Drifter's Folly (Peacekeepers of Sol Book 4)

by Glynn Stewart

  He expected Blue-Stripe-Third-Green to stall—to ask for time to meet with the rest of the Council of Ancients. Henry didn’t even think that the former Ambassador had the authority to surrender the entire Convoy.

  “Worlds turn and stars burn and what is becomes what was,” Blue-Stripe-Third-Green intoned. The words meant something, Henry suspected, but he didn’t know them.

  “I trust your honor, Henry Wong. And so, my Convoy must trust your honor. You have our surrender.”

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  The Eerdish System was swarming with starships. Sylvia Todorovich stood on Paladin’s observation deck—a rather cramped space aboard the destroyer—and watched as Twelfth Fleet moved into their assigned positions.

  Theoretically, the carriers, battlecruisers and destroyers were Blue Stripe Green Stripe Orange Stripe’s jailers, but the sphere of warships taking shape around the Drifter ships looked more like guard dogs.

  The Drifters weren’t going to be permitted to leave—the three Terran carriers had replaced two Eerdish carriers making the same point—but they also weren’t going to be permitted to come to harm.

  The garden ships were directly “above” Sylvia, in the middle of the view from the observation deck as Paladin maintained a watchful position over the most vulnerable of the Drifters’ vessels. The loss of one of the big agricultural ships was a blow that the Convoy would take years to recover from, though the Eerdish had so far been happy to feed the Drifters as needed.

  A smile quirked across her lips, an emotion she would have let few people other than Henry Wong or Felix Leitz see. Part of the reason the Eerdish had been so happy to cooperate had been that everything was being paid for “on account,” so to speak, by the UPA.

  She knew what the payment for that debt was going to be. One of Admiral Rex’s carriers would shortly have a new mission, sortieing alongside several of the Eerdish and Enteni carriers to make a very specific point to the Kozun.

  Hopefully, that point would be made without bloodshed—but Sylvia had made that decision for the UPA. The E-Two Alliance were now friends of Terra. So were the Kozun. Like the Roman Empire of long ago, the UPA would prevent their friends from fighting each other.

  One way…or another.

  The Kozun would be better off this way, though she suspected it would take Mal Dakis a while to realize it.

  A soft ping in her internal network told her Leitz was reaching out to her.

  “What is it, Felix?” she asked.

  “It’s almost time, Ambassador,” his mental voice said. “Admiral Rex is on his way to Light of Eternity already, as is the Sovereign of Sovereign’s representative.”

  She nodded in silence. It was time to turn verbal agreements and promises made by plenipotentiaries into actual treaties. Part of what was being signed was a peace treaty with the Drifters—a gentler one than she’d expected to write after the Lon System.

  “Ambassador?” Leitz repeated.

  “I’m on my way,” she told him. “We’ve got work to do.”

  Light of Eternity wasn’t the garden ship Sylvia had visited when she’d come to the BGO Convoy before, but it had many of the same fixtures and patterns. Everything, including the “decorative” trees, produced edible fruit and breathable air.

  Most people looked at the garden ships and saw food, Sylvia knew, but she suspected their natural CO2–O2 conversion was also hugely valuable to the Convoy. The tree-lined thoroughfares of the garden ship served many purposes.

  They led to a very similar stone amphitheater to the one where she’d met the Council of Ancients aboard that other garden ship. There were fewer Ancients present today than there had been then. Instead of the full Council, only the four Speakers were gathered.

  Normally it would be five, but Blue-Spirals-On-Silver’s replacement hadn’t been selected yet. Blue-Stripe-Third-Green, it turned out, had been the Fifth Speaker. The number was merely seniority, however, and all of them were the coequal “guides” of the Council that ruled the Convoy.

  Standing at the center of the amphitheater, waiting, and welcoming each delegation, was a figure Sylvia hadn’t met before. The shrouded First Speaker hadn’t been among the Council of Ancients she’d met and negotiated with, which she found odd.

