Resolute (Guild Series Book 4), page 7
“Admiral, President Meyers and I are not enthused about the prospect, but if we can somehow sway the Indomitable to our side it will free up the Waterloo to assist with our efforts to push back the Syndicate invasion force.” Brighton’s words were calm, his deep voice projecting an inner strength that always seemed to reassure whoever he was talking to.
“They’d turn on us as soon as we showed them our back,” Commander Richtaus blurted from the background. She stepped closer to the camera, growing larger on the wall screen as she bent over her admiral’s shoulder. “The people on that ship have proven they have no honor, no sense of decency. They’d agree to cooperate just to make us lower our guards. Then they’d finish repairing their weapons and turn them on us while our attention was elsewhere.”
Meyers smiled grimly. “I think we could count on you to always be watching, commander. Our own Captain Frost shares your distaste with the idea, and will never trust them. With both of you looking out, I feel confident we’d be more than prepared if they did attempt some kind of attack. Besides, isn’t your Engineering department working with Dr. Francks on some great advancement in firepower using the fusion reactor we’re letting you use?”
Holgerson grunted, turning to speak softly to Richtaus until she backed away. The woman was still grumbling, speaking angry words at her captain. “President Meyers, any such advancements are days away from testing, much less realistic use.”
“But it is sound reasoning, isn’t it?” Meyers pressed. “The science looks as if it will work, and the idea could increase the offensive capabilities of any ship with the Silva reactor?”
“Yes,” Holgerson said, reluctantly. “If it passes testing, then it will give us a greater ability to inflict damage in a battle.”
“That would seem to widen our advantage if we can hold off the Indomitable for a while, then. To me, it seems like negotiating with them has more advantages than disadvantages. Even if Admiral Yumata refuses to work with the Alliance, we’ve bought time for this new advancement of yours to be tested and put into action.”
“You also give them time to get more of their railguns operational,” Holgerson said. “Since receiving the first data burst, we have scanned the cruiser extensively. At this moment, I can say with confidence that at least half their railguns are nonoperational, along with most of their torpedo tubes. So yes, negotiating to gain time increases our offensive capabilities. But it also allows them to more than double their own.”
Brighton sighed, and stepped in front of Meyers. He would be filling the screen on the Waterloo’s display. “Admiral, I concede that your observation has merit. It is something I have been considering since President Meyers approached me with his idea. But have we not seen enough bloodshed already? This war has claimed so many lives, and continues to claim more and more every day as the ground forces clash. If we have even the slightest chance of being able to turn our attention to stopping that, then I am convinced we must take it.”
Holgerson stared at the screen for several moments, his jaw tightening. “Prime Minister Brighton, I have placed my ship at your command as head of the splinter government. It is my duty to follow your commands, sir.”
“Admiral, it is my duty to look after the people.” Brighton straightened, raising his chin as he looked directly at the camera built into the display. “We will attempt negotiations with the Indomitable in one hour. I will keep you apprised on the results.”
Meyers sagged and leaned on his desk as the screen went black. “Thank you for backing me, Rinde. The last thing I need is to lose the support of the frigate just because I talk to the cruiser. That would be disastrous.”
“Let us hope that trying to negotiate with the Indomitable isn’t disastrous, my friend. You realize that a smart man will recognize we are reaching out because we have information from within the ship. From everything I’ve heard, Yumata is definitely a smart man.”
“It’s one of the many things I had to weigh in the balance. They’ll guess it, but they won’t have a way to know for sure. Hopefully our spy on board will be cautious, and realize their position is more tenuous.”
“Hopefully,” Brighton said, not sounding too certain.
Ten
Vegley was baffled by the message they’d just received. Yumata had called her into his office so they could watch it together, and then replayed it again. Both men on screen were older and dignified, representing the kind of politicians her parents had always moaned about never seeing anymore. Both of them asked to open negotiations, asked for Admiral Yumata to consider supporting the Alliance cause.
“Why would they want to negotiate?” Vegley asked. “We’ve been fighting against the Coalition for the last year.”
“They know too much,” Yumata said. “Somehow, they know that I have returned to the Indomitable, resumed my position of command. They know it was done against orders from the Syndicate committees. Otherwise, they would never have reached out in this way.” He looked up from the holo display with a satisfied look. “We have a spy on board, commander. Reporting to Luna, apparently, though I confess I don’t know which of the two governments.”
“I’ll have the Marines start sweeping the ship,” Vegley said through gritted teeth. She couldn’t believe there’d be a spy on her ship. Just when things seemed to be going so well, too.
“No,” Yumata said, musingly. He stroked his upper lip in thought. “Leave them be for the moment. I imagine they’ve spilled our secrets by now. If the Alliance knows about our mutiny, then they must know about the situation with our armaments. I would have ordered an immediate attack in their position, but perhaps there is some reason they don’t feel confident such a tactic would work.”
Vegley sniffed in contempt. “I can’t believe you use that name, sir. The Transport Guild is not fit to govern themselves, much less all off world settlements.”
