Voice of Mars (Starship's Mage Book 3)

by Glynn Stewart

  “Unfortunately, the best case I see is that only one of our ships has gone rogue,” Accord said bluntly. “A significant enough portion of the attacks were not witnessed that some of them could be carried out by someone else. That… fails Occam’s Razor, ma’am. It requires additional assumptions I can’t justify with the evidence.”

  “So at least two, and possibly three, of my ship’s crews are waging a private war,” Grace said flatly. “I need to know Inspector. Get me names. I’ll start measuring the rope, but I need names.”

  “I’ll get them for you,” Javier Accord promised. “And I’ll swing on their feet when you hang them.”

  Their moment of fierce agreement was interrupted by her PC chiming for her attention. With a touch, she opened a communications channel.

  “McLaughlin here.”

  “Ma’am, we have a jump flare in the inner system,” her XO reported. “The Duke of Magnificence is back.”

  #

  “My lord, I have Mage-Commander Renzetti on the com for you,” Lieutenant Carver told Damien. “FN Twenty One Eighty Seven arrived early this morning. There’ll be about a two second com lag.”

  “Thank you, Lieutenant. Please connect the Mage-Commander,” Damien told the young officer. He flipped the channel up onto the wallscreen on the observation window and turned his chair to face the image that appeared of the courier ship captain.

  “Mage-Commander Renzetti, it’s good to see you made it back earlier than expected,” he greeted the other man. “What did you learn?”

  “My Lord Hand,” Renzetti greeted him, bowing slightly as his message and Damien’s crossed each other in space. The Mage-Commander, an experienced spacer, then waited to see Damien’s own greeting.

  “Nova Industries was very cooperative,” he explained once the time lag caught up. “Given the scale of Governor Wong’s order, I suspect they were expecting someone from the Navy to ask questions sooner or later.”

  Damien nodded, trying not to audibly growl or sigh. He’d hoped he’d judged the situation wrong. Míngliàng was starting to look more and more buried down in the muck of the whole affair.

  “How big an order are we talking here?” he asked, and waited the four seconds for his response.

  “Big,” Renzetti replied with a sigh. “More than doubling his hulls and vastly increasing his tonnage. Míngliàng put a lot of money down, my lord. Enough that TCNI diverted nearly completed units ear-marked for other customers and is paying out penalty clauses to deliver the MSF’s ships first.

  “If the timeline they gave me is correct, the first batch of two cruisers and eight destroyers should have arrived in Míngliàng two days ago. That’s almost thirty million tons of warships, Lord Montgomery. The second batch is due in three months and is the same size.”

  “That will completely change the balance of power in this sector,” Damien concluded aloud. Technically, TCNI had no obligation to report sales of ships so long as they were to a planetary government. When this story made it back to the Mage-King and the Council that might just change.

  “I checked our records of what we observed of Míngliàng media while we were in orbit,” Renzetti continued. “I don’t think any of us were looking for it, but there was a hard push going on to recruit experienced spacers to the MSF.”

  “Send us whatever details they gave you,” Damien ordered. It wouldn’t be much – the Runic Transceiver Arrays only transmitted the voice of the speaking Mage. Recordings, modems, none of that was picked up – only the voice of the Mage. The general conclusion had been that the RTA wasn’t actually transmitting sound so much as the Mage’s intent to speak. The details Renzetti would have would be those related by a Mage on the other end.

  “Of course, my lord. If I may ask,” he said hesitantly, “what happens now?”

  “We’ll have to wait on those details,” Damien said quietly. “But there is no way I’m not headed to Míngliàng again next.”

  #

  Damien rested his head against the glass of the observation window, watching his home world slowly grow as the Duke approached. A thousand questions and scenarios ran through his head, but the answers, if there were any, refused to resolve themselves.

  He knew that ships from both Míngliàng and Sherwood had attacked and killed civilian and military spacers from the other system. What he wasn’t at all sure of was that the government of either system was involved in the attacks – he was reasonably sure that Grace and her grandfather weren’t, but Governor Wong didn’t strike him as the type either.

