The two guards assigned to him weren’t deferential, but they weren’t rough, either. A lifetime in the Syndicate had left them with a residual dread of CEOs that held them back even now. Boyens saw that the pilots on the shuttle taking him down to the planet were the two women who were also survivors of the Reserve Flotilla. He took that as a good sign for the future.
“We’re all survivors, aren’t we?” Boyens commented to his guards and Dingane Paige as the shuttle fell away from the orbital facility and began dropping toward the planet below.
“So far,” one of the guards commented in tones that made the implied threat obvious.
Paige was gazing morosely at the display near him, which showed an image of space outside the shuttle. “We can’t defend ourselves. How long can we survive like that? We don’t even have one Hunter-Killer like the one that brought us back to Ulindi.”
“Get one,” Boyens said matter-of-factly.
Paige and the guards stared at him. “You mean buy a mobile forces unit?” Paige asked. “We don’t have the money.”
“No, no!” Boyens protested. “Even if you could buy a warship, that’s what President Iceni calls them instead of mobile forces, you know,” he added in an aside to the guards to emphasize that he knew Iceni, “there are better ways. You have jump points to Maui and Kiribati, right? And the Syndicate is posting warships at Maui and Kiribati to keep those star systems from revolting, and to protect against attacks by Midway’s forces. You need to get word to the workers and any right-minded executives on those warships that if they are sick of the Syndicate they can find a safe home here at Ulindi. For them and for their families!”
“Encourage them to mutiny?” Paige asked, then shook his head. “There must be snakes all over those units… um, warships. They couldn’t mutiny.”
“Even the Syndicate doesn’t have unlimited numbers of snakes,” Boyens advised. “How many snakes died here at Ulindi? On the planet where we’re going and in warships that were destroyed during the fighting in space? And that’s on top of all the other losses and all the other demands for snakes that the Syndicate has faced lately. They are spread thinly, I tell you. We have a window of opportunity in which mutinies have a higher chance of success, and we should use that to convince as many of those warships as possible to come to Ulindi for a new home where they can be free of the Syndicate. A new home that they can help defend against the Syndicate and all other threats!”
The two guards exchanged smiles, and even Paige managed to let some excitement and hope overcome his apparently habitual anxiety. More importantly (from Boyens’s point of view), none of them had objected when Boyens had used “we” to include himself with them.
And it wasn’t a bad plan at all. Some of the executives and sub-CEOs on those Syndicate warships at Maui and Kiribati might be men and women he knew. That wouldn’t be a positive in every case, but as a rule, Boyens had tried to avoid leaving vengeful victims in his wake. He had seen too many examples of unforgiving subordinates tripping up (or worse) those who had harmed them to not realize that generating living enemies on the way to the top made for a bad long-term strategy. Now Boyens’s attempts to ensure he wasn’t personally blamed for misfortunes that befell others might help bring Ulindi exactly the sort of muscle it very badly needed.
And if it led to more than one snake like the late-and-unlamented snake CEO Hua Boucher being shoved out an air lock by angry workers, so much the better.
Heavy cruiser Manticore dropped out of jump space at Moorea to the accompaniment of combat system alarms warning of danger nearby.
“A Hunter-Killer,” Kapitan Diaz said as he shook the lingering effects of leaving jump from his brain. “Two light minutes away. It’s holding an orbit near the jump point. It is not broadcasting Syndicate unit identification.”
“A trick?” Marphissa asked.
The senior watch specialist answered. “Kommodor, the communications we are picking up indicate that Moorea has been occupied by the forces of Granaile Imallye. The HuK guarding this jump point is specifically identified as belonging to her forces.”
“So. A sentry posted at the jump point. That implies a decent level of organization and discipline.” Marphissa gazed at her display as new information appeared. Moorea was a fairly well-off star system, with five inner planets and six larger ones in the outer reaches. One of the inner planets was not merely inhabitable by humans but pleasant, orbiting its star at seven and a half light minutes out, while a second at ten light minutes out was cold but livable.
Orbiting near the primary inhabited world were two light cruisers, two more HuKs, and a single battle cruiser. While clearly of Syndicate origin, none of those were broadcasting Syndicate unit identification either.
“Imallye has some serious firepower here,” Marphissa commented. But the jump point from which Manticore had arrived was nearly six light hours from where that planet and those other warships now orbited. She waved one hand toward the comm specialist. “Set me up to contact the HuK on sentry duty.”
“Yes, Kommodor,” she replied. “It will take one moment. Done. Channel Two, Kommodor.”
Marphissa sat straight and tried to look authoritative but not hostile. “Unknown warship at the jump point from Iwa, this is Kommodor Marphissa of the Free and Independent Midway Star System aboard the heavy cruiser Manticore. I have been sent to Moorea by our President Iceni to contact Granaile Imallye and to pass on warning of a new and serious threat from the alien enigma species.” She paused. “We have just come from Iwa, where all Syndicate installations were recently destroyed by an enigma attack. There were no survivors. I must speak with Granaile Imallye and the leaders of Moorea as soon as possible. Moorea may be the next target of the enigmas, and their next attack could come at any time. For the people, Marphissa, out.”
“That should get their attention,” Diaz commented. “Why leave a single HuK on sentry duty? It could only deal with the smallest level of threat arriving here.”
“Perhaps Imallye wants to see if whoever arrives immediately attacks the HuK or tries to talk,” Marphissa said. “Put Manticore in an orbit that holds us near here until that HuK answers us. President Iceni was very clear that we must not provoke combat with Imallye’s forces.”
Diaz was still maneuvering Manticore when a reply came from the HuK. The man whose image appeared before Marphissa wore what had once been a Syndicate executive’s suit, but one bedecked with numerous extra decorations and jewelry. Under the Syndicate, that suit would have been kept pressed and immaculate, but the current owner didn’t seem bothered by the wrinkles and sags in it. “I am Mahadhevan, commander of the Mahadhevan,” he announced, “a unit obedient to Granaile Imallye and to no one else.”
“He says that like he expects us to be annoyed,” Diaz commented.
“He’s a worker,” the senior watch specialist declared. “A former worker.” The other specialists nodded in agreement.
It wasn’t too hard to figure out how a former worker would come to be wearing the uniform of a Syndicate executive. When the workers on Syndicate warships mutinied, there was little mercy shown to many of their former supervisors. Marphissa, herself a former executive, was grateful that Iceni had maintained control over the crews of the ships on which she had fostered rebellion against the Syndicate. “He’s not using a title,” Marphissa observed. “Maybe that’s how Imallye runs things.”