Drifter's Folly (Peacekeepers of Sol Book 4)

by Glynn Stewart

  The Eerdish himself sat behind an opulent dark wood desk, with similar detailed abstract carvings across its surface covered in industrial-strength plastic to protect them.

  “Commodore Wong, Ambassador Todorovich,” he greeted them calmly. His Kem was slow and hesitant, and Sylvia suspected he had a datapad out of the camera view providing text translations.

  She’d seen the eye-movement patterns before.

  “I understand that is now a secure channel, yes?” the Defender-Lord stated.

  “It is,” Sylvia confirmed. “Your communications staff has been quite helpful.”

  They were using a modification of an old Vesheron encryption protocol, not a standard encryption for either of them, but hopefully, one no one would be able to quickly break either.

  “My instructions,” Deetell said slowly, “forbid me from permitting foreign vessels any deeper into our space. Your ships are arguably enemy vessels, making that forbid double.

  “What is it that you desire?”

  “Firstly, we need to do the Eerdish a small favor,” Sylvia said with a smile. “Commodore Wong, if you would brief the Defender-Lord on what we found in the Moti System.”

  “The Moti System is ours,” Deetell countered.

  “Yes,” Henry agreed. “That is why we feel that you should know what we found.”

  There was a long pause.

  “Proceed, Commodore,” Deetell finally allowed.

  “Were you aware there was a Kenmiri listening post in your space?” Silvia’s boyfriend asked.

  There was a second pause—this one very clearly Deetell confirming that he had understood the Kem words correctly.

  “We were not,” he finally said. “That is impossible.”

  “I have seventeen Kenmiri prisoners aboard Paladin that I would like to render into Eerdish custody,” Henry said. “We captured them in your space, and I feel that their fate should be yours to decide.”

  “A listening post?” Deetell confirmed.

  “Indeed. We detected their communications and attempted to make contact,” Henry told him. “They opened fire on us; we returned fire and stormed the facility. They successfully wiped their computers and the prisoners have been noncommunicative, but I can provide you with scan data and similar information to confirm this report.”

  “The presence of Kenmiri in our space is completely unacceptable,” Deetell said. “I… I am not certain that my superiors will appreciate you engaging them without discussing it with us, but their elimination can only be of benefit to my people.”

  “And mine,” Henry said. “As I said in my initial message, I believed that it was of critical strategic importance to both our peoples that you know about this. The presence of Kenmiri listening posts in the outer sectors is a threat I did not expect to encounter on this mission.”

  “We… We will take custody of those prisoners and that data,” Deetell agreed. “I will need to review this information before I make any decisions based on it.”

  Henry had not, Sylvia noticed, mentioned the subspace communicator. That hot potato was being left in her court.

  Which was fair.

  “The discovery of the Kenmiri outpost, while a potential future threat, is secondary to our mission here,” she finally said.

  “So I understand,” Deetell replied. “I understand your mission is not about contacting my people.”

  “We wish to open diplomatic channels with both the Eerdish and your Enteni allies,” Sylvia told him. “We have a diplomatic contingent aboard our other ships from the La-Tar Cluster, and we will want to involve them in any further discussions.

  “For this initial…door-opening discussion, I felt it was best we keep it to the UPA and you.”

  “I do not have the authority to permit you to enter the Eerdish System or the Makata Cluster,” Deetell told them. “If you have sufficient need to discuss with my superiors, I will forward a message and my government will make that decision.

  “My mission is the security of the Seppen System.”

  “That is understandable,” Sylvia said. “But there are time constraints on our mission, Defender-Lord. We are in pursuit of the people who betrayed our peace conference with the Kozun and murdered hundreds of UPA, La-Tar Cluster and Kozun Hierarchy personnel under sign of truce.”

  There was another long silence, then Deetell swallowed—a disturbingly visible movement, given his pale green skin.

  “You mean the Drifters,” he said flatly.

