Loralynn Kennakris 2: The Morning Which Breaks (12 page)

CEF Academy
Deimos, Mars

The government of Nedaema fell. The Archon was removed in a resounding vote of no confidence, and in the general election that followed five weeks later, the pacifists lost half their seats and the former opposition took firm control, the first non-coalition government Nedaema had elected since the turn of the century. Lysander Gayle, the new Archon, used the occasion of his victory announcement to make a fiery speech, and the media came alive with stories of turmoil, havoc and threats of war.

The Bannerman ambassador chose this moment to make an ill-timed and pointedly undiplomatic comment to the Second Secretary of the Nedaeman Foreign Office. It seemed likely that the comment was meant to be private, but it was made in a public forum and overheard. Gayle, suddenly worried about escalating the situation, took no notice, but he reckoned without his friend, Zenda Alpernius, a grand senator from Messier who was facing a stiff reelection challenge. Senator Alpernius calculated that the time was ripe to be incensed, and without consulting Gayle, he no longer being a member of the chamber, revived the specter of his ultimatum, happily languishing in committee since it had done its work. So now the new Archon watched with growing alarm as this bastard stepchild of his ambition began to grow legs.

Speaker Gauthier, mindful of her slim majority and nervous about straining her untried political muscles, temporized. The Bannerman President-for-Life ordered his fleet units at Callindra 69, a fortified outer base, to deploy. In response, the Plenary Council voted to direct CNO to order the CEF Third Fleet, under Vice Admiral Burton, to sortie to Wogan’s Reef, the junction that secured the main transit to Bannerman space from the League’s side.

Fleet Admiral Westover, unwilling to be pulled into a game of brinksmanship by career politicians who had no actual skin in the game (however much they valued their political hides), demurred, pointing out the inherent dangers of such an operation—besides, the ‘training’ exercises PrenTalien had directed Admiral Burton to carry out were already covering that approach—and instead detached Third Fleet’s Task Force 34 under Rear Admiral Lo Gai Sabr and sent it to New Madras to keep an eye on Bannerman activities from there. Critically, he would be much better placed to observe the main Bannerman fleet at Tarakan, as well as cover any moves attempted by Cathcar or Lacaille.

But if these events could be likened to the proverbial tree that topples in a forest, the noise they made registered but distantly within the hallowed confines of the CEF Academy. Two main reasons accounted for this: the proximity of their final exams, culminating in War Week, the intense series of wargames the ended the term; and the beginning of the All-Forces Unarmed Combat Tournament. The preliminaries to select the final thirty-two contestants who would compete for the title over the next two weeks were already underway, and among Kris’s classmates this eclipsed most other concerns, absorbed as they were with Sergeant Major Yu’s quest for an unprecedented fourth title.

Yu took no part in the preliminaries. Anyone who had won the title more than once was automatically entered into the final thirty-two if they chose to be, as was the reigning champion. Corporal Vasquez was steadily gaining adherents, while those who had met Yu on the mat during the course of their own unarmed combat training were confirmed in their belief he was unbeatable, even by the as-yet-undefeated Vasquez.

But what was really stoking the fires was the possibility (or in the view of most, the strong probability) that repeat champions would meet in the finals, something that had only happened once before in living memory—two years ago, when Yu defeated a Marine captain named Minerva Lewis for his third title. Lewis, who’d made the finals for the past four years running, winning twice before losing to Yu and then to Vasquez last year, was not competing this year, a circumstance welcomed or deplored, according to one’s loyalties. In any event, it simplified the betting, which was now a soft four to three in Yu’s favor, and there was strong feeling that by the time the quarterfinals arrived, it would be even money.

None of this concerned Kris, who labored to project a polite but obviously pale and academic interest in the affair. What interested Kris much more than the tournament was participating in War Week for the first time. The Academy awarded a number of honors to cadets, some more official than others. Obviously there was class ranking, with special privileges extended to the cadets who graduated first or second. There was the position of Honor Candidate for the cadet who graduated with the fewest demerits, satirically known as the ‘Tinplater.’ And there were specific rankings in the various tracks: for cadets in the fighter program, the rank they achieved during their flight training was most important.