  By now, Lieutenant Mac Duibhshíthe had made his report and Damien’s ex-girlfriend was being confronted with an act of war against her star system. Grace would take it to the Governor – she had no choice, that was her job.

  The Sherwood Interstellar Patrol wasn’t designed to wage an interstellar war, but Damien had no doubts that Grace could manage it – and then would run into Míngliàng’s dramatically expanded fleet. Even if she was warned about those new ships, a battle between the Patrol and the Míngliàng Security Flotilla would turn into a disaster of mutual destruction.

  If Governor McLaughlin didn’t at least consider a counter-force mission to reduce or destroy the Flotilla, he wasn’t doing his job. From the data Damien had in hand, he couldn’t even blame his home system for wanting to do so.

  There was no way Hand Damien Montgomery could permit Sherwood to launch that mission. It would be the first step to open warfare between Sherwood and Míngliàng – and in so doing, potentially lay the foundation for the utter collapse of the Protectorate.

  If he stopped them, he would be unquestionably laying the interests of Mars and the Protectorate over those of his home world. He would also be keeping the peace, and if he managed to stop this war that seemed to inch closer with every day that passed, he would save thousands – tens of thousands – of lives.

  That he would also likely destroy any chance of rekindling his relationship with Grace was such a tiny thing to stack up against that goal. If he was prepared to lay down his life in the service of Mars and peace, why would that even count?

  But it did. It just wasn’t enough to change what he had to do.

  With a sigh, Damien touched a command to open a channel to the bridge.

  “Lieutenant Carver,” he greeted the on-duty com officer. “I need you to pass my regards to Governor and Commodore McLaughlin and inform them that they will meet me aboard the Duke of Magnificence as soon as we reach orbit.

  “If they argue, remind them of Article Seventeen of the Charter,” Damien said grimly. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

  He looked back to the planet growing in front of him, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut. He’d just ordered his ex-girlfriend and the Governor of his home planet to meet him, and accompanied the order with an outright threat.

  Article Seventeen of the Charter of the Protectorate obligated Damien to assist Sherwood’s government in protecting its citizens.

  It was also the Article that gave him the authority to relieve a Governor.

  Chapter 24

  Damien didn’t know the eldest McLaughlin well enough to judge the Governor’s mood by his body language, though the sheer control being exerted in his movements and gestures as he entered Damien’s office gave him hints. Grace McLaughlin, on the other hand, he had once known very well indeed.

  She was furious. She stalked into his office, ignoring him completely to look out the window at the planet below. Even her apparent anger at him didn’t seem to immunize her from the view from the massive observation window that made up one wall of his office.

  “Governor, Commodore,” he said quietly. “Please sit.”

  They were alone in his office. Combined, the two McLaughlins could probably muster enough magical power to overcome his defenses and kill him, at least if they took him by surprise, but direct physical threats were not the problem.

  “It seems we are at your disposal,” Grace grounded out and Damien did his best to disguise his
wince as the two McLaughlins sat.

  “I presume you have reviewed whatever report Lieutenant Mac Duibhshíthe provided on the Mistletoe Solstice incident,” he said in as calm a voice as he could manage.

  “I have,” Governor McLaughlin replied. “I see no options available to me but one. As a great man once said, I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, but the massacre of my citizens and the destruction of their ships must be answered.”

  “We can have two more Phase Two frigates available in forty-eight hours,” Grace interjected. “The Friar Tuck and Little John should have returned by then, with the Alan-a-dale only a few hours behind. A counter-force mission to neutralize the MSF’s jump-capable fleet is the cleanest option, and we should be able to avoid unnecessary civilian casualties.”

  “Civilian casualties like those on the twenty-plus Míngliàng freighters that shared the Mistletoe Solstice’s fate, Commodore?” Damien asked gently. The degree of thought and planning already in place worried him. “Freighters that, so far as the evidence I have goes, were destroyed by Sherwood ships?

