“I think we must state, first, that the UPA will not accept any treaty that does not admit the Kozun’s responsibility for the invasion of the Cluster,” she told Aval. “I will not permit you to use a false claim of damages to reduce the depths of the Hierarchy’s crimes.
“The Hierarchy brought blood and fire to these stars. They have conquered worlds and made slaves of peoples freed by the Kenmiri’s fall. The United Planets Alliance will not stand aside while you rewrite history to erase these actions.”
She smiled thinly.
The Kozun weren’t going to get a starting point of “you pay us” to negotiate down from. Not while Sylvia Todorovich was part of the negotiations, anyway!
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Raven’s bridge was a quiet place. It was far from empty—the battlecruiser was on Status Two, which meant there was a shift and a half on duty—but what conversation was happening was doing so quietly and thoughtfully.
It was Okafor Ihejirika’s watch and Henry wasn’t needed on the bridge at all. He had every faith in his tactical officer to handle matters unless things went very wrong, and yet he found himself drawn to the big command center and its detailed displays of the space surrounding them.
“Ser!” Ihejirika greeted him, beginning to rise from the command seat before Henry waved him back down.
“As you were, Commander,” Henry ordered. “It’s your watch; I’m just observing.”
Suiting actions to words, he settled into the observer seat next to Ihejirika.
“I haven’t seen any alerts,” he said quietly. “Anything going on?”
“We’re all just sitting here, glaring at each other while the diplomats talk,” Ihejirika told him. “I’m guessing no one knows how long that’s going to go on for?”
Henry chuckled.
“Ask me later, once Todorovich has sent an update over,” he said. “Right now, I know as much about the negotiations as anyone else. I’d guess that we’re looking at a week or so, at the minimum.
“No matter how cut-and-dried the situation seems to us, there’s always complications when nations sit down at the negotiating table. The distances mean a ceasefire isn’t even needed, so long as both sides are waiting to hear what happens here.”
“It’s going to be a twitchy week,” Ihejirika admitted. “Everybody’s shields are up, but energy shields are more transparent to scanners than gravity shields.”
From the inside, Henry’s people knew the exact magnitude of the gravity shear impacting the incoming light and radiation. They could reconstruct what happened outside easily enough. Those on the outside couldn’t see through the shear with any detail at all.
“Are you poking at our neutrals and peace-bonded enemies, Commander?” Henry asked.
“Not…yet,” Ihejirika replied. “Just watching energy signatures. But.”
“But what, Commander?”
“If we synchronize scanners with Glorious and adjust her position slightly, we can get clearer images of everyone else,” the tactical officer told him. “We won’t get perfect data right away, but a few hours of recorded sensor information should be enough for us to tell you anything you want to know.”
“I’m listening,” Henry allowed.
“We can also probably sneak some drones out, get more detailed closeups.”
“Probably is overestimating our odds there,” Henry said calmly. “At least your odds of closeups.” He shrugged. “You could sneak drones out through the missile launchers, I suppose. Low-impulse magnetic launches; keep the drives turned off until they’re well away…you could hide them but you wouldn’t get any use out of them at a valuable range.
“We wouldn’t be able to bring up drives or sensors until they were at least ten million klicks away, at which point they’re not adding much to your sensor take.” He shook his head. “There’s no point, Commander.”
Ihejirika paused, considering his arguments, then sighed and nodded.
“Fair. I’m just not used to having this kind of opportunity to get a close-up look at enemies and friends anymore,” he admitted. “I don’t think we’ve had this close a look at even a Guardian in a while—and these cruisers are post-war construction.”
“I didn’t say don’t take a look,” Henry said. “Get that coordination with Glorious. See what we can do with our positions without drawing too much attention, and dig out every passive sensor we’ve got or can fabricate.
“Point everything we can at the cruisers and the Guardians alike, and learn whatever you can. I want to know what Protector-Legate Half-Blue-Third-Red drinks in the morning. Do whatever you think can get us more data on what we’re looking at.”
“Yes, ser,” Ihejirika said.
“Just don’t get caught,” Henry finished. “We can do a lot with passive sensors, so let’s do that. But we don’t want to do anything that’s going to make Ambassador Todorovich’s job harder. Understood?”
“Yes, ser,” the tactical officer repeated. “I’ve got a maneuver pattern already drawn up. Do you want to take a look?”
“Are you confident in it?” Henry asked. “Because you’re the tactical officer, Em Ihejirika. I trust your judgment, but I’ll take a look if you want.”
“I’m confident, ser,” Ihejirika told him. “But since you’re here, I won’t turn down a second set of eyes.”
Henry smiled.
“Good answer, Commander, good answer,” he said. “All right, show me your plan.”
Eventually, Henry left his bridge crew in the process of setting up the maneuvers and analyses necessary for Ihejirika’s plan. He hadn’t had much to change on the maneuver pattern—and what he’d changed had only been optimizing.
His crew were a well-oiled machine. Ihejirika, like many of his officers, was ready for the next step. Technically, however, the United Planets Space Force was at peace. That meant its officers were operating under peacetime promotion patterns—in the UPSF, a twice-yearly review.
That review of his people’s files would be taking place on Earth in the next few weeks. That review could have three main results: deferred, promoted, held for formal board.
There were other results, but the most common would be deferred or held for a formal board. The reports and files submitted had to mark spectacular actions and improvements for a promotion to be passed entirely on the recommendation of an officer’s immediate superiors.
It happened, though, and unless simply being part of the Initiative was a black mark, Henry expected to see a lot of his officers and spacers getting well-deserved promotion notices in the near future.
Ihejirika deserved his own XO slot or even his own destroyer. Iyotake deserved the XO slot on a carrier or his own battlecruiser. Everyone would ripple upward through the crew, and it was going to be a giant pain for Henry to deal with.
And if he had to write those reports and recommendations again, they’d probably be even more glowing.
He was allowing himself a rare grin when his internal network chimed to let him know he was receiving a communications request. He checked his schedule. He was supposed to be reviewing heat radiator reports at the moment, in preparation for meeting with Lieutenant Colonel Song to go over their usage rate of the thousands of the feather-like devices that covered Raven’s hull.