Botek shook her head with a sharp jerk. “They want to keep it low-profile and quiet since most of this is still not general knowledge. They think it will be too obvious if they go with a Protectorate escort, and indicate to the Corvids that we don’t think they’re capable of protecting our people. But it’s too dangerous to send them without one—we know the Chron have made incursions into that system very recently. So, we’re at a standstill.” She rubbed a hand over her face. “It’s still a polite argument, but we’re not getting anywhere.”
“And meanwhile, we lack the information the Corvids could give us about the Chron, and leave ourselves open to attack. It’s ridiculous,” Mauronet snapped. He sat back in his chair sharply and the servos whirred in protest. “We don’t have time for this.”
“I thought the Corvids sent us all their data?” Mare Ker asked. She turned to me. “Your sister delivered it, didn’t she?”
I spread my hands. “Unfortunately, not all the data was intact, so there are considerable gaps. We don’t know how much is missing in the corrupted files.”
Mauronet looked ready for another outburst, but I cut him off. “We didn’t get the original datachip—only a copy. So, it’s in everyone’s best interest to get the diplomats to the Corvids as soon as possible.” This seemed like the right time to float my unorthodox idea. I leaned back in my own chair and pursed my lips.
“I could ask the Tane Ikai to go back.”
Mauronet shot me a look of pure dislike. “Your sister’s a merchant trader, who apparently couldn’t even take care of a simple data chip when the Corvids entrusted it to her. What good will it do to send her? As if the Council would ever approve it anyway.”
I clenched my hands in my lap to quell a sudden urge to punch Mauronet. “I think if you read the full report filed by my sister and the Protectorate officers who were with her, you’ll understand how the data ended up corrupted. But you’ve all read the documents the Corvids sent. They specifically invited Luta and the crew of her ship back into Corvid space anytime they wish to travel there. There’s already a connection, the aliens trust her and her crew, and the ship is armed as well or better than one of our Pixiu-class escorts.”
“The Council would never agree,” Mauronet reiterated.
“Why not? There’s no contact protocol or diplomatic dance that overrides that direct invitation. The envoys will have protection, but nothing ostentatious or outwardly aggressive,” I said. “It’s the perfect solution. Commander Blue’s still on special assignment on the Tane Ikai anyway, and we could place a couple of other officers on board as well, so we’ll have a presence.”
I stopped talking then, so they could think it through.
As they pondered, I glanced around the faces at the table. Most of them looked frustrated, annoyed, or thoughtful—or some combination thereof. Except for one person who hadn’t said anything for a while. She regarded me with brown eyes sparking with contained amusement, a hint of a smile quirking one side of her generous mouth. No one else in the room knew that I’d taken the idea to her first through an encoded message, and received her blessing to suggest it.
Although she was now in her seventies, Fleet Commander Regina Holles had aged gracefully and carried her years with dignity—and had likely benefited from a Vigor-Us® treatment or two. She looked and carried herself as if she were no more than fifty. She wore her dark chocolate hair in an intricate coiled design close to her head, a shock of white running back from one temple. She was still, in my estimation, quite beautiful. When I looked at her, I still saw the woman I’d known and loved at the academy, and remained friends with since then.
Regina had a habit of saying little until others at the table had finished talking. When she did speak, people listened. Now she cleared her throat, a delicate noise that nonetheless made every head turn in her direction. Regina wasn’t the only Fleet Commander in the Protectorate, but she was the only one in the room.
“Admiralo Mahane has a propensity for skirting around difficult issues,” she drawled, “and there have been times when I’ve taken him to task for that. But this time, I think his idea has merit. We’re entrusted with protecting the safety of Nearspace and all its inhabitants, and if there’s a clear risk to that safety—which I think has been sufficiently demonstrated—we must take whatever measures we deem necessary, even unorthodox ones, to counter that risk.”
“With all due respect, Fleet Commander, isn’t that what I’ve been saying?” Mauronet protested. “Go after the Chron, take them out before they even enter Nearspace, and the threat is neutralized.”
