She smiled as she remembered the meeting. It was good to be back on Raven and it was good to see Henry Wong again. Hopefully, she’d have a chance to bend his ear in private after dinner.
Having spent time among the Drifters again, she was curious what his impression of them was. She’d always been in Convoys negotiating with them, but he’d actually fought alongside Drifter officers and been in forces that had relied on the Drifters for logistics.
The Drifter Convoys had been a critical component of Golden Lancelot, after all. The UPSF hadn’t had the logistics infrastructure to launch their assassination attacks on the Kenmorad across the entire space of the Kenmiri Empire—only the Convoys had made that possible.
And now that she thought about it, she wondered if the UPA had warned the Drifters just what that operation entailed. It would have been…typical of how Golden Lancelot was conducted for the UPSF not to have told them.
They hadn’t even told most of the officers involved what the full scope of the operation was, after all!
Dinner only doubled down the feeling of coming home. By the time dessert was being cleared away, Sylvia was the closest to fully relaxed she would let herself become outside of her home in the Eridani System.
“Officers and diplomats.” Henry Wong rose from the table, holding the only glass of wine she’d seen in his hand all evening. “I give you the United Planets Alliance and peace among humanity!”
“The UPA!”
Sylvia took a sip of her own wine, concealing a smile behind her glass. The UPA hadn’t necessarily delivered on that promise as thoroughly as its founders had hoped, what with the war against the Kenmiri, but they’d come closer than many feared.
It had been born out of the bloody three-way Unity War between the United States Colonial Administration, the Novaya Imperiya, and the hastily assembled United Nations Allied Fleets.
Like Henry Wong, her ancestors had fought on one of the losing sides of that war. She’d dedicated her life to the organization born out of the defeat of the Novaya Imperiya, recognizing that only standing together made humanity strong.
“I’ve received final confirmation,” Wong announced as the toast died down. “Rising Principle and their delegation will be aboard Carpenter in just over four hours. Glorious, Raven and Carpenter are all fully stocked and supplied.
“We ship out in ten hours exactly. I suggest you all get what rest you can and double-check everything in your departments before we leave. There will be limited opportunities for repair or resupply once we’re underway.
“The last thing we can afford is to appear weak in front of the Kozun,” he reminded everyone. “It is our promise to protect the La-Tar Cluster that has brought the Kozun to the negotiating table. While the negotiations will be in the capable hands of Ambassador Todorovich and Rising Principle”—he raised his glass toward Sylvia—“our part in this requires us to look capable and intimidating.
“We will not give the Kozun a moment’s hesitation. From the moment we arrive until the moment they sign the peace treaty, we stand guard. We’re going there to end a war, people, but we will show no weakness. Understood?”
There was a rumble of agreement, followed by a few minutes of companionable quiet before the first person—O’Flannagain, Sylvia noted—slipped out.
Once the dam had been broken, the rest of the officers followed over the course of about five minutes. Leitz arched a questioning eyebrow at Sylvia as Iyotake left, leaving the two of them alone with Wong.
“Go check over our people,” she told him. “I’m sure we have everything, but, as Captain Wong said, let’s be certain.”
“Yes, Em Ambassador.”
Leitz rose and bowed himself out of the dining room, leaving Sylvia alone with Captain Wong…and two barely touched glasses of wine.
“Being careful, I see?” she asked, gesturing toward the wine.
“I find that my nightmares are worse when I have too much alcohol,” he noted. “I’ll trade my fondness for wine and brandy for better sleep and more control.”
She raised her own glass in silent salute.
“Anything fascinating happen while I was gone?” she asked.
“Beyond the Bicycle?” He shrugged. “The Kozun have been clever about keeping an eye on the Satra System, and it’s making the Cluster’s defenders twitchy. I can’t blame them.”
“I didn’t think hiding a ship was something you could do.”
“It apparently depends on how much ice you’re prepared to embed a small starship in,” Wong said. “They stuck a corvette in an ice meteor. It worked better than I would have expected, though…”
He stared silently into his wine glass for a moment before sighing and swapping it for a glass of water.
“Though?” Sylvia prodded.
“That ice-coated corvette wasn’t in the right spot to account for all of the ghosts the La-Tar sentries saw,” he admitted. “She did enough damage to one of the La-Tar ships that we pulled back anyway and called it a win, but I have to wonder. We might have missed something.”
“It sounds like that’s about all the Kozun could have done, though, isn’t it?” she asked. “I presume the sentries are looking for similar ships now?”
“They are,” he confirmed. “I just have an itch on the back of my neck that says we missed something.”
Sylvia chuckled.
“I know that feeling,” she confessed. “The Drifters kept trying to say that we needed to give them grav-shield tech for whatever we wanted them to do. It was almost a joke by the end, but…I have to wonder how desperate they’re going to get. They’ll do a lot to keep their people safe.”
“They will,” Henry agreed. “That’s why we’re worried about them. I don’t think I’ve ever met a Drifter who I didn’t like and respect, but…”
He shook his head and drank more water.
As he was thinking, Sylvia followed his example and swapped her wine for water.
“I can’t blame the Drifters for being focused on their own people,” he finally said. “We did the same thing when the war ended. Everything the UPSF ever did was to protect our worlds. It took a lot of effort for us to get the Security Council to sign off on trying to do anything outside our borders.
“But they were always more willing to embrace…expediency, let’s say, than I liked.” Henry was staring off into space, and Sylvia shivered. She couldn’t see what he was seeing, but she doubted it was pleasant.
“Hey,” she said sharply. “Here and now, please, Captain Wong.”
He shook himself and smiled wanly at her.
“Apologies, Ambassador,” he said. “The war was not…pleasant. The Drifters enabled some of the less-pleasant aspects, even putting aside our own endeavors in Golden Lancelot.
“They survived under the Kenmiri by providing enough value and being dangerous enough that they weren’t worth the effort to destroy,” he continued. “They were working with the Kenmiri to the very end—probably still are, in the Remnant. They didn’t help us for moral reasons, Ambassador.
“They helped us because they thought they would be richer and safer without the Empire. I’m not certain what that looks like to them, but I can say this: if the Drifters think the UPA is a threat to that safety, especially, they will betray us.”