“May I keep this, Envoy Rising Principle?” she asked. “I will need time to…consider this information.”
“Yes.”
The tablet disappeared into Aval’s tunic and she leaned back in her chair.
“My staff and I will assess the data from La-Tar,” she promised. “We will have an…offer by the time of our next meeting. As part of that, I believe we should consider a discussion of borders.”
She laid a small holoprojector on the table, creating a three-dimensional map of the La-Tar Cluster and the surrounding stars and skip lines. The Cluster was highlighted in a pale orange color, while the visible portion of the Hierarchy—Aval wasn’t kind enough to provide a full map of the Hierarchy’s current territory—was teal.
The closest the two territories came to each other was at La-Tar itself, four skips from the industrial world of Sitros. Sitros was two skips, just under forty-eight hours’ travel, from La-Sho, an agriworld definitively under Kozun control.
“Satra is-was not negotiable,” Rising Principle said sharply, a tendril pointing at the large star one skip away from La-Tar. It wasn’t the only giant on the map, but it was the one right between the Cluster and the Hierarchy.
“That is acceptable, though it is not a concession without value,” Aval warned. “My suggestion, in fact, is that Satra, Ichnu, Relo and Kort all be formally recognized as belonging to the Cluster.”
Sylvia took a moment to place all four of those star systems in the map. None were inhabited systems. All were closer to the Cluster than the Hierarchy, but close enough to Kozun space that they could project power to them.
All of them were red giants or blue hypergiants, easily skipped to from vast distances. They would be critical components of the trade networks that everyone was hoping to grow across the Ra Sector.
Right now, they were almost worthless and easy concessions for the Kozun to make—but everyone could see the potential value of the systems, which made them an argument for lesser reparations.
“We would, of course, consider the value of these systems and our recognition of the Cluster’s ownership as we assess the rest of the treaty,” Aval purred.
Sylvia had to respect the other woman. She’d managed to maneuver Aval into a position where she had no choice but to concede on reparations, and the Kozun had promptly produced a series of concessions that cost the Kozun nothing but could be counted against the value of the debts owed.
“We already control those stars,” Rising Principle pointed out. “Kozun recognition is meaningless without true effort. A commitment to help the Cluster defend that ownership, perhaps.”
The UPA ambassador leaned back in her chair. The Enteni envoy also clearly recognized what Aval was doing and had their own tricks. A mutual-defense agreement with the Kozun, even if only for the skip nexuses, would definitely have its advantages.
Sylvia was opening her mouth to suggest they take a recess to consider the points raised when the world went mad.
Chapter Thirty-One
If Henry hadn’t been on Raven’s bridge, he might never have known what happened. He was having a spirited discussion with Anna Song about the heat radiators, one that had been on and off since they’d arrived in the Lon System.
“The ship simply isn’t designed to run the gravity shield twenty-four seven for weeks on end,” Song told him, the engineer’s image gesturing energetically in Henry’s screen. “She can, yes, but it’s going to wear on the heat radiators.”
“All right, Colonel, and what’s the solution?” Henry asked. “We’re not turning the shield off, so…”
“If we reduce the shield’s shear factor by fifty percent, our safety equipment should suffice for thirty-minute work shifts on the exterior hull,” Song told him. “A team of ten can replace an average of two radiators a minute. If we do a careful analysis of which sectors of radiators are in the worst shape, we can replace them in batches of sixty. One thirty-minute work shift every day should keep us ahead of the degradation from running the shield nonstop.”
“And if we don’t risk reducing the shield power?” he said.
“We will start seeing radiator failures after five days,” she replied. “Potentially before that.”
“We can continue to operate at full capacity with up to ten percent of our radiators offline,” Henry pointed out. “How long until that metric, Colonel Song?”
“Nine to eleven days, depending on our luck,” she admitted.
“This hopefully won’t last nine days,” Henry said. “And if it’s starting to look like it will, we can readjust. I don’t want to weaken our defenses when we have enemies right here, Colonel.”
“They won’t even be able to see from the outside,” the engineer argued. “Eight thousand gravities of shear versus sixteen thousand…it’s still going to screw up anything they’re seeing.”
“We can reverse the shear effect from this side to get accurate sensor data,” he reminded her. “I’d be very surprised if the Drifters, for example, can’t tell the difference between Raven’s shields and Glorious’s. And that, Colonel Song, is only four thousand gravities of difference.
“Keep an eye on everything,” he ordered. “I am reviewing the reports and I do see the problem, Colonel, but right now, we need that shield more than we nee—”
“VAMPIRE!”
The shouted alert shocked Henry to silence—it shocked the entire bridge to silence as Cornelia Ybarra, the assistant tactical officer on duty for his shift, bellowed the single word warning.
Missiles incoming.
“Evasive maneuvers,” Henry barked as his attention snapped to the tactical displays. “Ybarra, weapons free. Point-defense lasers go!”
There’d been no warning. One moment, everything was continuing on as normal. The next, every single one of Kalad’s cruisers had opened fire, spitting missiles at the La-Tar and UPA ships.
Twenty missiles were targeted on Carpenter, forty on Glorious and sixty on Raven—fired at point-blank range with a thousand kilometers per second of launch velocity.
Thirty seconds should have been enough, but everything had been calm for days. Henry had talked to Kalad; she had seemed fully peaceful. Todorovich had told him that the Kozun ambassador even seemed aboveboard.
And all of that, it seemed, was a lie—and it seemed Mal Dakis had decided his Third Voice was expendable.
Carpenter was the first ship to get any of her missile defenses online, several seconds ahead of Glorious or Raven. The La-Tar ship didn’t have any passive defenses that could save her, though, and the range was just too short.
She shot down six of the twenty missiles. The rest detonated, converting themselves into short-range plasma cannon that washed over the half-megaton escort in the blaze of stellar fusion.
Glorious and Raven weren’t able to help. They shot down fewer missiles than the La-Tar ship, and Henry’s world shrank as his ship’s gravity generators screamed.
He knew the sound. He’d heard it twice before, but only once this badly. Resonance-disruptor warheads tore into his ship, sending feedback loops crashing back into her shield projectors.