  “You come to me prepared to launch a war, and yet so far as I can tell, you’ve already been fighting one.”

  Both of them were silent for a long moment, and Grace sighed.

  “We are investigating,” she told him. “It appears we have a rogue faction in our ranks, I won’t pretend otherwise.”

  “But what Míngliàng has done is an act of war, my lord Hand,” the Governor interjected. “We cannot let it pass.”

  “You speak of acts of war as if Sherwood was a sovereign state, Your Excellency,” Damien pointed out. “It is not. It never has been. Sherwood is a member system of the Protectorate, bound by the Articles of the Charter and the Compact. You have the right to raise militia to police your system, not to use that militia to wage war against another system.”

  “My people are being massacred!” McLaughlin snapped. “I will not sit by, not when the tool to save them is to hand!”

  “Governor,” Damien said very, very quietly, forcing McLaughlin to lean forward to hear him, “let me be clear. This is not your jurisdiction. This was a ship attacked in interstellar space. The investigation was carried out by the Martian Navy. You have no authority to launch the campaign – not least, while your captains are killing their citizens, you have no moral authority to act.”

  “You dare lecture me about moral authority?” the Governor bellowed, rising to his feet. “If we are not sovereign, we traded it for protection – if that protection is lacking, I must act – by whatever means I have, including war!”

  “I will not permit you to go to war,” Damien said flatly. “It will not happen.”

  “Who do you think you are?” the older man demanded. He loomed over Damien now, quivering with his anger. The Mage-Governor of Sherwood was not used to being defied, and he certainly was not used to being ordered.

  The Hand was set on a chain that was surprisingly easy to release, and it slammed down onto Damien’s desk with a resounding thud. The gold icon of a clenched fist glinted in the light reflecting through the window off of Sherwood and through the massive window.

  “I am the Hand of the Mage-King of Mars,” Hand Damien Montgomery told him. He did not rise, but he met Miles James McLaughlin’s eyes levelly. “Do not mistake the Hand for the boy you knew. Justice for the Mistletoe Solstice’s crew is my duty. I am no more certain Governor Wong is to blame for their deaths than I am certain that you are to blame for the death of the Dreamer’s crew. If I allow you credit for the possibility of rogue factions, should I ignore that possibility at Míngliàng?”

  “And if I refuse to be dictated to?”

  “Then I will relieve you,” Damien said flatly. “And if your Vice-Governor is determined to start a war as well, I will relieve him. I believe Sherwood’s line of succession is what, forty-five people long? I’m sure one of them is, if nothing else, completely lacking in spine.”

  For a long moment, the Hand met the Governor’s gaze and he could feel the tension cracking in the room.

  Then Grace laughed, and the tension snapped like a broken wire.

  “I don’t think you would need to go far down that list, my lord Hand,” she told the two men. “Governor – Grandfather – let’s at least hear what Damien has to say.”

  The McLaughlin relaxed by inches, slowly retreating back from the standoff that had been almost fatal to his career, and nodded slowly.

  “Very well, my lord Hand,” he allowed. “If this is, as you say, your jurisdiction, what do you plan to do about the deaths of my people?”

  “I plan to stop the deaths of everyone’s people,” Damien told him. “Right now, I currently suspect we may be facing rogue factions on both sides – factions that may be actively working together to start a war. There’s always someone who hasn’t fought one who thinks they can profit,” he observed coldly.

  “I am suspending the Patrol’s license to operate outside Sherwood,” he continued. He glanced at Grace and recognized the signs of her swallowing her anger and continued quickly: “I will also immediately proceed to Míngliàng, where I will suspend the Flotilla’s license to operate outside Míngliàng.

  “My courier will proceed to Antonius, where he will deliver my order to stop all ships leaving that system,” Damien finished. “Captain Arrow aboard the Dreams of Liberty will enforce that order.”