  “The Blue Stripe Green Stripe Orange Stripe Convoy betrayed our trust and the sacred oaths they swore,” Sylvia said calmly. “The United Planets Alliance cannot allow that to stand.

  “We will pursue them, no matter where they flee. We would far prefer to do so with the cooperation and assistance of the Eerdish-Enteni Alliance…but we will do so either way.”

  From Deetell’s expression, he understood exactly what she was saying.

  “That went better than I was afraid of,” Sylvia admitted later, after Deetell had left the channel to make arrangements to receive the prisoners.

  “Agreed.” Henry shook his head, his gaze seeming concerned.

  “You’re worried,” she told him.

  “I don’t want to fight these people, Sylvia,” he admitted. “I will, if I have to, but is it really worth starting another war to avenge the Drifters’ betrayal?”

  “I don’t know,” Sylvia confessed. “Policy says that we need people to think our ambassadors and envoys are untouchable, that they can’t harm our people without fear of drastic consequences. There’s a logic to that.”

  She agreed with the logic. She didn’t necessarily like it, but she hadn’t much liked talking rebel cells into active revolutions that she’d known were going to get most of them killed, either.

  “The Convoy has already fled. They’re terrified of us. Maybe that’s enough.” Henry sighed. “Or maybe it isn’t. Who knows what they’re planning where we can’t see? I think…”

  He trailed off and Sylvia smiled sadly as she recognized what he was thinking.

  “The presence of the Kenmiri is making you nervous,” she guessed. “That’s a war that’s supposed to be over, but if they’re here…”

  “I’m also reminded of just how far my superiors are prepared to go,” Henry said quietly. “I don’t expect Admiral Rex to engage in an atrocity—our orders explicitly countermand one, in fact—but that we did once…”

  “You won’t let that happen again,” Sylvia told him firmly. She probably knew as much about Operation Golden Lancelot as anyone outside the UPSF—she’d been fully briefed in preparation for her role at the Great Gathering—and one of the things that had stuck out to her was how compartmentalized it had been.

  No one carrying out the actual attacks had realized they were engaged in a campaign of genocide. Each individual attack had been told it was a demonstration strike, an attempt to bring the Empire to the negotiating table by proving that the Kenmorad were not invulnerable. A modern equivalent of the Doolittle Raid on Tokyo during the wars of the mid-Twentieth Century.

  The people who’d organized and planned it all had left the execution to others, others who didn’t know the full plan. They’d compartmentalized the knowledge so no one would hesitate.

  “I won’t,” Henry agreed grimly. “It shouldn’t be necessary, either. But the thought terrifies me.”

  He sighed.

  “A courier just left the fleet base,” he told her. “Heading for Eerdish at full thrust. It appears the Defender-Lord has decided we are above his pay grade.”

  “He’ll take the prisoners, and someone else will decide if we get to Eerdish,” Sylvia agreed. “I’ll use the communicator to open the door to the skip line if I have to, Henry, but I don’t think that will be necessary.”

  “I’d really like to keep that,” he said with what she suspected was a forced smile. “Scans and images will only help R-Div so much.”

  “Given a choice between keeping the subspace communicat
or and having an alliance with the Eerdish and the Enteni against the Drifters—and potentially the Kenmiri!—I’m giving them the communicator, Henry,” Sylvia told him firmly.

  He sighed and nodded.

  “That is…a political question, I suppose,” he conceded. “And that makes it your call. My people are still scanning and photographing as we speak. If we can learn anything just from that, we will.”

  “Does anyone on DesRon Twenty-Seven actually know anything about subspace coms?” Sylvia asked.

  “Of course,” he said. “That’s how we detected the Kenmiri in the first place. Do they know enough to work out what this thing does?” He snorted and shook his head. “I don’t think any human—any non-Kenmiri, for that matter—knows that much yet.

  “But we will learn.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Henry stood in Paladin’s cramped shuttle bay, watching grimly as the Kenmiri prisoners filed onto the waiting shuttle. The Eerdish spacecraft was only mildly different from the Terran spacecraft that belonged there, and could have been on any ship he’d seen for two decades.