But the most coveted—and least official—prize was that of War Week Points Leader. Each cadet earned both individual and team points during these exercises, and the team that performed best overall was, upon graduation, officially recognized as Team Alpha. But the cadet who amassed the highest individual total throughout their academy career earned the title of ‘Number One.’ The honor was unofficial because the Academy deliberately elevated team effort over individual achievement, and because it was almost impossible for anyone outside the fighter track to win it. The ace deep-radar operator, snug in CIC, was critical to her ship’s performance, but it was her ship that won the battle. Nor was she likely to go down in flames five times a day.

The members of Team Alpha got a nicely framed certificate and their achievement was added to the list on a big wall plaque somewhere; the maintenance crews kept it dusted. But any cadet who’d been through War Week once could tell you who’d made Number One in each year going back to the last war.

Kris’s uneven scholastic record gave her no shot at graduating at the top of her class, her mouth and her attitude had long since forestalled any danger of her becoming the Tinplater, but ever since she’d gotten a taste of wargaming, she’d been determined to leave as Number One.

The Academy’s wargames were managed by Commander Buthelezi, who had the good fortune to be among the best liked and most respected of the Academy’s instructors: exacting and demanding yet approachable and scrupulously fair. Kris, in particular, had a strong liking for the commander, whose demeanor managed to combine
gravitas
with a surprising degree of warmth, and she was the only instructor Kris consciously tried to impress. For her part, Commander Buthelezi took a deep interest in her singular cadet. She’d already noted Kris struggling through her course work, her uneasy interactions with her fellow cadets (Basmartin, and to some extent Tanner, excepted) and her tendency to bristle at potential slights.

But when Kris strapped into a flight simulator, all this changed. The proud, closed face relaxed, losing its prickly reserve, her heart rate and the rhythm of her breathing changed, and a look of profound concentration combined with a passionate eagerness would suffuse her entire being. It brought to Commander Buthelezi’s mind an ancient poem, still thought of by many as the fighter pilot’s anthem, that began
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
, except that the sense was entirely different. The poet had reveled in the ecstasy of flight—Kris reveled in the ecstasy of the hunt. The tension that sang through her, visible even in her biometric readouts, was the untamed anticipation of a predator sighting her prey. And nine times out of ten, the prey never stood a chance.

Naomi Buthelezi had spent her entire career in the Navy, mostly in staff billets such as operations, or as a flag lieutenant, but she’d also served as a TAO on a number of deployments and to her, combat was much like a lethal form of chess (a game at which she excelled), but chess played by gamblers for life-and-death stakes with most of the pieces hidden. The searing, capillary-bursting excitement of a close-quarters dogfight—the fierce ballets that could be so heartrendingly beautiful if only they had a different object—was alien to her.

Still, she could read it in the faces and gestures of the men and women when they returned from a mission, flashing out in a laugh or a glance or just a glow in the eyes behind the rigidly held professional demeanor, and since SRF officers not uncommonly exchanged into the Navy to serve a tour or two as TAOs or in staff billets, she had come to know several quite well, Rafe Huron among them. But she’d never known one quite like Kris.

War Week was coming up in a mere five days and all of Naomi’s instincts cried out that war itself would be following not long after: three or four months maybe, five at the outside. Admiral PrenTalien clearly shared her judgment—friends on Lo Gai’s staff kept her quietly informed—and he already had Third Fleet on what was essentially war footing. They were certainly entering interesting times, as the old curse ran, and Commander Buthelezi, in the few quiet moments her day allowed, often wondered what was in store for them all: herself, her friends, her Service, and an enigmatic young flight-officer candidate who just might be the most dangerous person she’d ever met.

