice came over our private com link. “They’re requesting permission to dock.”
“Who does it belong to?” I took the SColt 45 Kisah passed over and checked it before I slid it into my holster.
“It’s Farian, Majesty,” Emmory replied as we headed down the corridor. “Fasé says they’ve been expecting it.”
I ignored Hao’s frown and nodded. “Tell them yes.”
I kept one hand on my gun as we came into the docking bay a few minutes later, Emmory and Kisah at my side.
