Jack Campbell - Perilous Shield

Of course, I have a battleship, too. The Midway , which can move but not fight. Actually right now it can’t even move since Kapitan-Leytenant Kontos is still busy removing all of the braces tying the battleship to the main mobile forces facility. Only someone like Kontos could have figured out a way to use a battleship with no weapons to save that facility from the enigma attack.

I wonder how badly Kontos wants my job? Can President Iceni and I trust someone that ambitious and brilliant once the battleship has working weaponry?

“Kommodor, we have a transmission from the Syndicate flotilla,” the senior communications specialist reported, breaking into her gloomy train of thought.

“CEO Boyens has finally condescended to speak with me?” Marphissa asked. She had moved her flotilla much closer to the hypernet gate, less than five light-minutes from the Syndicate flotilla, openly taunting CEO Boyens and daring him to start a fight in which Black Jack and his fleet would hopefully intervene.

“It is not addressed to you, Kommodor. It was broadcast to our entire flotilla.”

“Let me see it.” She knew that workers and supervisors on every ship in the flotilla would be viewing that message, regardless of rules and regulations. Best to find out what Boyens was saying to them.

CEO Boyens wore the standard CEO smile for conversations with underlings (which naturally differed from the standard CEO smiles for conversations with equals or superiors). Marphissa had seen the patently insincere and patronizing expression often enough to instantly identify the smile, its exact shading based on the audience, and its lack of real meaning.

“Citizens,” Boyens began in the tone of a disappointed father. “You’ve been misled and misdirected. Doubtless you have been forced to take actions that you have not wished to take. Now you face serious threats and have no one to count on to protect you and your families except the dictators who call themselves President and General. You need not bow to their will any longer.”

Boyens’s standard smile was replaced by the standard Syndicate CEO insincere look of sincerity. “I am authorized to grant you all immunity for any actions taken contrary to the laws of the Syndicate Worlds and for any actions against the people of the Syndicate Worlds. It is more important to reward the loyal than to try to punish those who mistakenly trusted in the wrong authorities. Take control of your ships once more. Bring them under my authority, where I can protect you from not only the brutal forces of the dictators but also from the fist of the barbaric Alliance forces with which the dictators have allied themselves.

“You will be welcomed, you will be protected, and you will be rewarded. All you have to do is act in the interests of yourselves and of the people . For the people, Boyens, out.”

Marphissa glared sourly at where Boyens’s image had been. His message would have sounded a little more genuine if he hadn’t rushed over that last “for the people” in a monotone. How should I reply to this?

“He thinks we’re fools,” the senior communications specialist growled.

“He does,” Marphissa agreed. “What would you say to him?”

The specialist hesitated through force of habit. Workers in the Syndicate system were trained not to speak their minds, and learned quickly enough that invitations by executives and CEOs to offer their opinions were simply traps. But he had seen how things had changed since the Midway Star System gained independence, how former-executive-now-Kommodor Marphissa led her crews, and so the specialist committed the formerly foolish acts of looking directly at her and saying what he really thought. “Kommodor, I would tell him that we are not fools. That we are not simple enough or crazy enough to believe the promises of a Syndicate CEO. That… that we have experienced the rule of the Syndicate Worlds and know it has nothing to do with the welfare of the people. That President Iceni and General Drakon have given us more freedom than we have ever known, and have also given us reasons, and the power, to laugh at the lies of a CEO!” The specialist stopped speaking, looking worried by the sort of outburst that would have resulted in serious punishment under Syndicate rules.

Marphissa looked around the bridge, seeing agreement with the specialist’s speech on the face of every specialist and supervisor present. “I can’t improve on your words, Senior Specialist Lehmann. Would you like to send that reply to the CEO?”

Lehmann looked taken aback, then more worried, then defiant. “Yes, Kommodor. If you would permit me to.”

“I’ll introduce you, then say what you did before. You don’t need to make it longer or more elaborate. Just words from the heart.” Marphissa tapped the transmit command, ensuring that the reply would go not only to Boyens but also to every warship in the CEO’s flotilla as well as all of Marphissa’s warships. “CEO Boyens, no one here will accept your offer. If anyone on any of your units wishes to find freedom, they are welcome to join us. Here is one of our senior specialists with his reply to your words.”

Marphissa waited until Senior Specialist Lehmann had finished repeating his words, then refocused the pickup on her. “For the people,” she said, stating each word slowly and with emphasis, “Marphissa, out.”

She had let a line worker berate a CEO to his face. Marphissa felt a surge of elation at the act that overrode the fears of such an action created by a lifetime of experience and training.

The workers in Boyens’s flotilla would hear the words of Specialist Lehmann, would hear her words. Perhaps they would act on them even though the snakes aboard Boyens’s ships must be on constant alert and in larger numbers than before. It was a small hope, to cause some rebellion in the Syndicate warships, but all she could do besides watching others decide the fate of her star system.

“A message for both of us from Black Jack?” Drakon asked. He had come quickly when Iceni notified him. They could have linked displays, held a virtual meeting, but that would have involved an insane level of risk given the chance that someone would break into the link and monitor everything. Only a personal meeting, in a room confirmed clean of monitoring devices by both her and Drakon’s techs, could offer enough security.

“Yes. Watch it, then tell me what you think.” She tapped her controls, and the image of Black Jack appeared over the table.

Admiral Geary looked and sounded as formal as she had ever seen him. “President Iceni, General Drakon, I have two matters I need to place before you. First of all, President Iceni, I have to inform you that while in space controlled by the enigma race, we were able to locate and free some humans who had been kept prisoner by the enigmas, apparently for study. All of them, except those born in captivity, originated from Syndicate Worlds’ colonies or ships. All have been checked as thoroughly as possible, and no signs of biological or other contamination or threat has been found.

“It is important for me to emphasize that none of them know anything about the enigmas. They were sealed inside an asteroid and never even saw any of their captors. They can tell no one anything about the enigmas. They have all been impacted mentally, physically, and emotionally by their long imprisonment. Given their condition, I intend taking the majority of them back to Alliance space, where I can arrange care and transport back to their home star systems elsewhere in the Syndicate Worlds. However, three of the prisoners say they or their parents came from Taroa, and fifteen others say they came from this star system. Those eighteen wish to return home now. We want to accommodate those wishes, but I desire first to know whatever else you can tell me about conditions at Taroa, and second to know your intentions toward the fifteen who came from Midway. I feel an obligation to see that they are treated well now that they have been freed.”