  Studying the First Speaker now, she was intrigued. Their mask was a single golden diagonal stripe across a blue background, a pattern she hadn’t seen before. They were shorter than most of the people around them, their robes covering what looked like the hunched posture of extreme age.

  Even through the all-enshrouding robes, it seemed that the First Speaker was old.

  “Greetings Ambassador Todorovich, Commodore Wong,” the First Speaker said as they approached. “This meeting is certainly more positive than I once feared, when I was told the Destroyer himself was pursuing us.”

  “What happened to the Kenmorad was the action of many, in response to crimes woven across centuries of horror,” Henry said quietly from Sylvia’s side. “I would not repeat it if I had a choice.”

  “Wise words, Commodore,” the Drifter said. “We are all shaped by what was. I hope that shaping is gentler for you in future than it was in the past.”

  Sylvia traded nods with the Drifter leader and led Henry to their seats.

  The real work of all of this was already done. She had a lot of documents to sign for the United Planets Alliance, but she knew what they all said. She’d helped write most of them—she certainly wasn’t going to have time to read them there!

  A mix of Eerdish food and garden ship–grown food covered buffet tables that wouldn’t have looked out of place in any star system Sylvia had ever visited. Neatly lettered labels in Kem warned about ingredients that could be allergens—or even toxins!—for assorted species that were present.

  The Eerdish might look human most of the time, but their equivalent to alcohol would render a human hallucinatory with a single sip—and unconscious after a single shot.

  “Ambassador.”

  Sylvia looked away from the buffet tables to find the First Speaker hunched over just behind her. A GroundDiv security trooper—not quite her bodyguard but certainly never out of sight—hovered nearby.

  “First Speaker. I appreciate your Convoy agreeing to host this gathering,” she told them.

  “We are aware of our position here, Ambassador Todorovich,” Gold-Stripe-On-Blue told her. “Your people have chosen wisdom and mercy, recognizing the threats and violence applied to us, but we remain the supplicant here.”

  “Less so, I imagine, once you have gathered what remains of your warships.”

  Henry had bluntly forbidden the Drifters from calling for their ships as they’d trekked to Eerdish. Only now that Twelfth Fleet gave the UPA the unquestioned military dominance would the Drifters be permitted to call for the warships the Kenmiri had made them scatter.

  “We fear the Kenmiri more than ever now,” Gold-Stripe-On-Blue said. “We will remain in the Ra Sector, under the watchful eyes of once-and-future friends, for a while yet. Our remaining ships will be no threat to anyone.”

  “I hope not,” she murmured.

  “But…that is not why I came to you,” they said, their voice suddenly equally quiet. “If you could call Commodore Wong over? I have someone the two of you must meet.”

  “Must?” Sylvia echoed—but she was sending Henry a silent network message as she challenged the Drifter.

  “For the good of all of us, I think,” Gold-Stripe-On-Blue said unperturbably. They still jerked in surprise as Henry materialized out of the crowd.

  “You called, Ambassador?” he said levelly.

  “Humans,” the Drifter hissed before they could restrain themselves.

  None of the aliens humanity had contacted were comfortable with the level of neural implantation humans took for granted. It had led to some interesting misunderstandings during the war, Sylvia knew, including some of the Vesheron thinking Terrans had a hive mind.

  Of course, if all of her people’s
computers had been designed by Kenmiri Artisans, she’d have hesitated to put one in her head, too, she supposed.

  “The First Speaker wishes to introduce us to someone,” Sylvia told her partner. “What is going on?”

  “I cannot explain here,” the Speaker said. “Follow, please. You have my word there is no danger.”

  Sylvia took a moment to make sure Henry was armed. His energy pistol was more decorative than anything else, but it was still an extraordinarily dangerous weapon.

  “We’ll be fine,” he sent via their internal networks. “I’ll keep a link with GroundDiv.”

