Phil looked at the officers around him. Barnaby Silver was here, but none of the Corvette Command Centurions. They were all busy on their own bridges, against whatever happened next.
That left Phil with his six locals, plus Heather, Barnaby, and Guardian Ma at the table and Markus in the corner like normal. At least for now.
Even Lady Kohahu and the Crown Prince were not invited to this meeting, though both might be able to make exceptional cases to the contrary. Nor was Nam Nagarkar. That woman might have to remove her new green and black uniform and depart with Kaur Singh after this, though she didn’t know it.
Too much unknown.
He had gathered everyone aft in one of the smaller conference rooms. It was a compact space, because he wanted to keep all the emotional explosions isolated.
Phil rapped his knuckles on the table top to still the side conversations and draw all eyes to him.
Cruiser-Captain Khan. Striker Solo. Captain Xue. Commander Singh. Captain Yukimura. Captain Ward. Not even Captain Sugawara, off Forktail. Just the cruiser commanders.
He nodded first to Gotzon Solo.
“Striker Solo, representing Ewin, has no real purpose to be here today, save that not inviting the man would be an undeserving insult, especially in light of the service he has given,” Phil announced. “Gotzon, thank you for everything you have done to date.”
The man had twitched hard. Wanted to say something, probably with his hands, but he refrained. Nodded compactly instead, a little at sea. For a moment more.
“Captain Ward, the original reports from Carinae II produced evidence that the colony was attacked and functionally destroyed by pirates associated with the Hamath Syndicate,” Phil continued. “The former Syndicate.”
Hollywood nodded. She’d been at great pains to produce all her private records accounting for anyone important enough to matter. A great many of those ships, or at least crews, had made it to Meerut in the last six months, accepting Phil’s parole. Not everyone knew how many because neither he nor Governor Milose had made any public announcements.
Phil turned to Xue next.
“Yaumgan is isolated from everyone, but does share a long border with Gloran,” he said, then nodded to Yukimura. “Dalou as well, but that border is less peaceful. And includes Vilahana at the main access point to the outside galaxy. Still, Gloran is not generally aggressive in those two directions.”
He paused then nodded to both Khan and Singh.
“That leaves the long, messy frontier that the Gloran Empire and the Aditi Consensus have maintained for some time, with Gloran slowly losing ground over the last few centuries as various colonies have either declared neutrality, or turned their favor towards Aditi merchants,” Phil said. “We’re going to operate under complete secrecy until I say otherwise, because I have a problem. Guardian Ma, what did your team recover from orbit when we identified refuse that wasn’t natural?”
All eyes snapped around to Ma Jianhong Ping, Guardian of Li Jing. Phil would have called the man the ship’s Dragoon.
“We were dispatched when Urumchi and Viking identified an object in orbit that did not fit with other debris characteristics,” the man replied, voice gone hard and formal, as though typing out a report. Or testifying at a Court Martial. “Upon recovery, the item was determined to be a shipping container that was in exceptionally good shape and an unstable orbit.”
“Define exceptional, Guardian,” Phil ordered the man.
“It had hardly any exposure to either solar wind, or the damage you commonly get from micrometeorite impacts,” Ma nodded. “Almost pristine.”
“Thank you,” Phil said. “And now define unstable.”
“According to calculations by the Science Officers off Urumchi and Viking, it would have degraded and fallen into the gas giant in another year, or been thrown longways up and out of local orbit by the complicated motion of several nearby moons in only a few months. We did not observe it long enough to determine which would be more likely.”
Phil nodded. He turned and made eye contact with each of the six captains at the table, ignoring Ma and Heather.
“Not there for long,” Phil reminded them. “So we can assume not an ancient relic we accidentally stumbled across. And wouldn’t have remained for long had it not been recovered, therefore, we can generally assume that it was not planted in that orbit, as a great deal of supposed evidence was on the planetary surface. Furthermore, the type of container—or rather, the contents—also lead us to believe that it was exactly what it purported to be, which was various boxes of spare parts for a ship’s life support system.”
If any of them were breathing right now, it was probably through their eyeballs, because they had fallen silent and utterly still. Like students confronted in class by The Professor.
“As you know, everybody builds their life support systems differently,” Phil continued. “In spite of the unnecessity of such an action. Autarky, where everyone has to do it their own way. At least the former Syndicates didn’t do that, as they didn’t have purpose-built warships like the rest of you. We can eliminate Hamath and the others for that reason.”
