“They won’t shoot?” the freighter executive asked Bradamont for the third time despite her having said no the first two times.
“Probably not,” she replied on this occasion, without visible concern. “If they do, we’ll probably be able to make the escape pod before the ship blows up. We won’t all fit, though, so I hope you’re a fast runner.”
Behind the freighter executive, Rogero grinned at Bradamont, but she kept a serious expression.
The drop out of jump space interrupted whatever reply the merchant executive might have mustered.
Two Alliance destroyers were within five light-seconds of the jump exit.
Rogero felt his breath catch as instinct born of a lifetime of war warned of serious danger.
But Bradamont gestured to him with an encouraging look, pointing to the freighter’s transmitter. All right. Let’s see how good I am at talking to the Alliance. “This is Colonel Rogero of the independent Midway Star System. We are here at the invitation of Admiral Geary, on a peaceful mission to recover prisoners of war from the Syndicate Reserve Flotilla. Please notify Admiral Timbale that we have information regarding Admiral Geary and the success of his mission, and would like to speak with him.”
Bradamont made a quick warning gesture and Rogero managed not to speak his next intended words. “Rogero, out.”
“I should have warned you earlier,” she said. “Saying for the people would tag you as Syndics.”
“They’ll probably tag us as Syndicate, anyway. But, with any luck,” Rogero commented, “they’ll be curious enough about the information on Black Jack to avoid destroying us.”
“They know that Admiral Timbale will be curious,” Bradamont replied. “And they won’t want to make him mad.”
Rogero watched the freighter’s limited display update, an apparently endless array of warships, support craft, civilian ships, repair facilities, and defensive installations popping up in fits and starts. “Black Jack isn’t even here,” Rogero murmured. “And look at all of it.”
Bradamont heard. “There aren’t that many warships present, and those here are cruisers and smaller.”
“That’s more than big enough for us to worry about,” the freighter executive grumbled.
Less than thirty seconds passed before a reply came in from one of the destroyers. “This is Lieutenant Commander Baader of the Alliance destroyer Sai. Your status and your political allegiance are unknown to us, Colonel Rogero. You and your ships look Syndic.”
Bradamont made an encouraging gesture, and Rogero tapped the controls again. “I am a colonel in the ground forces of the free and independent star system of Midway. My allegiance is to our President Iceni, and to my commander, General Drakon. We no longer answer to the Syndicate. The Syndicate is our enemy. We are at peace with the Alliance and have fought alongside your Admiral Geary at Midway.”
This time almost a minute passed before Lieutenant Commander Baader’s image once more appeared. “We have forwarded your message to Admiral Timbale, Colonel Rogero. Your freighters are to remain in this orbit until we receive clearance for you to proceed farther.”
“More waiting?” Rogero asked.
“More waiting,” Bradamont agreed. “They’ve bumped the matter upstairs, which was the smartest thing they could do.”
Light crawled across the light-hours to the massive orbiting Ambaru station where Admiral Timbale had his headquarters, then crawled back. Awoken from a restless sleep by the freighter’s second officer, Rogero returned to the bridge, collecting Bradamont along the way.
“This is Admiral Timbale.” The admiral looked thoughtful as well as suspicious, which Rogero thought a good sign. “We would of course be happy to repatriate the Syndic prisoners currently held here, especially to representatives of a star system that has thrown off the Syndic yoke. But this is a delicate issue given the history between our two peoples. I will need to request guidance from higher authority. Your ships will have to wait here until I receive an answer, which will require at least two weeks.”
Rogero looked over at Captain Bradamont, who made a face. “That was worst case,” she said. “But now we have a transmission ID that I can send a reply to. Can this ship’s comm gear handle a tight beam, secure, eyes only send?”
“It couldn’t before we installed some upgrades for the mission to Taroa,” Rogero replied. “That’s not standard freighter comm gear. But to use the upgraded equipment we’ll need to go to a compartment we rigged up for that.”
He led her along the passageways of the freighter, nearly empty at this hour of ship’s time, to a hatch leading into a small compartment which from the smells still lingering inside had once been used to store potatoes and onions. One of Rogero’s soldiers maintained a lone watch over the equipment despite the unlikelihood of any messages coming in aimed at its parameters. “Are you going to send it in the clear?” Rogero asked Bradamont.
She held up a data coin. “This contains the necessary Alliance codes. Admiral Geary provided me with them in case I needed to send an encoded message through your channels.”
“Very well.” Rogero gestured to the comm operator. “Up and out.”
The operator stood, saluted, and left the compartment without a word.
“Your people don’t tend to ask questions,” Bradamont observed as she sat down at the comm station.
“The Syndicate hierarchy frowns on workers asking questions,” Rogero replied as he closed and locked the hatch. “For my soldiers, it’s a lesson learned over a lifetime and not easily broken.”
She looked at him for a moment, a brief smile showing. “You don’t seem to have learned that lesson.”
“No, and you saw what happened to me. I went from being ordered to labor-camp staff to being one step from becoming the occupant of a labor camp myself. If not for General Drakon, I would have probably died in one.”
“Me, too,” Bradamont said, her eyes back on the comm gear. “Until you told me, I never realized that he was the one who suggested to the snakes that our relationship could be used by them. If not for that, the snakes wouldn’t have leaked the information about my transfer to another labor camp to the Alliance, so I could be liberated.”
Rogero nodded. “He is a good man. He no longer believes he is a good man, but I believe it.”
Another short pause as Bradamont looked at him. “Why? Why does Drakon have such an opinion of himself?”
“He was a CEO. To reach the ranks of a CEO, to survive in such a system, requires doing things that would eat the soul of any person. I have met all too many CEOs who showed no signs of missing their souls. General Drakon somehow retained most of his.” Rogero tapped his chest. “But that means he also knows in his heart the wrongs he did.”
“Ignorance is bliss,” Bradamont muttered. “It was an ugly war. Has any war ever been anything but ugly? We all carry scars inside us from that.”
“It wasn’t just the war, Honore. It was the system. The Syndicate system. You ate others, or the system ate you.”
She nodded, not looking at him this time. “But you got rid of that way of doing things. You’re going to make a better way. If General Drakon and President Iceni don’t screw it up.” Bradamont sat back, running her hands through her hair. “It’s ready for the transmission. How do I look?”
“More beautiful than ever.”
Bradamont laughed. “It’s a good thing we’re alone in here.”
“And an unfortunate thing that we can’t stay alone in here long, and that it is so confining.”
“Maybe that’s a blessing in disguise. All right. Move over that way as far as you can. We want to be sure you don’t show in the image.”