  “Very well,” she told Gold-Stripe-On-Blue. “Lead the way.”

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  They were led out of the party and into an elevator concealed by a stand of berry bushes. Sylvia traded a concerned gaze with Henry, but he nodded calmly to her. Their security detail knew where they were and was tracking them.

  “I apologize for the shadows,” Gold-Stripe-On-Blue told them, leading the pair of Terrans into a brightly lit hallway underneath the garden. The roof was transparent, showing the dirt and roots above them.

  “There are secrets the Drifters cannot share,” the Drifter continued. “But in this case, the decision was not mine. I cannot force protection on one who does not wish it.”

  Now Sylvia was confused. Not concerned, not really, but confused. Still, she and Henry followed the First Speaker to a nondescript door in the maintenance hallway. It slid open at Gold-Stripe-On-Blue’s touch, and he gestured for them to precede him.

  “I will wait here,” he told them. “To reduce…threat.”

  “Trap?” she sent Henry.

  “No,” he replied. “Not sure what this is…but it’s not a trap.”

  She stepped past the Drifter leader into a small room. It looked like it normally served as an office for someone responsible for these maintenance halls, but the shelves were bare and the desk had been shoved against the wall.

  There was a single Drifter in the space, looking at the blank back wall when they entered. The being waited in silence until the door closed, then turned to face them.

  Their Face Mask was a red diagonal cross on a black background, with the left-hand segment colored green.

  “My Drifter name is Red-Cross-Fourth-Green,” the stranger introduced themselves. Something about their Kem was odd. The smooth accent wasn’t familiar to Sylvia, and she thought she’d heard every possible Kem accent. “I know who you both are, Ambassador Sylvia Todorovich, Commodore Henry Wong. I only recently arrived in this system, but you and I must speak.”

  “There have been no new Drifter ships since we arrived,” Henry countered. “How did you only just arrive?”

  “You are not yet as capable of penetrating the new stealth fields as you think you are,” Red-Cross-Fourth-Green said calmly. “My vessel is small and low-energy. A warship could never have sneaked through your blockade, but my courier did.”

  “I am starting to feel that I should be arresting you, not speaking with you,” Henry snapped.

  “Peace, Henry,” Sylvia said softly. She was studying the Drifter, and the pieces were starting to come together. “Who are you, Red-Cross-Fourth-Green?” she demanded.

  The hooded and masked head bowed in a swift nod—and then the Drifter did something no Drifter had ever done in front of her.

  They took off their mask. They drew their hood back as they lay the metal-and-fabric device aside, revealing the sharp mandibles, quivering antennae, and dark red carapace of a Kenmiri Artisan.

  “I am Red-Cross-Fourth-Green,” the Kenmiri told them.

  Sylvia was surprised to realize that Henry hadn’t even gone for his gun. He was watching the Kenmiri like a coiled spring, but he had not yet leapt to action.

  “That is what your Vesheron always misunderstood about the Drifters,” Red-Cross-Fourth-Green told them. “We began as a safety valve for the Kenmiri. Not everyone fit into the neat caste and gender roles that our society demanded.”

  They spread their arms wide.

  “So, here we are,” they noted. “Do not feel false hope, Commodore,” they warned Henry. “There are no Kenmorad among the Drifters this generation. We checked.”

  “Why are you here?” Sylvia’s partner ground out.

  “I have passed in and out of the Drifter Convoys for thirty-two years,” the Kenmiri told them. “There have always been some of us who can pass in both societies—interfaces, so to speak. When the Empire retreated, I hoped that it was a sign of a wiser era for my people—even if it was the era of our end—and so, when the Council of Artisans called me home, I went.”

  “You speak for the Empire?” Sylvia asked.

  “No one speaks for the Empire,” Red-Cross-Fourth-Green snapped. “The Empire is dead. Only the Councils remain, and they are divided. The Council of Artisans is hardly innocent of the Kenmiri’s crimes, but they are focused, for now, on survival.”