“If a positive outcome were assured, or even probable,” Chanda Botek said. “Which it is not. We need whatever intelligence the envoys can get before we can make any plans.”
Regina held up a finely-manicured hand before the bickering could start again. “I agree with Fleet Admiral Botek. We don’t have enough data on which to construct a solid attack plan.” She looked pointedly at Mauronet, then let her gaze drift around the others at the table. “What no-one has seen fit to mention so far today—the proverbial elephant in the room—is that the Protectorate is stretched too thinly around Nearspace to even consider massing enough ships to go hunting Chron.”
Mauronet and several other humans in the room flushed, and the pink undertones of Chanda Botek’s amber skin deepened. I caught the distinct scent of wet wool that signalled embarrassment in the Vilisian scent language. Harle Southwind didn’t look any different, but who could tell under all that fur? His left ear flicked a little faster.
“Even considering the planets that are self-policing?” the Lobor asked. “We must have some patrols that could be downloaded to other forces, even temporarily.”
Regina Holles tapped her fingernails on the desk. “Not without leaving them open to elevated risk. Anyone can do the math. The Protectorate fleet patrols eleven inhabited systems and GI 892. We protect eighteen inhabited planets, for two of which we provide the entirety of policing and security. We can’t be everywhere at once. And we aren’t. We’ve grown complacent in a century without any real threat from outside Nearspace, I’m afraid. If we pulled even a quarter of those ships and personnel to go off chasing war—”
She let the sentence hang without ending it for a moment. “Add to that the possibility the Chron could drop in via some wormhole we don’t even know about—”
Mauronet snorted. “Unlikely.”
Regina glared at him. “Did you know about the wormhole into Tau Ceti before Luta Paixon brought us that information?”
“But it’s in a perfect hiding place, in the debris ring!” he protested. “It was simply lucky for them we didn’t find it.”
The Fleet Commander stared so long at him, face expressionless except for a single raised eyebrow, that I almost began to feel sorry for Mauronet. When she spoke, she merely said evenly, “So you’re suggesting we stake the safety of Nearspace on the chances of the Chron not getting lucky a second time?”
Mauronet swallowed and was the first to look away, the skin around his eyes tightening.
Regina Holles sat forward, resting her elbows on the scuffed surface of the table and lacing her fingers together. “Admiral Mahane, please contact your sister for me, and see if you can enlist her help. If she has any trepidation, however, I won’t ask her to do this. If she’s willing to go back to Corvid space, put three more of our people on board—your choice—and I’ll contact the Administrative Council with our idea. I’ll suggest the diplomatic mission last no more than a week. I won’t impose on your sister any further than that. Then the envoys can return with a full report, and we’ll know where we stand.”
I nodded once. “I’ll get her to estimate her lead time.”
Fleet Commander Regina Holles raised her eyebrows at me. “But you’re going to ask her first, correct, Admiral?”
I grinned. “I’ll ask. But I’m confident I can predict her answer.”
The meeting wrapped up shortly after that. I lingered, chatting with H
arle Southwind, since our paths hadn’t crossed for several months. After we’d exchanged small talk, he glanced around casually and said in a low voice, “Lanar, could we meet tomorrow? There’s something I want to discuss with you.”
“Sure. When and where?”
He considered. “Your ship, or mine. Either one will do.”
Not a social meeting, then. The last time we’d talked, Harle had hinted about an investigation involving PrimeCorp, so maybe there was more to report on that. “Come on over to the Cheswick, then. Have lunch with me in my quarters?”
A half-smile stretched over his muzzle. “Do you have any jarlees wine to go with it?”
I returned the smile. “Absolutely. See you then.”
When I left the Lobor, I found Antar Mauronet waiting alone in the corridor outside the boardroom. I would have walked past without pausing, but he stepped in front of me with a sneer. “Must be nice to always get your way,” he said.
“You heard the Fleet Commander,” I said, keeping my voice mild. “We can’t hare off and leave Nearspace unprotected. This is just a little insurance.”
