Authors: Christopher Nuttall
“Captain on the bridge,” Cooke said. Glen returned his salute, then took the command chair and sat down. “The militiamen declined to escort us to Primus Omega.”
“Understood,” Glen said. “Inform the freighters that we will be departing” – he glanced at the chronometer – “in twenty minutes.”
He checked the updates from the FTL communications network and noted that they'd received messages from both Bottleneck and Fairfax. The former bemoaned the lack of escort vessels suitable for anti-raider operations, the latter told of angry riots in the capital. Glen silently cursed the Governor under his breath. How could she have made such a provocative demand without realising the possible consequences?
“All systems report ready, Captain,” Cooke said, breaking into Glen’s thoughts. “
Dauntless
is ready to depart.”
“Signal farewell to the planet, then open a portal and take us out of here,” Glen ordered. “And make sure the freighters stay close. We don’t want to lose them, not now.”
One of his favourite writers had once compared hyperspace travel to wet-navy sailing, during the days of sailing ships. The only real difference, apart from the technology, was that no one had ever found a way to use the currents in hyperspace to speed up travel times from one place to another. Starships that were swept up in currents tended to be either destroyed or lost forever, although there were always stories of colony worlds founded hundreds of thousands of light years from Earth. But there were
always
stories. Glen knew that few people truly believed them.
Maybe it was his imagination, but hyperspace – even the computer-generated representation – looked
hostile
. The storm was still quite some distance away, but it was throwing out distortions and flickers of energy that could be seen for hundreds of light years. Glen watched it for a long moment, then checked the course Helena had devised. Unless the storm altered course radically, he decided, they should avoid the worst of it by a pretty safe margin.
“Hyperspace transit completed,” Helena said. “Course laid in.”
“The freighters have completed transit,” Cooke added, a moment later. “Captain?”
“Take us out,” Glen ordered. “And keep a close eye on that damn storm.”
He settled back into his command chair as the small convoy proceeded through hyperspace, reading the latest updates from the Colonial Militia. The Governor had demanded full access to the militia’s operations, while the colonials had rebelled by pointing out that there was clearly a leak in the Governor’s staff and it really should be closed before they shared any data with the Governor. Glen suspected that the colonials had a point; the Governor herself might be above suspicion, but her staff had never been vetted by anyone else. But surely Federation Security would have vetted them.
Or maybe not
, Glen thought, sourly. Vetting was a sore subject at the best of times; many administrative staff, particularly the ones who had been in politics for years, had contacts that sounded alarms when security officers attempted to vet them. Their political superiors trusted them implicitly and tended to be annoyed whenever they were questioned. And, to be fair, most of them
were
completely loyal to their patrons. It just didn't make them loyal to the Federation as a whole.
The only other update was a note from Bottleneck confirming that the Alien Refugee Support Fund was largely backed by Knight Corporation. Glen made a mental note to ask Theodore just what he was thinking; the Fund didn't seem to be achieving anything of value, apart from keeping the alien refugees in an endless limbo. Somehow, Glen found it hard to believe that was the real objective. If nothing else, it would be a persistent drain on the corporation’s resources.
A message came in; Cynthia was asking for a briefing. Glen told her to meet him in his office, then stood up and nodded to Cooke.
“You have the bridge,” he said. “Alert me if the storm worsens or if we have to alter course.”
Cynthia joined him in his office a moment later. “I have completed my analysis of the tactical data from Xenophon,” she said. She'd taken the raw data, while Glen had glanced at the summaries. “Very little actually makes sense.”
Glen took the datapad and skimmed through it. Fact; the attackers had used Colonial Militia codes to take out a battlestation that would otherwise have savaged their squadron. Fact; the attackers had bombarded an alien refugee camp from orbit. Fact; the attackers had claimed to be part of the Colonial Liberation Front. Fact; no one had
heard
of the Colonial Liberation Front until Xenophon had been attacked. Fact; the ships that had carried out the attack included several that had been sold to the Colonial Militia. Conclusion; the attackers belonged to the Colonial Militia and the Colonial Liberation Front was a false flag.
But ... Fact; the raiders had slaughtered vast numbers of humans as well as aliens. Fact; the raiders hadn't hesitated to engage the Colonial Militia, as long as the firepower advantage had been decisively in their favour. Fact; the starships they used were maintained surprisingly well. Fact; the first targets they’d chosen had been on the Governor’s list of alien camps to assist. Fact; the raiders clearly had access to vast sources of money. Conclusion; the attackers were actually mercenaries, working for someone in the Federation.
Ultimate objective of attackers; unknown.
“Both conclusions cannot possibly be accurate,” Glen pointed out. “Unless you’re proposing that there’s a joint operation that wants ... that wants
what
? What do they get out of this?”
“That I don’t know,” Cynthia admitted. “All it seems to have done is raise tensions between the colonies and the Federation – and slaughter vast numbers of aliens. But if that is the point ...”
Glen looked up at the star chart, thoughtfully. Who benefited from causing a war between the Bottleneck Republic and the Federation? The Bottleneck Republic might
lose
; there might be tensions, but there was no need to actually spark off a war. And the Federation might come apart at the seams if it had to go to war against fellow humans. What would that
do
to the political tensions within the Federation Senate?
