“You kept doing a damn fine job,” he admitted, “but part of me wanted the damn assistant tactical officer I chose and had been working with for six months. I wasn’t setting you up to fail, I wasn’t that far gone, but I sure as hell wasn’t expecting you to succeed.
“And when you did succeed, I chalked it up to luck and ‘gave you more rope.’” He tapped a command on his desk and a machine started to whir away, making coffee. “And because I’d been thinking that way, I failed to miss that my top subordinate was doing her job just fine, even with only half-assed support from me.”
“And then we ended up in a battle,” Morgan said quietly.
A panel slid aside and the coffeepot rose out of the desk. Masters pulled out two cups and poured coffee for them both, clearly marshaling his thoughts.
“Then we ended up in combat,” he agreed. “And however good a job you’d been doing, my brain was still seeing it as giving you rope, so I panicked at the thought of you in command of a battleship’s weapons in combat.
“That was not a response you deserved and far from the response you’d earned,” Masters said flatly. “I failed you. I failed this ship. I failed myself. And because I was so busy failing to lean on the strong right arm I didn’t see that I had, I failed to fight my Captain’s ship.”
He took a long swallow of coffee. Morgan waited. There wasn’t much to this self-flagellation that she could contribute to. It seemed Captain Vong had already done his part, and Morgan didn’t figure her O-4 opinion was really needed.
“I realized that much on my own,” Masters said after a moment. “What the Captain pointed out to me was how badly I had failed in my duty as your superior, to support you, train you and recognize the work you were doing.
“Like I said. I owe you an apology.”
“Apology made and accepted,” Morgan said firmly. “I don’t think that harping on the past is going to improve things, do you?”
Masters paused, carefully taking another sip of coffee.
“Perhaps not,” he allowed.
“I may not be Annette Bond’s biological daughter, Commander, but she is still my mother,” Morgan told him. “She’d say we have a job to do and going forward is the only way to fix it. I’ve been doing my job, best as I can, and honestly, sir, I’ve never been an ATO before. I didn’t know this wasn’t how it was supposed to be!”
Masters barked a bitter laugh, but his smile was genuine. It reached into his eyes and sparkled for a few delightful seconds.
“Well, it’s not,” he told her. “So, we’re going to do better…first and foremost, you should be in the senior officers’ briefing. You’re a line officer—you’re ahead of, say, Lieutenant Commander Antonova in the chain of command and you need to know what’s going on!”
Chapter Twenty-One
Super-battleship after super-battleship flashed through the hyper portal into the Xīn Táiwān System. Harriet’s flagship led the way, all sixteen of her Vindication-class ships forming an armored spearhead in case the worst had happened—and the odds were that no one would have even noticed the two Bellerophons that slipped through the portal right after them.
The Vindications had been built from the ground up with hyperfold cannons and plasma lances, and the older ships had been refitted with hyperfold coms and cannons.
The Bellerophons were her snipers, carrying twice as many hyperfold cannons as any of her super-battleships and concealing almost her entire hyper-drive missile armament.
Thirty-two more super-battleships followed, interspersed with dozens of cruisers and destroyers. Harriet Tanaka’s fleet carried more humans than lived in this system, and less than five percent of her crews were human.
“We have the Rimward Squadron on scanners,” Sier reported. “Xīn Táiwān remains in Imperial control.”
“That’s fascinating,” Harriet murmured. “No evidence of a combat action at all?”
“Nothing,” her chief of staff confirmed. “We’ve linked with Admiral Rolfson’s force and are downloading updates. No one in Xīn Táiwān has had so much as a sniff of the enemy.”
“Then where did they go?” she asked aloud. “One week they’re smashing along our Rimward frontier, killing hundreds of thousands. The next they’re gone. What am I missing?”
“At least some of them went and interrupted the Mesharom’s lifting wind,” Sier reported. “We have a full report from Bellerophon. She engaged a Kanzi super-battleship in a black hole system.”
The Yin paused, clicking his beak sharply in the gesture his people used in place of a shake of the head.