  He met Grace’s eyes. “All of this is a temporary measure to protect both your and Míngliàng’s spacers until the Navy forces I have requested arrive. Admiral Medici will be en route within a few days, and here in a little more than two weeks. The Protectorate will assume responsibility for the security of both Antonius and all shipments to and from the system.

  “Once Martian forces have secured Antonius and the convoys in and out, we are going to tear into the computers of both your ships and the Flotilla’s and get to the bottom of this. I will find the guilty, but first we need to stop the dying – and going to war, Governor, is not going to do that.”

  Now he held Governor McLaughlin’s gaze, hoping, praying, that the Governor understood. He didn’t really want to relieve the ridiculously popular leader. He’d do it if he had to, but he would truly never be able to come home again if he did.

  “Very well, Lord Montgomery,” McLaughlin finally replied with a long sigh. “I will give you… time. Do not expect my patience to be infinite.” He sighed again. “But you are not wrong, and your plan strikes me as the best chance for making sure the truly guilty are punished.”

  “Thank you, Governor,” Damien told him. “I will return your faith with faith – necessity means I must depart for Míngliàng immediately and my courier ship must head for Antonius almost as quickly. I must trust you to retain your ships in Sherwood. Of course,” he pointed out, “FN Twenty One Eighty Seven will be returning here once they’ve been to Antonius, and they can reach us at Míngliàng very quickly.”

  “We will obey your orders, my lord,” Grace promised, and something in how she used the title told him their reawakened sparks were very, very, cold now. “We will give you time.”

  #

  Grace fumed the entire way back to the shuttle, following her grandfather and keeping her eyes level to keep any of the spacers surrounding her from realizing her mood. She had no doubt that Montgomery’s people liked and respected him as much as hers did her, and her people would have made sure she learned if someone she’d been meeting with had stomped off the ship.

  Finally back on the Patrol shuttle, with just her and the Governor in the back of it, she let loose a massive sigh.

  “That went just about as badly as it could possibly have gone, didn’t it?” she said to her grandfather.

  “I think… I think not,” he replied softly. “And that was thanks to you. I was about ready to call his bluff on being willing to relieve me… and in hindsight, he was not bluffing.”

  “I never expected Damien Montgomery to be that much of a hardass,” Grace admitted. “He was
always so… diffident? Shy?”

  “Unless I am very mistaken, your boyfriend still is,” he replied. “But he is also very certain of his authority. And he is also right.”

  “He hasn’t been my boyfriend in five years,” the head of Sherwood’s naval militia objected. “And he’s right? You think there’s a rogue faction in Míngliàng?”

  “In honesty? No,” the Governor admitted. “But, if we expect the Hand to give us the credit of believing such a faction exists, we have no choice but accept that possibility in our enemies – and allow the Hand to try and find those truly responsible.

  “As for boyfriend, my dear, you are my granddaughter, I’ve known you your entire life, and I am not blind,” he finished sharply. “You are pissed at him right now for calling us on the carpet. Eventually it will matter more that he was right to do so – especially if he keeps us from having to go to war.”

  Grace shook her head at her grandfather and considered for a long moment.

  “So we go into lockdown and obey his orders?” she asked finally.

  “If we were going to fight, we’d want to recall everyone anyway,” he pointed out reasonably. “So pulling all of your ships back to Sherwood costs us nothing. He said nothing about not accelerating the deployment of the Phase Two ships.”

  “So we proceed as planned, but hold off on actually moving ships anywhere?” Grace asked slowly.

  “If Montgomery succeeds, nobody else dies, and that’s a win in any book,” Governor McLaughlin replied. “In that case, we spent a bit of money getting two ships online that we didn’t need. Hardly a disaster.

  “But if Montgomery fails, we will need to act to protect our people, and I’d rather you had to do that with nine frigates than with seven.”

  Chapter 25

  The Duke of Magnificence appeared in the Míngliàng system to a hornet’s nest of activity. Jakab released the simulacrum and eyed the data codes rapidly propagating across the screens surrounding him. There were a lot more ships in orbit of the colony that there had been when they left.