  “And the Council of Warriors?” Henry said, his tone sharp.

  “They are broken,” the Kenmiri told them. “Some—most, I think—cleave to the dream of surviving and have pledged to the Council of Artisans. They understand that the caste bred to the wars of today cannot see a path to the future.

  “The others…”

  There was a long silence, and the Kenmiri exhaled a long breath that rattled through their mandibles and antennae.

  “A faction of our Warriors has decided that if we are to die, we shall not die alone,” Red-Cross-Fourth-Green told them. “The Council has decided to…ignore them.”

  “And you?” Sylvia asked.

  “I am a Drifter,” the Kenmiri told them. “This is, I think, the last time I will remove my mask before another. My time as an interface is done, but for the sake of all of our peoples, this was a task that I must complete.

  “My kin plan violence on a scale unseen—and they have set their eyes on the Ra Sector. You have seen the beginning of their operation. I will tell you all I know.”

  “And in exchange?” Sylvia said.

  “You will stop them.”

  Thank you so much for reading Drifter’s Folly. Read on for a preview of Conviction, book 1 in the Scattered Stars: Conviction series, or click to check it out in the Amazon store.

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  Preview: Conviction by Glynn Stewart

  Enjoyed Drifter’s Folly? Try Conviction!

  A starfighter squadron driven to desertion

  Hunted by friends and enemies alike

  With one final hope for a new beginning

  The last reward Kira Demirci expected for heroism in a time of war was to spend the rest of her life dodging assassins—but when her government betrays her as part of their surrender, she and her comrades flee the star system of Apollo to the edge of civilized space.

  The Syntactic Cluster is disorganized, disunified, and in desperate need of the nova fighters Kira smuggled out of Apollo with her. With an entire squadron supposed to follow in her wake, it falls to her to build a new home for her comrades.

  But their enemy’s reach may be longer than her worst nightmares—and even her new friends may not be all that they appear…

  Chapter One

  Humanity had spread to an almost uncountable number of stars. Ships traveled between those star systems in mere weeks instead of the years light took. Gravity could be created, manipulated, set to an exact value. Even the human body and mind itself were now artifacts of human technology and achievement.

  And tall men still always thought they could beat short women at basketball.

  “She’s coming on your lef—right!”

  The changed warning
wasn’t as fast as Kira Demirci. The blonde woman ducked under the grabbing hands of the tallest of the three men she was playing against, bounced the ball off the laminate floor—even on a starship, metal wasn’t acceptable for a ball court—and planted her feet in perfect position for her shot.

  The ball dropped through the hoop as her intended interceptor hit the ground. He’d lost his balance as Kira had ducked around him.

  “Shit, sorry, Gregor,” she told him as she turned to check on him.

  “I’m fine, I’m fine,” the big guy told her as he levered himself back to his feet. “Damn, you’re fast.”

  “That’s three,” Kira told Gregor and the other two men. The three were cargo handlers aboard the freighter Hopeful Future. They were, in fact, three-quarters of the entire cargo division aboard Future.

  The ship only had a crew of twenty, after all. She’d been working her way aboard the ship for the last six weeks as an environmental tech, but the clock on the gym’s wall told her that her stay aboard Future was almost done.

  “Now, I believe the bet was on one game,” she continued with a grin. “Then best of three for double the money. Then best of five for double that.”

  She pointed at the clock.

  “My schedule says we dock in ten minutes and you three are supposed to be hauling cargo around as soon as we make contact. So, do you want me to demonstrate that I can beat you in under ten minutes or would you rather shower?”

  At a hundred and sixty centimeters tall and maybe sixty kilos soaking wet, Kira came up to roughly mid-chest height on the shortest of the three cargo hands. She was also faster and stronger than any of the three, which they’d also somehow missed despite working out in the same gym as her for six weeks.