“President Meyers strikes me as quite competent, commander.” Yumata rose from his chair, tucked his hands behind his back, and strode to look through one of the few real windows on the ship. Luna was passing through his view, and he considered it as he thought about the request. She wondered if he would really consider working alongside freighters. “I think we will allow them to send a delegation aboard, commander. No more than six, and no Marines.”
“Sir! You can’t seriously be considering this. The Executive Committee may have been foolish to put someone like Guildersen in charge, but the Syndicate is our home. I’m not the only person on board who would never turn our weapons on them.”
“Nor would I,” Yumata assured her. “However, I also feel that the Syndicate leadership has lost their way. Perhaps it happened long ago and it just took being away from the planet for so long to realize it. There is a better way to do things, but they refused to listen to any of my ideas while I was stuck on the planet. I don’t believe our future lies with the Syndicate any longer.”
Vegley stared at him, wondering for the first time what plans were running through his mind. She’d assumed that when the admiral returned to the ship, it would just mean putting things back to the way they had been before arriving at the homeworld. If he meant to do something else, she wasn’t sure how she’d feel about being part of that. Had she made a mistake, joining in when Yumata suggested removing Guildersen from the ship?
“Don’t worry, commander,” he said, his eyes seeming to stare at her in the reflection of the glass. “I would never ask anyone on this ship to betray their home. I guarantee that we will never fire our weapons against the Syndicate unprovoked.”
She nodded, unsure of how to feel. What the hell? she thought with resignation. I’m already involved in this, might as well follow through. “I’ll send a message and make arrangements for our visitors, admiral. Should we accept their proposed time of tomorrow at midday?”
“No, I can’t allow them to have their way too much. Tell them it will happen at sixteen hundred hours, or not at all. It gives us more time to continue with railgun installation and repairs. We must negotiate from a position of strength, if we are going to negotiate at all.”
Vegley turned and left his office, entering the command deck to find the officers there glancing her way curiously. The communications lieutenant had been the first to receive the message, and sent it to the admiral’s terminal. She wondered how much of it the man had seen before doing so, and how much of that had already spread across the command deck.
She passed communications, settling into a chair at the opposite end of the row of stations. She wanted privacy for the message she was sending, to prevent knowledge of the upcoming meeting spreading across the ship as gossip wildfire. In the overnight hours, she would leak the news to people she trusted. Discuss it with them, and make sure that when the word spread it did so with the appropriate tone. “It’s just talking” she reassured herself.
Once the message was composed and sent, she pulled up reports on the ongoing repairs. They had nine functional railguns now, with one scheduled to be completed within the next hour. There were three work crews, with people walking on the hull at all hours. The defensive cannons, low caliber weapons that could fire faster but with less power than the railguns, were also being repaired. At the current moment, more than sixty percent of the ship was vulnerable to incoming fire. Torpedoes could slide through unopposed and tear holes in the cruiser, and there would be nothing they could do to stop it. She considered those smaller weapons the most important item on the repair lists, though it was more intensive work and there were fewer people qualified to do it.
Vegley cursed the Waterloo for surviving Ghost Squad’s assault. If not for the frigate’s return, the Indomitable would be free to target the pathetic freighters of the so-called Alliance and obliterate them. She’d like to see how smug and self-assured Meyers was when his only defenses were burning hunks of metal orbiting the moon. She was certain there wouldn’t be any talks of cooperation then. More like pleas for mercy as they surrendered.
Would the Syndicate capitalize on such an event? Or would they still be too lost in what was happening on the planet below to even care. She vaguely wondered when any of the committees had spared more than a thought to the colonies, despite being responsible for creating most of them. When the mining colonies in the asteroid belt decided to govern themselves, no one on Earth had paid much attention. There was too much focus on the new cold war with the Coalition. She couldn’t even remember the last time the Syndicate had allowed people to leave Earth to join one of the colonies. Aside from the scientists that rotated through Mars and Deimos, that is.
She stiffened as she realized she was thinking much like Yumata now. Was there any point in trying to get back into the Syndicate’s good graces? It was still the same government that had built the largest ship in the system, and then failed to provide the personnel and weaponry needed to make it as potent as it needed to be. The same government that had put an incompetent glutton in charge, and ignored any protests from those forced to suffer his bad leadership.
Perhaps the best solution would be to leave the Syndicate behind for good. It was a thought she’d have to give more consideration to.
Eleven
They stayed on the hilltop for more than an hour, sitting and watching the distant shimmering water as the sun fell to the horizon. Altan talked about their childhood trips, and Tuya told some stories about her first days on Luna, and it was with reluctance that they finally rose.
Altan brushed the dirt and grass from the pants of his white prison uniform, already hopelessly stained. “We should return to the others, let them know what we’ve seen.”
“No,” Tuya said. “We should walk toward the lake, and hope to arrive on the shore tomorrow. If we travel along it, we’re sure to find a village soon. Fishermen will ferry us across the lake and save us from walking a hundred kilometers or more around it.”
Her brother sighed and shook his head. “We can’t just leave the others, Tuya. We know this land, we were born and grew up to it. They’ll be lost. Could you bear it, knowing you left them to die without giving them the choice to come with us?”