“Whose box was it, Phil?” Kaur asked now, eyes already acknowledging where he was headed.
“The Light Strike Cruiser Kartikeya,” Phil replied. “An Aditi vessel.”
He leaned back and let the explosion of sound and shouts of anger erupt for a few moments, like a boil that has been lanced.
Then he nodded at Heather.
She slammed her open palm down on the table top so loudly that everybody not expecting it jumped. Sounded a great deal like a knife boning a hunk of steak for dinner. Only louder.
Shocked silence fell. Phil felt his glower step up a notch and used it to cow everyone into leaning back in their chairs again.
Mouths opened and then shut when he snapped around to scowl at someone.
Finally, Khan leaned forward and nodded. Phil nodded back.
“Is it sufficient evidence upon which to recommend a course of action, First Centurion?” the man asked, never once so much as glancing at Commander Singh.
And surprising the hell out of Phil, who had been expecting the man to be a death or glory kind of warrior demanding immediate retaliation against Aditi. Probably shocked everyone else by being so in control of himself.
No, check that. Heather nodded serenely. Phil made a mental note to ask her what the hell had just happened.
Adham Khan acting like a rational commander was actually a wild card in Phil’s planning. And not in a good way.
Then he acknowledged that he didn’t have as high an opinion of the man as he did most of the others, for no legitimate reason at all. Other than everyone else had had their opportunity to step into the gap and prove their loyalty to their teammates around the table.
Including Hollywood, weird as that was.
“Recommend?” Phil asked, pausing for the man to nod. “Certainly. Will anybody listen?”
Khan’s face showed a sudden pain like someone had just stomped on his foot under the table.
Every head turned to Kaur now. She looked stricken, utterly pale and pupils huge.
“I have been with this squadron, this team, since Day One,” she reminded them. Longer than anyone else here not in black and green. “If it is as you say, and I assume so simply because you brought us here now to tell us, then Aditi may have committed an intentional act of war against Gloran.”
Phil nodded. Everybody else had been cowed, so they didn’t scream any insults or invective, but he could see it in their eyes.
Even Barnaby was grinding his teeth from the way his jaw muscles clenched.
“What does that entail, First Centurion?” Dao Zhiou Xue asked from her spot between Solo and Singh.
“A year ago, it would have meant an escalating series of reprisals and attacks up and down that frontier,” Captain Yukimura offered in a scholarly tone. “Possibly the kind of local war that we’ve all fallen into the unfortunate habit of pursuing from time to time, Yaumgan excluded because everyone else is smart enough to generally leave you alone.”
Xue nodded to acknowledge that, then turned to Khan.
“Honor makes nonnegotiable demands?” she asked that man.
Whatever Heather had said to Adham Khan—and Phil had only gotten pieces because she hadn’t wanted to go into detail—it had apparently transformed him into something of a stranger. Calmer than before. Almost introspective.
Adham KHAN?
“Honor always makes such demands, Captain,” Khan replied in a hard, quiet voice. “Sometimes, we allow ourselves to be blinded by such things. However, I am not the man who will make that decision.”
He turned his attention to Phil instead.
“I presume that you will need to tell the Emperor shortly,” Khan said simply.
“Indeed,” Phil nodded. “Immediately after this meeting is concluded and I know the state of this squadron, I intend to contact him for a private meeting aboard Urumchi, where he can see for himself.”
“What will he do?” Striker Solo asked carefully, the odd person out of this group because he had no shared borders with Gloran and little interaction with them other than Khan.
“He has many options,” Phil said. “Kerenski can order us out of his space, and we will go. He can order us to attend him at Derragon, though I might not accept his hospitality. Or at least, not bring the entire squadron with me.”
“Not, First Centurion?” Solo pressed.
“If he’s about to start a war with Aditi, or at least escalate one that they started, I will not subject one of my ships to the risk of an attack. And if Aranyani is not welcome, then none of you will be brought along, and Kerenski will be dealing directly and exclusively with the Republic of Aquitaine. That will change his thinking, I suspect.”
“Oh,” Solo observed.
“Finally, I might be able to keep harsher emotions from running out of control, to the point that we could go demand answers from the Consensus,” Phil said. “The entire point of this squadron maneuvering together for so long was that you have started to break down the old barriers to communication that had grown over the decades. I am loathe to give that up when we are so close to completing that element of our mission.”