“Might be a good idea if that was true,” he snarled. “The Fleet Commander’s just scared to stick her neck out.”
I chuckled. “I can’t say I’ve ever known Regina Holles to be scared of anything much. Aside from recklessly endangering Nearspace, that is.”
He leaned in to hiss in my face, face congested an ugly red and angry eyes bulging unpleasantly. “Guess you’d know. You’re the one who used to sleep with her, I hear. Which is pretty disgusting, considering how much older she—”
Mauronet didn’t get any further with that sentence. Without thinking, I hauled back, let fly, and clocked him squarely on the jaw. Since it surprised even me, he didn’t see it coming. He hit the carpeted corridor like a bag of wet laundry.
I squatted beside him as he swore and reached to cradle his jaw in one hand. “Word of advice, Mauronet,” I said in as friendly a voice as I could manage. My hand had started to throb, but I wouldn’t let him see that. “Consider yourself lucky you said that to me, and not to the Fleet Commander herself. Because she would have hit you where no-one would see the bruises.”
Not waiting for him to answer, I stood, turned, and headed to the docking bays and my ship.
THE NEARSPACE PROTECTORATE Vessel S. Cheswick was quiet when I returned. The night crew, skeletal since we were docked at FarView Station, had started their shift, and I poked my head in at the bridge to let them know I was back on board. The overhead lights burned low, most of the illumination coming from the glow of unattended consoles.
“All quiet, Admiral. You should get some sleep.” Commander Linna Drake glanced up as I entered the bridge, then back down to her datapad. I couldn’t tell if she was reading a report or a novel of questionable quality. With Drake, it could be either. Now in her sixties, the wiry commander was a lifelong officer and showed no sign of slowing down, either mentally or physically. Her dark blue eyes could look through a person’s defences as if they were glass. I slept well with Linna Drake on night duty.
“Okej, just thought I’d check in. Who’s on communications tonight? I want to contact my sister, but I’m not sure where she is currently.”
“Medenez,” she said without looking up. “I can ask him to start a tracer. He should have a best guess by the time you get to your quarters and you can ping him from there.”
“Thanks, do that.” I turned to go but something tipped her off.
“What happened to your hand, sir?” Drake’s voice sharpened on the question, all trace of her relaxed nonchalance vanishing. Originally, I’d tried to avoid her attempts to “mother” me, but she never got the message. Eventually I stopped trying and resigned myself to giving in with good grace.
I held up my hand ruefully. The knuckles had begun to darken and looked puffy and swollen. “I had a bit of a disagreement with Mauronet over a diplomatic matter.”
“You thought he was being undiplomatic?”
“I thought he was being damned rude. But to be honest, I didn’t really think about it at all. I punched him before I knew I was going to do it.”
She’d left the command chair and crossed to me, examining the hand with professional interest. “Caught him on the jaw, I’d guess. Did he go down?”
“Very satisfactorily.”
Drake nodded and released my hand. She put her fists on her hips and cocked her head at me, looking up from her diminutive height. “Ice it while you’re talking to your sister. Are you in trouble for this?”
I shrugged. “No one was around. I doubt he’ll make waves.” I’d begun to feel badly about the whole thing before I’d even made it back to the Cheswick, and I thought Drake knew me well enough to figure that part out. I shouldn’t have let Mauronet’s bullying get to me. He’d been perfectly correct about my one-time relationship with Regina Holles, after all. He just didn’t realize how long in the past it was, or that we were, contrary to outward appearances, the same age. In fact, if I remembered correctly, I was five years older than Regina.
Drake did her best to smother a smile. “See you in the morning, sir.”
“Goodnight, Commander.”
She had her head bent over the glow of her datapad again by the time I’d reached the doorway. Without looking up, she said, “I’ll try to give you five minute’s warning if FarView security comes with an arrest warrant. Maybe you can escape justice and stow away on a scruffy trader bound out-system.”
I threw her a grin and a salute. “You read too many adventure novels, but I appreciate the thought,” I said. “See you in the morning.”
WHEN I PINGED Medenez, he had good news and bad.