LSS Ardennes, in port
Cassandra Station, Nedaema, Pleiades Sector

Compared to the admiral’s stateroom, with its opulent day cabin, night quarters, separate galley and private head, the Flag Bridge on LSS
Ardennes
was small, cramped and undeniably spartan. It was almost entirely devoid of furniture, with only a charting table down one side and what seats there were bolted to the deck around the big omnisynth that dominated the space, the projecting ledge of which served as a work surface and a place to put your coffee cup or a hasty sandwich. The bulkheads were lined with large displays linked, like the omnisynth, to the dreadnought’s myriad sensors and comms nets. There was room for the admiral’s staff and a few visitors, if they didn’t mind standing.

No one was standing today, it being just the admiral’s regular weekly staff meeting, and the omnisynth was off since
Ardennes
was in port, docked with the massive bulk of Cassandra Station, which dwarfed even the five-hundred-meter ship; thus, its flat projection surface hosted a box of donuts.

The admiral, his bulk overwhelming the inadequate seat, declined a last donut in a nod to moderation and set his briefing notes aside. “That concludes the important business. Geoff, did we get our weekly missive from the Honorable Jackson Holder?”—this to his flag lieutenant, Geoffrey Reynolds.

“We did, sir,” Reynolds replied. “Two, in fact.” Ever since Vice Admiral Burton had started enforcing the rules of the road on the transit lanes under PLESEC authority, Jackson Holder, CEO of Caelius-Protogenos, accustomed to the immunity usually enjoyed by one of the League’s largest corporations, had been bombarding PrenTalien with increasingly strident letters from his legal department. Two in one week was a new level of escalation, however.

“Two?” PrenTalien cocked a bushy eyebrow.

“Yes, sir.” Reynolds pulled a hardcopy from his folder and slid it across to his boss. “I believe he wrote this one himself.”

The admiral picked it up and scanned it with an amused look. “By god, I think you’re right. His bot would certainly know the difference between
their
and
they’re
.”

“Indeed,” Reynolds said with an answering smile that was echoed around the space. “It seems we are beginning to take a bite out of his bottom line.”

“Bully for our side.” PrenTalien set the printout on a stack of other reports. “If he put half the effort into getting his skippers to keep their assigned vectors and observe right-of-way as he did into writing that letter, we wouldn’t need to haul down on them all the time. But where’s the fun in that?”

“Quite so, sir,” his flag lieutenant acknowledged. “Do you choose to respond?”

“I suppose I ought to. Return the compliment, as it were. You’ll make sure it’s grammatical, of course.”

Reynolds smiled. “That won’t be an issue, I’m sure, sir.”

“Very well. Any others?”

“Just three, sir. Things were a little slow this week. Shall I respond as per usual?”

“Do. Use that letter you composed for the last batch—I liked that one especially. Copy CNO and send the detailed log files this time, not just the overview. If they want to break a lance with Carlos over this, they have my blessing.” It was not usual for flag officers, even of PrenTalien’s seniority, to be on a first-name basis with the Chief of Naval Operations, but this wasn’t the only way the CinC of Pleiades Sector was exceptional; most of his staff had served with him for a long time—Reynolds, at a mere six months was the newest—and they were used to the familiarity.

“Thank you, sir.” Reynolds jotted some notes and closed his folder. “I’ll do that.”

“Then that wraps things up for today.” PrenTalien closed his folder as well. “Let’s go keep a weather-eye on the mischief out there, shall we?”

His staff rose with a chorus of nods and covert smiles, that being one of the admiral’s favorite expressions, and as they filed through the hatch, he caught Trin Wesselby’s eye. “Indulge me for a minute, would you, Commander?”

“Of course, sir.” Trin squeezed herself against the charting table and waited for the throng to pass by. The hatch closed and she resumed her seat across from PrenTalien, who had not gotten up.

“You didn’t have much to say this AM,” he commented.

“I wasn’t asked anything, sir.”

“C’mon, Trin,” the admiral said with an indulgent look. “We’ve known each other too long for that. What’s eating at you? This Hydra business?”

‘This Hydra business’ had been the main subject of the morning’s meeting—specifically, a request from the Plenary Council, responsive to a motion in the Grand Senate, that Third Fleet make a show of force in that region to counter the ongoing Bannerman exercises there. CNO had been able to finesse the previous request, but with Admiral Sabr’s Task Force 34 already there at New Madras, ostensibly for just such a purpose, this one could not be avoided.

