The message ended and Henry grinned. He knew it was a cruel and vicious grin, but he had no sympathy for the people who’d wrecked a peace conference—and he knew that Cheung was correct.
There was no way the Guardians were escaping the Lon System.
The second message started playing a moment later, this one showing the tall blond features of Commodore Peter Barrie. Henry’s ex-husband looked worried.
“Captain Wong, Raven, this is Captain Barrie on Scorpius,” the Commodore declared. “We received an update on the system from Ambassador Todorovich. Jackdaw and two destroyers are headed to your rough location now.
“Stay concealed until they reach you. We have the situation under control. I repeat, the situation is under control. Stay where you are. Scorpius and Rook are also en route to retrieve the Ambassadors from their survival capsule. Everything is under control.”
The world fell out from under Henry.
Todorovich had told them what had happened. How? She was dead…except the UPSF contingent was picking up a survival capsule with the ambassadors. Had they all survived?
“Ser?” Moon said after a moment. “What…what do we do?”
“Stand the ship down to Status Three,” Henry ordered. “We stand by until Jackdaw is closer to us than those Guardians, then we establish communications.”
He looked at the expanding cluster of green icons on his display.
“We did it, people,” he told them all. “We did it.”
Chapter Forty-Five
The rescue shuttle settled onto the immense flight deck at the heart of Scorpius with a gentle thud audible throughout its passenger compartment.
Scorpius was a squashed cigar shape six hundred meters long, and her flight deck ran the full length of her hull. As Sylvia slowly stepped down the ramp, she could see the rows of single-fighter bays that held the carrier’s “main battery.”
Those bays were empty, their usual inhabitants flying search and rescue through the wreckage of the two Guardians that had refused to surrender in the face of overwhelming firepower. Not all of those starfighters would be coming home—but the only Drifters that would see their homes again would do so through the mercy of the UPSF.
A formal greeting party was waiting on the deck, with files of immaculately turned-out GroundDiv troopers lining a long blue carpet. Rising Principle had already reached the end and was now standing beside the tall blond officer waiting for them.
Sylvia instead stayed at the bottom of the ramp, waiting until Oran Aval and her escort made it down to join her. Several people in the crowd clearly seemed to be expecting the Kozun Voice to emerge as a prisoner, but they’d get to be disappointed.
“Come, Voice,” she told Aval in Kem.
“I was expecting a different welcome,” Aval told her.
“Whether the UPA is at peace with the Kozun is my call, Voice Aval,” Sylvia reminded the other woman. “And you and Rising Principle made a deal. That means we are at peace.
“So, we should go.”
Aval smiled thinly and joined Sylvia as they walked down the long blue carpet together, their bodyguards and staff trailing a few steps behind. GroundDiv soldiers snapped to attention as Sylvia passed them, and there was something ever so slightly different in their posture.
It wasn’t that Aval was with her. It wasn’t even that these troops didn’t know her and she was used to Raven’s troops. It was… Respect was the wrong word. GroundDiv troopers had always been respectful of her.
It was awe. She’d survived the destruction of her ship and then orchestrated the defeat of the Drifters’ plot from inside a glorified escape pod, and that story had clearly already spread.
“Ambassador Sylvia Todorovich,” Scorpius’s commander greeted her with a bow. Barrie wore the standard black slacks and turtleneck uniform of the UPSF. His sweater had the white collar of a starship captain with the gold oak leaf of a Commodore pinned to the right side of it.
“Voice Oran Aval,” he continued, turning to the Kozun and switching easily to Kem. “I understand that the La-Tar Cluster now has a peace treaty with the Hierarchy.”
“We do,” Aval confirmed. “And given the treachery here, the beginnings, I believe, of a potential alliance against an enemy that has attacked us both.”
“It is not my role to speak to the place of the United Planets Alliance in that conflict,” Barrie said calmly. “That duty lies on Ambassador Todorovich, who I trust will handle the affairs of our nation with her usual skill.”
“Thank you, Captain,” Sylvia told him. “For the moment, the UPA will be operating on our defensive treaties with La-Tar and others…but the Drifters have clearly demonstrated themselves a threat to everyone.
“I hope that threat can be defused by discussion and negotiation,” she admitted, “but if they prove as paranoid as their actions here suggest, I have the utmost faith in the courage and skill of the United Planets Space Force.”
Enough of the crew would understand Kem that her words would be communicated throughout the ship and the battle group within hours.
“You must all be exhausted,” Barrie said after a moment. “I have medics standing by to check over all of your people. They are trained on Kozun and other Ashall physiology, I promise.”
Aval almost unconsciously touched her stomach.
“That strikes me as a good plan,” she agreed.
“We are at your disposal, Voice Aval,” the Commodore told her. “Please, this way.”
Sylvia felt more than a little silly, hesitating outside Barrie’s office a couple of hours later. Raven was now on her way to join the battle group, which had both good and bad elements.
Good was the confirmation that Henry Wong had survived. A lot of his crew hadn’t, though, and it was clear that the battlecruiser would never fight again. Raven was a wreck, mobile under her own power but no longer a functioning warship in any sense.
It also meant that they had the full copies of Raven’s telemetry of the Drifters’ betrayal, the ninety seconds of Kozun shock that might have been critical if the Drifters hadn’t proceeded to blow any pretense in their hunt to destroy those records.
She was outside Commodore Peter Barrie’s office, though, for entirely selfish reasons. It was uncharacteristic of her to hesitate—but she didn’t like leaning on her position and the contacts it gave her for personal matters.
On the other hand, well…
She buzzed for admittance.
“Come in,” Barrie replied. “Ambassador?”
The questioning tone in his voice carried over to his face as she stepped into the office. The degree to which the office mirrored Henry Wong’s on Raven’s was fascinating to her. The spaces were laid out identically. The only difference was that where Henry’s office had Raven’s bird-with-quill seal on the wall behind him, Barrie’s office had the ancient astrological constellation the ship was named for.
“How may I help you?” he asked, gesturing her to a seat.
“It’s nothing critical, if you’re busy,” she admitted. “It’s a personal matter, though somewhat time-sensitive.”
Barrie eyed her for a moment, then chuckled.