“I have a location on the Tane Ikai, Admiralo,” he said, his voice clipped and efficient. “They’re in FTL WaVe range, and I messaged the comm. Unfortunately, Captain Paixon has retired for the night, and she’ll speak with you tomorrow. Is it an emergency, sir?”
I shook my head. I knew Medenez was tenacious, and if I’d said it was urgent he’d have called down every regulation in the book until Luta’s comm officer agreed to get her in front of the screen. But it wasn’t necessary. She might react better to my suggestion on a good night’s sleep, anyway. I told Medenez to leave it until morning, took Linna Drake’s advice, and stuck a coldpack from the med cabinet on my hand.
My personal comm rang and I answered it, audio only. “Mahane.”
“Fisticuffs outside my boardroom? Whatever got into you, Lanar?” Fleet Commander Regina Holles’ voice was low, smooth, and highly amused. “Let me see that you’re not in need of medical attention. Put your video on.”
I sighed and sat in front of the screen, deliberately keeping my coldpack-encased hand below her field of vision. “I’m perfectly fine, Regina, and it was only one little punch, not a barroom brawl. How did you even find out? I wouldn’t expect Mauronet to go crying to you—or anyone, for that matter.”
Regina had taken her chocolate-brown hair down from the severe coils she’d worn it in for the meeting, and it fell around her face in soft waves. She tilted her head at me pityingly. “Security cameras, Lanar dear. They have those on civilian stations, you know? Fortunately, the techs know that anything involving Protectorate personnel comes to me and me alone before any other eyes get on it.” She smiled. “And take credit where it’s due. It was a beautiful punch that put that unpleasant man flat on his azeno. I watched it three times and I was sorry to tell them to erase it. How’s your hand?”
I sighed and lifted the coldpack so she could see it. “It’s fine. And Mauronet probably didn’t deserve it. If you’re going to call me on the carpet, go ahead. I over-reacted.”
Regina snorted. “He absolutely deserved it, if for nothing more than what he said about your sister in the meeting. The audio didn’t pick up all of what he said to you in the corridor, but I suspect there was more to it than that—” she held up a hand when I tried to interrupt. “I’m not going to ask about it. I did hear wh
at you said to him, and I think it’s better for my professional relationship with him that I don’t know.”
I nodded gravely. “You could be right about that, Fleet Commander.”
Her smile faded, and I saw worry gather like a cloud overshadowing her face. Suddenly she looked all of her years. “You’ll get in touch with Luta soon, Lanar? I wouldn’t say it in that room, but I’m worried. I read the depositions of every one of Luta’s crew, and all the data we could extract from the Corvid chip. Even with much of it corrupted, there was enough to scare anyone with a particle of sense.”
I nodded again. “I’ll be talking to her in the morning. Already set up.”
“And you think she’ll go? We can’t keep bickering with the Council on this.”
“I think she will. She’ll complain about it—and with good reason, because she hasn’t had much time to recover from the last ‘favour’ I asked her to do—but I think she’ll go.”
She seemed satisfied. “Keep Commander Blue on board with her and add those other names. I trust you to pick them.”
“I’m going to make a list before I go to sleep. It will depend on where Luta is and who’s close enough, but I’ll do what I can. We want to move as quickly as possible.”
“And what about PrimeCorp?” she demanded. “Did you read the files your sister brought back? Damning as hell, and completely inadmissible in court. What have they been playing at all these years?”
I shook my head, the old burn of anger at PrimeCorp simmering in my gut. They’d taken so much from my family, and had apparently taken even more from Nearspace. “Their ambassadors on the Council are denying everything, dismissing the files as illegally obtained, or probably manufactured, and setting up scapegoats, as far as I can see. By the time we get them to hand over files, there’ll be none left to find.” I leaned back in my chair, drumming the fingers of my uninjured hand on the armrest. “I shouldn’t have been so quick to give those files to the Council. Should have moved quietly and come up behind them. I just thought we had them this time.”
Nearspace Trilogy Page 67