The problem was that the Hydra was a backwater, and while it was not entirely devoid of importance, there was nothing there worth starting an interstellar war over. That included Nestor Mankho who, she was sure, had long since decamped to parts unknown. Indeed, it was evident to Trin that the original rationale for the ultimatum—coercing the Bannermans into helping apprehend him—had been lost in the rush to garner political capital from looking muscular, and to avenge the perceived insult to Nedaema’s honor. But there were also hints that the ultimatum was being pushed by some shadowy actors, probably allied with one or more of the powerful merchant house factions. Those hints pointed in the opposite direction, across the Crucis Sector, towards Antares and the Sultanate of Andaman and Nicobar.

There was trouble brewing in that region. Iona, which bordered on Andaman and Nicobar, had emerged in recent years as a major competitor to both the Sultanate and certain of the League merchant houses, based partly on the development of some groundbreaking new technologies and partly on their cutthroat way of doing business. To access new markets for their burgeoning commerce, Iona relied on the strategically crucial transit junction at Winnecke IV, which was controlled by Ivoria, a Nicobarese colony. The Sublime Porte, as the Sultanate’s government preferred to be called, had started restricting Ionian traffic through Winnecke IV just over a year ago, and the Ionians had retaliated by stopping and searching merchantmen flagged by the Porte both in their space and in the disputed zone between them and the Sultanate.

The Ionians, who were vehemently antislavery, claimed they were stopping suspected slavers returning from the Outworlds. The Porte denied these claims with equal vigor, accusing the Ionians of mounting false-flag operations and outright piracy. The League’s official position was that the Sultanate no longer dealt in slaves and rumors to the contrary were based on counterfeit registrations or otherwise unfounded. Trin knew better, as did Office on Naval Intelligence, but the Central Intelligence Directorate leaned in the opposite direction, and neither Ionian’s methods nor motives were above reproach. There was evidence, tenuous at best but not dismissible, that Iona had designs on the Winnecke IV junction itself.

Things had gotten so ugly that the Porte had made common cause with several of the League’s largest concerns—Caelius-Protogenos was prominent among them—in urging the Plenary Council to order a blockade of Iona. When Grand Senator Huron was Speaker, these pleas (and the protests that accompanied them) had fallen on the deafest of deaf official ears. The former speaker had strong personal as well as political ties to Iona—his first wife had been Ionian—and those most feeling the bite were his commercial competitors and political rivals.

Hazen Gauthier was likely to be much more receptive, however, but what role the politicking over the ultimatum played in all this was unclear. Trin was sure there
was
a role, but the ultimatum also cast the League in the light of an aggressor, and the Porte would not be happy getting dragged into a war on those terms.

Indeed, the Porte did not want war at all. Being militarily weak, the Sultanate prospered by exploiting its strategic position, playing the League off against Halith. If either power became firmly ascendant, Andaman and Nicobar would rapidly be reduced to the status of client states. So while the Porte might very much want the League to rein in its brash former colony and offset the small but highly trained and technologically advanced Ionian navy, it did not wish this done at the cost of another major war with Halith, and no one with any sense believed the ultimatum would lead to anything else.

So it was possible that the ultimatum was being used by someone to wring concessions out of the Porte, and there were also those reports that suggested the Emir of Ivoria may have his own plans, and if he got Ionian backing—

Here Trin hit the brakes on her careening train of thought. Letting it ramble on could lead off into any one of a dozen unprofitable directions at this point. But there was one thing. She cleared her throat.

“Permission to speak frankly, sir.”

PrenTalien, who’d been using the brief interval to survey the remaining donuts and decide if he regretted his earlier decision to forego another, shut the box lid. “You know you make me nervous when you get formal like that.” He made a coaxing gesture with one large hand. “Why don’t you just tell me what’s on your mind?”