“They had to go full Gold Dragon to carry the day,” he noted. “With a Mesharom aboard.”
“Well, there goes that set of secrets,” Harriet sighed. “We’ll keep that in mind. A Kanzi ship?”
“Captain Vong says yes, but that they also encountered destroyers that matched up with the vessels that began the Alpha Centauri Incident.”
“Make sure Admiral Rolfson has every piece of data Captain Vong has on those ships,” she snapped. “He’s the only ship commander who survived that fight. If the destroyers are the same…he’ll know.”
“He should have everything Bellerophon sent us,” her subordinate pointed out. “They are a Militia ship, after all.”
“Get us into orbit and schedule a meeting with our Lords and Vice Admiral Rolfson,” Harriet ordered. “We’ll go over everything we know while we wait for Division Lord Peeah to report in. There were no super-battleships at Powell, Sier. It’s entirely possible we have two enemies in play, and I don’t want to miss a move by the Kanzi because we’re watching our back for the bastards who took on the Mesharom.”
“And if we do find out who killed the Frontier Fleet squadron?” Sier asked.
“The priority is the people who murdered our citizens. But once we’ve dealt with them, I have every intention of finding the people who attacked Frontier Fleet and…expressing the Empress’s displeasure.”
Once the Rimward Squadron’s eight capital ships were absorbed into Harriet’s Seventy-Seventh Fleet, the skies above Xīn Táiwān’s single habitable planet were witness to an awe-inspiring collection of firepower.
Shuttles flickered between the behemoths at carefully controlled speeds. With the entire fleet occupying a space barely fifty thousand kilometers on a side, their usual speed of around half of light would be a disaster waiting to happen.
Those shuttles delivered each of Harriet Tanaka’s senior subordinates aboard Justified, with Vice Admiral Rolfson arriving last and providing a textbook-perfect salute.
Of course, that textbook was the United Earth Space Force’s, not the Imperial Navy’s or even the Duchy of Terra Militia’s. It was closer to the latter than the former…but it was also the salute that Harriet Tanaka had originally trained with.
She returned it, then switched to the Imperial Navy’s hand (or equivalent tool-using limb) to heart gesture.
“Welcome aboard Justified, Admiral Rolfson. It’s been a while.”
“That it has,” he agreed. In truth, Harriet didn’t believe she’d ever met the man in person, but they’d been on various conference calls and exchanged emails by the thousand over the years.
Meeting in person wasn’t really required to know someone anymore.
“Did I spot a pair of Bellerophons hiding in the shadow of your super-battleships?” Rolfson asked.
“You did,” Harriet confirmed. “You were briefed on Bellerophon herself’s encounter?”
“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Sounds like our Gold Dragon protocols may be wrecked with regards to the Mesharom—and they were who we were hoping to hide it from!”
“Let’s just hope they don’t put the pieces together,” she told him. “Or if they do, they don’t see any sense in crying over spilt beer.”
He snorted.
“We have more immediate problems,” he noted. “I’m guessing you plan on briefing everyone together?”
“Indeed. Is there anything you need m
e to know before we get in with everyone?” Harriet asked.
“The ships Bellerophon fought? They were the same as the ships at Centauri,” he told her, confirming what she’d suspected. “That had me take a second look at the data from Powell.”
“And?”
“I don’t know any more about the ships than anyone else does…but the beams they took Patience and Corona Glare out with?” Rolfson grimaced. “They’re the same guns the bastards took out Centauri Station with during the Incident.
“I don’t think we’re facing the Theocracy, sir. These guys are smurfs, no two ways about it, but I’m not sure the High Priestess knows any more about them than I do.”
Harriet snorted.
“It’s possible,” she allowed. “But if they make a wrong move right now, I’m not going to hesitate to punch their blue faces all the way back to the High Priestess’s own damn house.”
“And I’ll be with you the whole way,” Rolfson confirmed. “Never did like having slavers for neighbors, after all.”