“Yes,” she said shortly. One look at his face was enough to make her relent, though. She wondered how he had held onto such compassion and optimism through everything he’d suffered over the last eight years. She also wondered how much of that she would share if she’d had the chance to spend those years with him. “Fine, we’ll go back.”
The journey seemed shorter this time. They almost jogged down the gentle slope of the hill, keeping their eyes on the ground for any obstacles they could see in the fading light. Twice Tuya spotted movement through the grass not far away, and wondered if it might be wild boar or foxes. Her stomach grumbled in hunger, and she was thinking of traps her father had showed her as a child. Hopefully, Altan remembered those lessons better than she, and they could manage to catch some food overnight or tomorrow.
When they arrived back at the area the shuttle had dropped them, there were only three figures waiting. Guildersen’s large bulk was visible against the purple sky, still staring up as if expecting the shuttle to return for him at any moment. Abernathy was at his feet, sitting up with his head in his hands. The last person was the male prisoner, his eyes devoid of emotion as he stared listlessly into the distance.
“Where is the woman?” Tuya asked, gazing around to see if she might have hidden away in the tall grass.
“She ran away,” Abernathy said, his voice muffled by his hands. She felt her lips tugging up in a smile, imagining the headache he must be experiencing after being hit with a stun bolt twice during the day. “Something about ants eating her from inside, and monsters chasing her. Who knows?”
Altan was looking conflicted, and Tuya put a hand on his arm. When he glanced over, she shook her head. “She was coming down from something potent, Alt. She could be five kilometers away by now, in any direction.” He wasn’t happy, but he nodded to show he understood.
“I think I know where we are,” he said loudly enough for everyone to hear. “From the hill we could see water in the distance, and I’m fairly certain it’s Lake Baikal. My sister and I grew up not far from there, and visited it often as kids. If I’m right, we can start walking south tomorrow and find a village on the shore in a day or two.”
“No, we stay here.” Guildersen’s tone was that of a man who expected to be obeyed. It was almost a command, spoken in a way that said he was sure his ideas would overrule any other. “The pilot said he would alert the local authorities to our location, and we need to be here when they arrive.”
Tuya snorted in disgust. “We’ve been on the ground for at least a couple of hours by now. You think they wouldn’t have already come?”
“They won’t leave me here,” the officer said. “They wouldn’t dare.”
“You’re delusional, Guildersen. If I were in their shoes, I’d only be too happy to let you rot away right here. Look around you! There’s no one for at least twenty kilometers. This isn’t an area that sees a lot of air traffic. Frankly, I doubt even the spy satellites both governments deny having are watching this barren part of the world.” She held her arms out at her sides, turning in circles. “They didn’t just happen to pick one of the few empty places left on this overpopulated rock.”
Guildersen dragged his gaze away from the sky, turning angry eyes on her. “A traitor like your brother, or a filthy spy like yourself. That’s who they would leave to rot. Even that idiot over there who keeps mumbling about someone called Mika. He’s useless no matter where he came from. But I have contacts on the Executive Committee, Ms. Sansar. And this man is a member of the Military Committee. We are not the kind of men you leave in a field and forget.”
Altan raised his hands and patted the air. “Alright, let’s just drop it for now. We need to spend the night here, either way, so give it some thought. Tuya and I are leaving at dawn. If you wish to come, fine. If you don’t, also fine.”
Tuya grumbled under her breath as they worked to clear a space and pulled grass to bunch up on the ground. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable night’s sleep she’d ever had, but it would be better than nothing. It would be the first free night of sleep in weeks, which would more than compensate for having to sleep in the open.
She and Altan stretched out on their beds of grass, staring up at the stars. The man who was no longer moaning about Mika had finally risen to follow their lead, and was finishing his own bedding. Abernathy kept looking at them as if expecting someone else to make one for him, while Guildersen had returned to staring at the sky. She was sort of impressed that someone so round could stand for so long.
“Mom’s going to kill me,” Altan said quietly. “Showing up after not calling or writing for so many years.”
“And dad’s going to give you that look. The one that says you’re a disappointment, but you’re his child and he still loves you.” They laughed, and Tuya could feel a tickle along her temple. “You know they’re never going to let you leave again.”
“Yeah. By the end of a week, mom will have found some nice village girl for me to marry.”
“She’ll already be picking out the names of your kids. And demanding at least three of them.”
“Then she’ll find some nice village boy willing to put up with you.”
“And be picking out the names of my kids. Demanding at least three of them.” She sighed, smiling so wide it hurt her cheeks. “I can’t wait.”
They were quiet for a while, lost in thought and viewing the vault of the heavens above. She felt fingers on her arm, a gentle touch as Altan traced the line of one of her scars. “Does it hurt?”
“All the time,” she said quietly. “But it’s getting better. I’m getting stronger.” She didn’t tell him that her entire body ached after their short trek to the hill and back. That she’d felt lightheaded when they returned, exhausted not only from the walk but from the gravity. Her brother had enough cares and worries to need another one heaped on his shoulders.