“Sir, they’ve put themselves between the devil and the deep-blue sea on this ultimatum vote. What are the chances this op is a set-up to create a diplomatic incident?” If the Bannermans initiated hostilities, that would cut through the Gordian Knot of complications at the risk of the whole thing blowing up in their faces, and she’d be damned if she’d roll over quietly for that. (When Trin mixed her metaphors, she believed in going whole hog.) Further, it was inconceivable this hadn’t occurred to her boss.

“Does a bear shit in the woods?” PrenTalien averred with a wink.

“To the best of my knowledge, sir, these days, most of them shit in zoos.”

“Oh. Right.” The admiral made a mental note to abandon that particular expression. “Well then. Anything else bothering you?”

“That’s the main thing . . . at the moment. Sir.” As artful a dodge as she could manage under the circumstances.

PrenTalien read what he wanted from her response and went to the charting table, nodding for her to join him. Bringing up a chart of the Hydra as she stepped beside him, he returned to the previous point. “That’s why I’m making this an anti-slaving op. It answers the mail but offers fewer opportunities for any untoward provocation. We’re overdue to run some anti-slaving exercises in the Hydra, in any case. With all the focus on the Outworlds lately, they’ve pulled in their horns there and are likely making up the difference here.” He waggled his index finger over the triangle formed by Lacaille, Cathcar and Mantua. “There’s some rich pickings in there, as you know. My belief is that’s a good place to start.”

“Yessir.”

“By building the task group around
Retribution
, we deploy a force that’s well suited to running down slavers, but also one that has the legs to get out of a tight spot if they have to—
Retribution
is the fastest battlecruiser on the list, though I wouldn’t go odds between her and
Nike
, and she has very long claws if it comes to that. Captain Lawrence has a way with these things”—slavers, he meant—“and if we produce an airtight argument for half again more than we think we need, we’ll stand a good chance of getting something reasonable. I plan to add one light cruiser to the list as a sacrificial goat—that always makes the Admiralty feel better.”

Most of this had been covered in the meeting, and Trin waited for the punch line.

With a knowing smile, he delivered it. “And then there’s Mankho. If we could get a line on his whereabouts, we could queer their pitch on this ultimatum nonsense, couldn’t we?”

“Yessir”—with a nascent smile as the picture began to come into focus.

“I have a notion that slavers have a damn sight better idea where he is than the Bannermans do. We’ve never considered slavers much of a resource in that regard, but I’m thinking it may be time to expand our horizons. What do you think?”

Trin was already thinking, and had been since he uttered Mankho’s name. “It has a lot of merit, sir. I don’t imagine you’ll be including this in the standard op-plan?”

“After what happened on Lacaille? No.”

That answered Trin’s unspoken question.

“So someone would need to be assigned to carry out this part of the operation. Someone not directly under Captain Lawrence, but assigned in an advisory capacity?” PrenTalien replied to that with a nod. “Commander Huron would be a logical choice, I believe.”

“I agree there,” the admiral said. Huron had been promoted to lieutenant commander five months ago and assigned to Task Force 34 as Lo Gai’s staff operations officer. It was perfectly reasonable that on a delicate mission of this type the admiral’s ops officer would go along, although of course he could not be, in effect, demoted to serve on the senior captain’s staff, even if the captain was allowed a commodore’s billet. “So you think it’s doable?”

“Well, sir, there are a lot of questions that would have to be answered. We would need a much better understanding than we currently have of slavers just to determine who is worth interrogating. We don’t have the time or the resources to just round up slavers and send them back for interrogation. We need a reliable means of triage to have any chance of recovering useful data.”

“What’s it take to do that? Develop a decent triage method?”

“Our data on slavers is all top-level. Slavers tend to deal on a personal basis, face-to-face, not through organized institutional networks. So we’d need someone who knows who’s who in the slaver community.” Trin paused. “I can only think of one person who might have any insight there.”

“That girl, if I take your meaning.” PrenTalien had clearly been following the same logic to the same conclusion. “The one who supplied all that data. The medicos had their knickers in a twist over her. What was her name?”

“Loralynn Kennakris, sir.”