“So, I need to convince them we aren’t a threat,” Sylvia concluded. “I wish that felt easier. They were very specific which ships they let us on and even where on those ships we went.”
“That’s my experience as well,” he agreed. “Even when we were renting lab space from them and had a destroyer division helping the Protectors guard the Convoy, we were very limited in where we were allowed on the Convoy.”
“You don’t trust them?” she asked.
“I don’t trust many people at this point, Em Ambassador,” he admitted. “There are Drifters I would trust, officers I have fought alongside and who I think I can predict. But the Drifters as a society?”
He shook his head.
“Their goals are their own and they don’t talk about them,” he warned. “I can’t argue with what I know of their goals, but it could easily put them in conflict with us.”
Sylvia nodded and sighed.
“That’s fair.” She took a sip of her water and raised her glass in a faux toast to Henry. “But I believe you’ve forgotten something, Henry.”
“Oh?” he asked.
“I seem to recall telling you to call me Sylvia.”
Chapter Twenty
Any interstellar journey was made of alternating periods of boredom and minor discomfort, interrupted on a semi-regular basis by extreme discomfort as icosaspatial impulse generators kicked the human brain in sensitive parts.
The flight between skip lines was generally the boring part. Glorious and Raven could both fully compensate half a KPS2, which made that the standard acceleration of the journey. At that acceleration, no one on any of the three ships felt any thrust at all.
Skip drones accelerated faster enough that there was no problem with the robotic couriers catching up to the ships, allowing Henry to maintain a loose communication with La-Tar and Zion.
He was keeping enough attention on that cycle to recognize when a drone appeared that was listed as from Zion and was completely off-schedule.
“Commander Moon, I’ll review the feed from that drone in my office,” he told the coms officer. “I expect an eyes-only message.”
“Understood, ser.”
“You have the con,” he concluded, rising from his chair and passing command authority to Moon. She knew the likely source of the drone as well as he did.
On his way to his office, he pinged Todorovich through his internal network, letting her know to meet him there.
The data download from the drone was locked behind the security seals he expected. It took him long enough to work through them that the ambassador was stepping into his office as he finished inputting the last security code.
“We’re keeping things under lockdown,” he told her. “I need to brief Orosz and my senior staff on Yellow Bicycle sooner rather than later, but this is what I was waiting for.”
A skip drone was capable of carrying dozens of petabytes of data. The ones Henry was sending back to Zion contained twelve hours of full telemetry from Raven’s scanners, for example. This one contained a single video file.
“This was sent my-eyes-only,” he continued. “But there was a codicil including you once I was halfway through the security codes.”
“I appreciate that someone thought to include me in the messages,” the Ambassador said.
“Honestly, I was planning on including you anyway,” he admitted. “This is your mission as much or more than mine.”
“I appreciate that as well,” Todorovich repeated with a small smile. “Shall we see what we’ve been sent?”
Henry swallowed a breath that he hoped Todorovich didn’t notice and started the message. A holographic image of two men in UPSF uniform appeared above his desk, and Henry was glad for the breath.
He hadn’t seen very many images of Commodore Peter Barrie in the four years since their divorce. It was still hard.
Barrie looked…good. He was a tall man with pale blond hair, still muscular into his fifties, with warm brown eyes. The uniform fit him like he’d been born in it, and the gold oak leaf of his rank glittered in the lights of his own captain’s office.
“Captain Wong, Ambassador Todorovich, this is Rear Admiral Cheung Jian Chin,” the other man in the hologram greeted him. Henry’s attention was yanked away from his ex-husband and he focused on the squat Chinese Admiral.
“We have received various direct and indirect updates on your positions and plans, and I wanted to make certain that you were aware of Battle Group Scorpius’s progress,” Cheung told them. “The effort you have made to keep us fully informed without revealing our presence has been of immense value, Captain.
“We are en route, as I hope you presumed, to the system we are designating Ra-One-Seventy-Five. Our navigators’ assessment is that Ra-One-Seventy-Five is the most logical system for your skip drones to pass through on their way to Zion, which will allow you to keep us informed on the progress of negotiations.”
The Admiral smiled.
“We should also be able to load messages onto Zion’s drones as they pass us, which will allow us to communicate more readily than we have so far. We estimate that we will be in position sixteen hours after you arrive in the Lon System.”
Henry was relieved. His only real concern about heading out as early as they had was the fear that they’d be in position well before their reinforcements were. If everything went as promised, that would be fine…but he was expecting a trap.
“We did receive Ambassador Todorovich’s suggestion of a dead-man order,” Cheung noted. “We considered it in the planning stages of this operation, but doing so depended on us being able to set up a communication chain that wouldn’t draw attention. Since we will be able to watch your drones to Zion, we have that chain and her suggestion makes sense.
“If we don’t hear from you for twenty-four hours once you have reached the Lon System, I will bring Battle Group Scorpius into the system ASAP. We will be positioning ourselves on the skip line to minimize the response time, but keeping everyone alive until we can arrive will fall on you, Captain Wong.
“Your record gives me faith that this will not be an insurmountable challenge, but I urge you to remember that the survival of your crew and the people under your protection will be the highest priority in that circumstance.” Cheung smiled drily. “In other words, when the shit hits the fan, run, Captain. Don’t fight unless you’re certain you can win.”
Henry figured that part came from Barrie. They’d both been headstrong fighter pilots once, after all.
“If everything goes as we hope, we will meet up in Zion and I will buy you a beer,” the Admiral promised. “If it doesn’t…well, you’ll be seeing us sooner than that.
“Good luck, Captain Wong, Ambassador Todorovich. Scorpius out.”
The hologram froze and Henry leaned back in his chair. He looked at the still image of the two officers for a moment and then closed it.
“That was your ex?” Todorovich asked.
“Commodore Peter Barrie, captain of Scorpius,” Henry agreed. “One of our, what, five fleet carriers? At least I know the quality of my backup.”