  The Vesheron and the successor states they’d become still relied heavily on ex-Kenmiri hardware and designs. It would be a long time before any of the ex-Vesheron powers had shuttles that weren’t identical.

  His focus couldn’t stay on the shuttle forever, though, and his gaze inevitably drifted to his prisoners. They all looked like Earth ants scaled up to a larger size, with heavy chitin carapaces that could resist light projectile fire.

  Henry knew that, unlike ants, the Kenmiri had something similar to a skeleton inside their chitinous skin, supporting their height and weight. The comparison was still inevitable to humans as the bipedal creatures with their three-part bodies walked across the deck.

  The lead four Kenmiri were Warriors, towering two and a quarter meters tall with dull black carapaces and sharp edges to the chitinous armor on their upper arms. Their eyes were multifaceted gems, tracking every movement around them—and Henry’s people had double-manacled every Warrior.

  There would be no risks with the Kenmiri military caste.

  The other dozen prisoners were smaller, barely a hundred and forty centimeters tall with carapaces colored in delicate patterns of blue and green. The Drones’ eyes were less capable than the Warriors’, but their gazes still swept the shuttle bay.

  They were awake and aware and paying attention. Part of him had expected the Kenmiri prisoners to be subdued and lackadaisical, a direct manifestation of their dying race.

  The difference was probably a solid metaphor for his errors about the Kenmiri Remnant itself.

  Eerdish troopers in full body armor and face-concealing helmets stepped off the shuttle, energy rifles at parade rest as they took over control of the chain line from Henry’s GroundDiv troopers. There were quiet conversations, likely in Kem, that Henry couldn’t hear.

  He had to watch. He had to make certain that the Kenmiri were off his ship. His sanity couldn’t permit anything less.

  To his surprise, however, one of the helmeted Eerdish stepped away from the line of prisoners at the direction of the GroundDiv squad leader and walked in his direction.

  Focusing to the moment, Henry smoothed his emotions from his face and stepped forward to greet the alien.

  “I am Commodore Wong,” he told them. “How may I assist?”

  There was an audible gust of air as the Eerdish disconnected their helmet, the atmosphere seals releasing as she took it off. A tightly-wound crown braid kept the Eerdish woman’s thick black hair under her helmet and she saluted crisply, UPSF-style, with the helmet under her arm.

  “I am Shield-Bearer Cochall,” she greeted him in Kem, tapping the single blue stripe painted on her armor. “On behalf of the War-Shields of the Gathered Tribes, I wanted to offer our thanks for the capture of these Kenmiri.

  “Politics between the Gathered Tribes and the United Planets Alliance may prevent proper recognition of your actions, but know that the War-Shields understand and appreciate what you have done for us.

  “Thank you, Commodore Wong.”

  “You are most welcome,” he told her. “The Kenmiri are our shared enemy. I could not leave a knife at my neighbor’s door.”

  “Some would,” Cochall told him grimly. “Some would.”

  She turned back as the last of the Kenmiri Drones vanished aboard her shuttle.

  “You will hear from the Defender-Lord soon, I believe,” she promised. “Again, thank you, Commodore Wong.

  “It is good to know that the ideals that brought us together as Vesheron are not yet entirely dead.”

  “New transmission from the Leppen Security Facility, ser,” Chan reported as Henry returned to the flag deck. “Video data packet flagged for you and the Ambassador.”

  “But you have a guess what it is,” Henry said drily. That much was clear from their tone.

  “A courier just skipped back in from Eerdish,” they replied. “Timing is about right for them to have traded a single set of messages back and forth from the planet to the courier we saw leave yesterday—and for Defender-Lord Deetell to have reviewed it before sending this message.”

  That fast a turnaround was probably good news, though Henry had been unpleasantly surprised before.

  “You’ve forwarded it to the Ambassador?” he asked.

  “Of course.”

  “I’ll take it in my office,” Henry told Chan. “I’ll update everyone once I know what our green friend has to say.”