The Dragons
? They’d benefit – and there were endless suspicions that their warlords might have stashed away more war material than the treaty permitted them. What if one of them was behind the whole scheme? Get the Federation fighting a civil war, which would rapidly turn savage given how many problems had been swept under the carpet during the Draconic War, then quietly rebuild their military and then retake their empire. Would the human race drop everything a second time to fight the Dragons? Or would humanity be so ground down by fighting each other that the Dragons would overwhelm whatever was left of humanity before the fleet could be rebuilt?
“If this is true,” he said, after outlining his suspicions, “we have to convince the Governor not to press matters any further.”
“I don't think she has a choice,” Cynthia pointed out. “How would the Dragons have obtained Colonial Militia starships?”
Glen rubbed his forehead, angrily. That
was
the stumbling block, wasn't it? The starships that had carried out the attack had belonged to the Colonial Militia. There was no doubt of that, which meant that a faction within the militia had to be involved with the raiders. It was unlikely that an entire squadron of starfighters could go missing without command involvement, let alone a small squadron of starships. Things
had
gone missing in the Federation – there were all sorts of jokes about how senior officers used deployments to account for pieces of equipment that had gone missing – but how did someone lose an entire squadron of ships?
“I don’t know,” he said. “Every piece of evidence seems to point towards a crazy joint operation carried out by both the Federation and the Colonial Militia. It makes no sense at all.”
He stared down at his hands, feeling helpless. What were the raiders doing – and what was their ultimate objective? If Sandy knew by now, she wouldn't be able to tell them until the raiders resurfaced, which ran the risk of her detection. And then ... Glen knew precisely what would happen to a spy caught within the raider ranks. She’d be begging for death by the time they’d finished with her.
“It doesn't,” Cynthia agreed. “But that normally means we’re just missing the key piece of the puzzle.”
Glen nodded and reached for the datapad. What were they missing? Who benefited from the whole affair? No one, apart from the Dragons. Or was he missing something right in front of his eyes?
“Get them to follow the money,” he said, finally. If there was one thing Theodore had taught him, it was that whoever paid the piper called the tune. The raiders themselves might be mercenaries, but their backers would set the ultimate objectives. “I want to know who bought the ships.”
“The Colonial Militia,” Cynthia said, puzzled. “They bought them legally ...”
“Yes, but where did they get the money?” Glen asked. “Where did it come from?”
He put the datapad down on the desk, then rubbed his eyes. “The storm is making it hard to send messages,” he said. “Get some rest, then try and send the messages during the next duty shift. It’s still a week until we reach Primus Omega, so you can keep working on the problem until then. After that ... we’ll just have to see what the investigators turn up.”
“If they turn up anything,” Cynthia said. “The money might have come from the colonies ... without a more precise source.”
“Maybe,” Glen said. For once, he found himself wishing that he had paid more attention to his brother’s lessons on creative accountancy. Given enough ingenuity, quite a few funds could be hidden and no one would notice, not without taking the books apart and going through every single line. “But that is indeed the question. Where did the money come from?”
The next two weeks passed smoothly, suspiciously so. Sandy largely split her time between
Extreme’s
bridge and her cabin, where she slept and dreamed of tactical problems. Her new commander was determined to ensure that she knew her job, which seemed to include giving her large numbers of tactical exercises to carry out. Sandy could have done most of them when she’d been a raw cadet, but she did her best to pretend to be working towards mastery. If nothing else, it gave her plenty of time to monitor the local environment.
And it was astonishing just how much she could pick up by watching carefully and saying nothing. The raiders had gathered twenty-one warships, all ex-TFN; they would need to be met by a fleet of equal or greater strength to be defeated. Even though they were clearly unwilling to pick fights unless the odds were definitely in their favour, Sandy couldn't help wondering how long it would be before they started going after much bigger targets. She tried to convince herself that Xenophon was a once-off, a target of opportunity aided and abetted by access to codes from Fairfax, but it didn’t work. Whatever the raiders and their mysterious backers had in mind was far more than just alien slaughter. They could have taken out all of the camps in the Fairfax Cluster by now, if that had been their sole objective.
She watched, and listened, and recorded everything in a hidden subsection within the computer network. One ship interested her; it resembled a battlecruiser, but close inspection revealed that either it was in very poor condition or it wasn’t a warship at all. It seemed to come and go without reference to the remainder of the fleet, suggesting ... what? She didn't have any way to find out directly, but cross-checking the timing with command conferences between the senior officers told her that one was held after the mystery semi-battlecruiser had come and gone. It didn't take long, after that, to realise that the ship belonged to whoever was backing the raiders. If she hadn't already known it, the ship’s presence proved the involvement of
serious
money.
The more she thought about it, the more she wondered if the source of the funds lay squarely within the Federation. There were few organisations within the Bottleneck Republic that could have funded the squadron, certainly without being noticed. It would be an expenditure of billions of credits a year, more than any planet could meet while maintaining its other obligations. Was it possible, she asked herself, that factions within the Federation were quietly taking action against the aliens – or against the Colonies? Having the colonies blamed for the raiders might serve as justification for ... what? War? Invasion? Or even a political blockade?