“I agree,” Sylvia said. “My understanding was that Battle Group Scorpius was only out here for Operation Yellow Bicycle.”
“That is correct,” the Admiral confirmed. “But since we no longer have an instant communication cycle with High Command, a flag officer must act on their discretion—and like you, Ambassador Todorovich, I am bound by the honor and the promises of the United Planets Alliance.
“To keep those promises and protect La-Tar, my battle group is going to need to stay out here and keep watch.”
“Thank you,” she murmured. “Like Aval and Rising Principle, I need to return home and consult with our government. I believe that there must be consequences for attacking our ambassador, but that is not truly my decision to make.”
“If they come for the Cluster, we will stop them,” Cheung told her.
Henry felt a load leave his shoulders at that promise. He’d left three destroyers at La-Tar. They could probably fight a Guardian for the locals, but if the Drifters sent a real fleet—and even a single Convoy could muster a real fleet—they could never have held.
“I will return to Zion aboard Raven,” Sylvia continued, and Henry tried not to blush like a schoolboy caught plotting. He’d been hoping that she’d be returning with him, but he hadn’t been sure it was the best plan.
“We wanted to avoid entanglements outside our borders,” she noted. “We wanted to secure peace with the minimum possible level of force and resources. I now don’t believe that will be possible—but we also now have proof of the economic value of opening up these markets to UPA trade.
“We have made promises out here, promises that the Initiative alone cannot keep. For the honor of the UPA, we must act as one nation with all of our resources.”
“I agree,” Admiral Cheung said. “We will hold the line while you convince the Security Council. I hope your return trip is fruitful.”
Sylvia nodded, her gaze meeting Henry’s across the table.
“We’ll be fine, I think,” she said. “I just hope…that Blue Stripe Green Stripe Orange Stripe was working in isolation. If anyone had the ability to gather allies over the last year, it was the Drifters. The Convoy is a dangerous-enough threat on its own.
“If their arming and manipulation of the Kozun is representative, though…we could be seeing the birth of a new foe, potentially more focused on our direct defeat than the Kenmiri ever were.”
“We will be ready,” Henry promised, looking around at the other senior officers in the conference room. “I have solid guesses what the Drifters wanted out of wrecking the peace conference, but they’re only guesses.”
He smiled thinly.
“Unless there’s something in play I didn’t see, they’re going to realize the risk was never worth what they stood to gain.”
Chapter Forty-Eight
Zion again. The seemingly delicate structures of Base Fallout stretched out as far as the eye could process and beyond. A corner of Henry’s vision was occupied by a video feed of a camera above Raven, watching the repair base’s teams swarm over the bent cruiser.
He knew what their conclusion would be. Song had left him in no doubt about the state of his command.
“Get in here, Wong,” Hamilton’s voice barked.
Flinching slightly, Henry stepped forward through the door to his boss’s office. The last week of traveling with Sylvia aboard Raven had proven a surprisingly effective balm to his mental and emotional wounds, but this was the end point. This was where he learned what was going to happen to him.
He instinctively crossed to stand in front of Admiral Sonia Hamilton’s desk and came to a crisp attention.
“When, Henry, have I ever wanted that mickey mouse bullshit?” she demanded. “Sit down.”
He sat.
“Yard is still surveying Raven,” Hamilton told him, the gray-haired and steely-eyed Admiral studying him. “You know what they’re going to find, though.”
“It’ll be cheaper to rebuild her than build an entire new battlecruiser, but not by much,” Henry said. “She needs a year—maybe more—in a major yard, like the one that built her.”
“I saw Song’s report, yes,” the Admiral confirmed. “She and I will be speaking shortly. She’ll take command of Raven’s passage crew and deliver her and Ambassador Todorovich to Sol.”
Hamilton shrugged.
“There’s a Colonel’s billet and a mobile dry dock waiting for her there, anyway,” she noted. “You weren’t going to keep Song any longer, I’m afraid. She’ll get her steel leaf before she leaves Zion, though.”
“That’s good, ser,” Henry said. “She deserves it, even if she isn’t a line officer.”
Even Colonel Anna Song, with a steel oak leaf instead of a copper one on her collar, could never command a battlecruiser. A mobile dry dock, though, that was a fitting command for a UPSF engineering Colonel. They didn’t have many of them, either, so that was one hell of a cookie.
“Promotion board sat while you were gone,” Hamilton told him. “No news, I imagine, that you were going to lose a lot of your senior officers anyway. Iyotake’s another one with a steel leaf waiting for him, though finding him a command is going to be a pain now.”
“Ser?”
“He was supposed to get Raven,” the Admiral noted. “Since she’s going in for repairs, that won’t happen.”
Hamilton shook her head.
“You weren’t staying on Raven any more than Song was,” she noted. “Sadly, Raven’s loss doesn’t change my plans for you at all. Or Commander Ihejirika, for that matter.”
“I’m confused, ser,” Henry admitted.
Admiral Sonia Hamilton laughed aloud.
“You wrote glowing reports for every one of your officers for their actions at the Great Gathering and La-Tar,” she reminded him. “I don’t think there is anyone on Raven who isn’t getting bumped a grade right now. There are plum assignments waiting for most of your officers, though some of those assignments were intended to still be aboard Raven.”
“And despite all of that, you expected to remain Raven’s captain?”
“Yes, ser,” Henry admitted. It sounded silly when she phrased it like that.
“Well, I apologize, Henry, but you’re losing the white collar,” she told him. A jewelry box appeared out of nowhere. “You get a new leaf, though. The last one you’ll ever wear, one way or another.”
The gold oak leaf of a United Planets Space Force Commodore somehow wasn’t a surprise. Henry stared down at it as he touched the white collar of his turtleneck, the mark of a starship captain.
“So, you don’t have a command for me?” he asked.
Hamilton laughed again.
“I just told you you’re keeping Ihejirika,” she pointed out. “Lieutenant Colonel Okafor Ihejirika will be transferred off Raven before she leaves, along with his physical orders. He’ll be assuming command of the destroyer Paladin. Cataphract and Maharatha brought captains with them, but Paladin was slated to be Ihejirika’s command before they left Procyon.