With her squadron commanders gathered in the briefing room, Harriet took a moment to wonder at the complexity of the Imperial command structure. She had three Imperial Squadron Lords, two Terran Vice Admirals, three Imperial Division Lords—commanding squadrons of lighter units—and three Terran Rear Admirals.
Including her, there were six humans in the room. All three of the Militia squadron commanders were human, as was Vice Admiral Rolfson. One of her Division Lords was a human, one of the still-small handful of human flag officers in the Imperial Navy.
Tidikat was the fifth Terran officer, the Laian looking perfectly comfortable in his oddly tailored white Militia dress uniform. Harriet’s own subordinates included a Yin, a Frole, a Rekiki, and two Indiri.
She was waiting on a response from her Pibo flag officer, but the collection of strange species in the room was impressive. Division Lord Iffa, her Frole cruiser squadron commander, was an ambulatory mushroom. The Indiri were wide-faced, red-furred frog-like amphibians, and the Rekiki was a large crocodilian centaur.
It was an odd collection, but they were all professionals and she knew the skills of both groups of officers perfectly well. Her Seventy-Seventh Fleet had been lurking inside Jupiter for ten long-cycles at this point.
“As of today, we have exerted levy right on the Duchy of Terra’s Rimward Squadron and absorbed Vice Admiral Rolfson’s command into Seventy-Seventh Fleet,” Harriet told her people. “His units will continue to report to him going forward, to avoid confusion, but this is now a single combined force. One of the largest ones to ever be deployed this far out on the Rim.”
She shook her head.
“Unfortunately, our best efforts have left us with few answers as to what is going on out here,” she admitted. “The evidence is such that I am inclined to believe the Theocracy’s protestations of innocence: it definitely appears that the rogue Kanzi who attacked Hope thirty long-cycles ago have shown up again.
“On the other hand, I don’t believe that the Kanzi don’t know anything,” she continued. “I forwarded the diplomatic briefing package I received from A!To to all of you. Did everyone have a chance to review it?”
If anyone had somehow failed to review the documents the Fleet Lord had sent over, they didn’t admit it. It hadn’t made for enjoyable reading.
“Imperial civilian communication with the Kanzi is limited at the best of times, but it has been completely shut off now,” Harriet noted. “Getting data from our agents inside the Theocracy has apparently proven more difficult than usual, but we have confirmed a significant movement of Theocracy Navy units around their territory.”
“Doesn’t that suggest that the shadow-lichen are up to something?” Iffa asked. The translator converted their voice into something intelligible, but the original sound of their speech was still audible. Frole spoke by emitting gases from multiple different orifices on their body, creating a rather odd cross between speaking in tongues and fart humor.
“And that is part of why I think they know more than they’re telling us,” she said grimly. “We know even less about what they’re doing than usual, but…”
“I’ve reviewed all of the data we have,” Rolfson said into the silence. “There’s no question of it: the destroyers that Bellerophon engaged are identical to the ships that attacked Centauri. The rest of the ships, from the battleships at Powell to the super-battleships that attacked the Mesharom, are of a similar ilk. Kanzi design but not Kanzi technology.”
“So, who are they?” Tidikat asked. “These strange Kanzi are not known to either of the peoples I have served, and most organizations that crawl in shadows have been to Builder of Sorrows.”
Tidikat was an exile from exiles, and the main block of Laian Exiles were clustered around what had once been a major mobile shipyard for the Laian Ascendancy. Known to humanity as Tortuga, Builder of Sorrows was a major pirate and smuggler port.
If these strangers hadn’t been to Tortuga, then they almost certainly weren’t hiding in Theocracy space.
“I think these people, whoever they are, are coming from beyond known space,” Harriet said quietly. “Beyond the Rimward of both the A!Tol and the Kanzi there is space we have scouted—but beyond that, there is only darkness and best guesses.”
“They come from the darkness beyond our known stars,” Iffa agreed. “I wonder, Fleet Lord…if perhaps we are not even the main target of their attack.”
“Explain,” she ordered.