  His office was only a few steps away, and he didn’t bother to sit in either the flag deck or the office before activating the message. It was a bit odd that it was a recording, given that they were close enough for a live conversation—that had been the point in bringing Paladin closer, after all.

  Deetell’s image appeared above his desk as Henry stood, arms crossed, facing the projector.

  “Commodore Wong, Ambassador Todorovich,” he greeted them formally in Kem. “I have been asked to relay the formal invitation of the Sovereign of Sovereigns of the Gathered Tribes for you to attend Them on Eerdish.

  “While the word of honor of the United Planets Space Force still carries some weight here, They have laid specific requirements for your entry into the Eerdish System,” Deetell continued. “You will be permitted to skip one vessel into Eerdish until further negotiations have been completed.

  “All of your diplomatic personnel must arrive on that vessel. No more than four representatives and four bodyguards will be permitted to leave your ship at any time. You will not exceed acceleration of point-three KPS-squared, and you will be under the escort of the Eerdish Security Forces at all times.

  “An exact course has been attached to this message. Deviation from that course will result in the destruction of your ship,” Deetell told them, his voice still formal and calm.

  “You may exchange personnel with your other two vessels, but you are expected to commence the assigned course within five hours.

  “This is the Will of the Sovereign of Sovereigns, and the law of the stars that honor Their Name.”

  The recording ended and Henry snorted. So, the point of the recording had been to stop him or Sylvia from interrupting or arguing with the formal pronouncement. He had some idea of both the level of authority the Sovereign of Sovereigns held…and of the image of the Sovereign’s authority the leaders of the Gathered Tribes chose to present.

  He gave a mental command as he grabbed a coffee from the machine and took a seat. A few seconds later, he had a channel to Sylvia.

  “You saw the Defender-Lord’s message?” he asked.

  “I did,” she confirmed. “Seems a bit…much for my understanding of the Sovereign’s authority.”

  “Mine too, but you know that better than I do,” he agreed cheerfully. “Talking up their figurehead?”

  “That’s my guess as well,” she said. “Can we transfer the La-Tar contingent in the time they gave us?”

  “Easily,” Henry told her. �
�They chose their time window carefully. If we take the full five hours, we’ll be in Eerdish orbit in about thirty-three hours. Faster if we, say, take Paladin back to the other ships at full GMS speed.

  “I don’t see a military reason to rush,” he concluded drily. “But if you feel we need to make a good impression, I’m prepared to entertain reasons to expose more of our ships’ ability.”

  “I see no diplomatic reason to rush for the Eerdish,” Sylvia replied with a dry chuckle. “Certainly not enough of one to expose the full capabilities of your ship’s gravity engines. Thirty-three hours sounds like plenty of time for us to prepare for the negotiations and your people to get an eyeful of Eerdish.”

  “We will definitely have our eyes open,” Henry agreed. Hopeful allies or not, the Eerdish were a power in the Ra Sector—which meant they were a power within operational distance of the United Planets Alliance.

  The more the UPA knew about them, the better.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  No UPSF ship had ever entered the Eerdish home system before today. The Kenmiri had treated the homeworlds with a specifically careful touch during their reign. The key component was that non-Kenmiri only ever left the homeworlds.

  Massive drafts of millions of colonists and janissaries left their home systems aboard massive transports. No one came back. The only ships allowed to enter the homeworlds’ space were Kenmiri.

  Henry had spent time on the Kozun homeworld both before and after its liberation and knew that restriction had often been broken in practice and the homeworld populations knew far more about the rest of the Empire than they’d been supposed to.

  On the other hand, the homeworld governments were still, at least on the surface, self-run. They were collaborationist structures that answered to Kenmiri Governors, often more concerned with the preservation of their own privileges than protecting their people, but they’d been made up of locals.

  With at least the esthetic of self-government, combined with access to their local space, a dribble of Kenmiri technology uplift and properly diversified economies, the homeworld populations had lived almost-normal lives under the Empire.