“First Centurion, could this be the act of someone desperate to retain the old ways that they were willing to take such risks?” Khan asked, looking for an out for reasons Phil did not understand.
“Who stands to benefit?” Barnaby leaned in and scowled mightily at everyone like a bear roused mid-winter.
“We can leave Ewin and Yaumgan out,” Yukimura interjected without emotion. “They don’t gain anything at all, one way or the other.”
“Unless someone at Ewinhome wanted Aditi facing the other direction when they launched attacks like that idiot baron did,” Solo countered. “I don’t wish to be a troublemaker here, but we’ve all got to admit that our various governments have funded the pirates extensively in the past, whatever politeness they share with the general public. This feels deeper than just some greedy schmuck trying to score a few new trade routes. Someone doesn’t want peace. Simple as that. Who?”
Phil wondered if he’d fallen into some fairy tale, where his two most aggressive warrior command centurions had flipped inside out. But Solo had been there when he tried to save Ewin from imploding. Khan was there now.
All eyes roved around. Captain Xue cleared her throat.
“I suspect, like the rest of you, I could be removed and court martialed for what I am about to say, so just nod and save your own careers,” she spoke clearly. “Yaumgan has worked extensively over the centuries to keep the rest of you weak and at bay by paying pirates to harass you. That budget, to the best of my understanding, was almost as big as the one for our fleet, just because we saw the Syndicates as our front line defense. Aditi was kept surrounded on all sides, not just by your fleets, but by Hollywood’s people, specifically so you were never a threat to the Domain. As were each of the others. I have no doubt that all of you could tell a similar story.”
She paused and looked around. Phil counted the nods. All of them. It had been an open secret before.
Someone didn’t want peace.
“So we’re facing a new divide, Phil?” Hollywood asked. “Those looking to the future against those demanding the past?”
He considered her words. Phil wasn’t sure he could speak it more concisely without a speechwriter.
“Yes,” Khan broke in. “At Meerut, it was thus. The pirates under Utkin saw that the future had arrived and they sought to carve out a new place, rather than simply fade away. Since First Meerut, they have shifted over to the future. Hollywood and her network of ships are testimony to that. Dalou sent the Crown Prince and the future Shogun because Morninghawk showed them that the past could not be sustained. Ewin had to be broken, but the men in charge now have seen where all of their neighbors will be in a generation, and hopefully learn.”
He fell silent there.
“Gloran has yet to be tested,” Heather spoke up for the first time here. “And Aditi as well, because we simply sailed in and were welcomed as another republic. They never had to confront their past.”
“They are aware of it, though,” Kaur replied. She sat a little straighter. “At the time Phil opened his invitation to hunt pirates, I had a meeting with one of the top politicians in the Consensus. She basically offered me the bribe of another year in charge of Aranyani, after which I would be promoted to Director and given command of a Ship of the Line. All I had to do was be something of a spy.”
Phil wasn’t as surprised as the rest. All of them were functionally here for the same reason, sent as favored children to see how much of a threat the outsiders would be.
Worse than any of them imagined, he smiled to himself.
“We are all spies,” Xue acknowledged. The men grunted assent to that, now that it was in the open.
“So to answer the original question, yes, it might be a trap designed to draw Gloran and Aditi into a war that saps all their time, energy, and focus, while somebody else commits mischief,” Phil said. “Short of confronting the Directors of the Aditi Consensus fleet, we can’t know if Kartikeya was really here, or was framed in an elaborately staged triple-cross. You are here because you were assigned to my squadron, under my command. Originally, that was to hunt and break the pirates of the various Syndicates, but we have transcended far beyond that, my friends. We have so far visited four of the six capitals, including that new thing at Meerut. We were poised to travel to a fifth at Derragon, but that depends on how Kerenski reacts to this news. I do not wish to break this force up before we have the chance to travel to distant Kyulle, but that might be out of my hands. You are specifically ordered, however, not to discuss this matter with anybody outside of this room, until such time as I rescind that order. Am I clear?”
He went face to face now, making sure everyone understood that this was a line from which there was no redemption if crossed.
Someone had set him up. Someone who didn’t want the kinds of peace that Aquitaine threatened, where trade and diplomacy replaced autarky and piracy.
Where the Balhee Cluster might finally decide to grow up.
Phil was pretty sure he’d be cracking heads together, before this was all done.
He just needed an address.