“They are Kanzi…but not from the Theocracy. Is it not possible that we were simply targets of opportunity as they went for their own people?” the Frole asked.
Harriet tapped a command, opening a holographic chart of the region, highlighting the now-devastated human worlds.
“It would explain why Xīn Táiwān went unattacked,” Rolfson pointed out as they all looked at the star chart. “If they were heading…here, they’d have passed by Lelldorin and Powell but not New Taiwan.”
“And their force that took on the Frontier Fleet would likely have been able to rendezvous with them there, using the black hole as an easy reference point for changing their course,” Tidikat added.
“When would they have reached Avida?” Harriet asked, letting her subordinates run the numbers. Avida was the Kanzi colony next along the line that ran through Lelldorin and Powell.
“Fifteen cycles ago,” Iffa concluded. A little over two weeks.
Harriet nodded, starting to hum softly as she thought and studied the map.
“What about Kanda?” she asked.
When humanity had joined the Imperium, the Kovius Treaty that both the Imperium and the Kanzi recognized—mostly because the Mesharom Frontier Fleet existed to enforce it—had declared a forty-light-year radius of Sol to be human territory. Which meant, now, Imperial territory.
A chunk of that sphere had cut through space the Kanzi had regarded as theirs, and they’d had a few colonies beyond that sphere.
Kanda was the largest, a thriving world of two hundred fifty thousand Kanzi and four hundred thousand slaves.
It was also further Rimward on the line drawn through Avida, Lelldorin, and Powell.
“They don’t have hyperfold coms and we’re not scouting their distant colonies,” Rolfson said quietly. “They might know if something had happened, but we wouldn’t.”
Before Harriet could finish her thought, an emergency alert pinged on her com. Not much would get to her in this meeting, and she suspected she knew what she’d see even before she opened the device.
“Division Lord Peeah has made contact,” she told everyone. “The Kanzi have left Alstroda.”
A hologram of the smooth-skinned gray Pibo appeared in the middle of the table, replacing the astrographic chart. The image was aligned toward Harriet and Peeah saluted crisply as the recording began.
“Fleet Lord Tanaka, we may have a problem,” he said calmly. His natural voice was inaudible to human ears, but the translators picked it up. “One of my destroyers
did a scouting run of Alstroda. The entire mobile fleet positioned there is gone—only the fixed defenses remain in place.”
He blinked his large black eyes three times in rapid succession, a sign of discomfort.
“Per the last intelligence assessment I have access to, Fleet Master Shairon Cawl should have at least four squadrons of either super-battleships or battleships, plus escorts. None of those ships are at Alstroda.
“Reviewing long-range anomaly scanner data from my other ships, we believe we have confirmed that Fleet Master Cawl has deployed to the Avida System,” he continued. “I am moving half of my squadron to shadow him while the remainder spreads out to watch for further Kanzi movements.
“While Avida is Theocracy space, I must note that it is also extremely well positioned to enable strikes against Asimov or Sol. The deployment of forty capital ships this close to the border is a clear violation of the treaties.”
The Theocracy used a ten-ship squadron instead of the sixteen-ship formation used by the Imperium and its Duchies. Peeah wasn’t wrong…except that Seventy-Seventh Fleet was even more powerful…and was equally close to the border.
“I will attempt to have one of my ships drop out of hyperspace every quarter-cycle to check the hyperfold relay network for updates,” he continued. “We will keep you advised of Cawl’s movements.”
The recording ended and Harriet shook her head slowly and thoughtfully.
“That lines up with our own guesses,” she noted aloud. “But it is also a threat we have to respond to. Cawl has forty capital ships. We have sixty. The odds are in our favor, but there is now no other force in this region that can oppose him.”
That the Theocracy position out here had out-gunned the official Imperial presence a thousand to one had been a known factor. Fleet Master Cawl had, in fact, been deployed to keep the local Clans in line after they’d run their fleets into a joint Imperial–Duchy of Terra meat grinder at Asimov four long-cycles earlier.
Darkness Beyond (Light of Terra: a Duchy of Terra series Book 1) Page 13
