Original Work Shadowed Glory (Morningstar V)

Chapter Seventeen

“We are gathered here today,” Leo said two days later, “to bid farewell to six of our own.”

The pilot’s mess was a mid-sized compartment, a half-hearted attempt to give the pilots a sense of camaraderie by excluding non-pilots from their private spaces. Leo hadn’t been keen on the idea when he’d first taken command of Shadow, but he had to admit the private space worked well now he was a pilot himself. Captain Warner hadn’t asked, let alone demanded, to host the ceremony himself, something else that Leo had added to his list of grudges against the man. It was important to remember the dead, particularly those who’d died under your command; no one would have blamed Captain Warner, not really, if he’d taken the lead. But instead ...

His eyes swept the compartment. The collection of dubious prints on the wall – an actress wearing her birthday suit, an actor striking a pose that made him look like a prat – had been covered up, giving a certain sense of dignity to the occasion. The tables and chairs had been pushed against the bulkhead, providing room for the remaining pilots to gather. Leo had done his best to meet with them all, when he’d been put in command of the gunboat squadrons, but he was uneasily aware he hadn’t managed to speak with two of the dead men. They were just names, people he’d never met and now never would; people who were now little more than atoms drifting in space. The whole affair left him feeling guilty. He’d known men and women under his command would die, and they had before, but it still hurt. He doubted it would ever stop hurting.

He spoke from the heart. “They volunteered to join the navy, to place their fragile bodies between the republic and those who would do it harm. They paid the ultimate price for their service, dying in defence of their people. Their names will never be forgotten, but honoured forever as heroes of the republic. And in their name, we will go on.”

His heart twisted. The words felt so puny, compared to the immensity of the loss. He’d seen the calculations. He knew he’d traded six Daybreakers for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of enemy personnel; he knew .... he knew it wouldn’t make their families feel better, when they woke to the news their relatives were dead. Word hadn’t reached Portahaven yet, let alone Daybreak. How many people back home were convinced their relatives were alive, that it was just a matter of time until they came home? They had already lost their relatives and they didn’t even know it.

“They will be remembered,” he said. “We must never forget.”

He stepped away, allowing a gunboat crewman to stand up and speak about the friend he’d lost. There would be others, each one speaking of a friend ... Leo wasn’t sure, as pilot after pilot spoke a few words, if the ceremony helped the living come to terms with what had happened or if it made matters worse. Was it better to remember or to forget? Leo didn’t know. He’d lost crewmen before, but ...

Madeline would have said something to make the crew feel better, Leo reflected. But I don’t have her gift of the gab.

The urge to leave the compartment, to leave the crews to their grief, became overwhelming. He ignored it. He owed it to himself to stay and watch, he owed it to himself to acknowledge the dead crew had died while under his command. Would it have been easier if he’d stayed in command of the ship, he asked himself, or would it have been harder? He didn’t know. How did admirals cope, when they sent entire fleets and thousands upon thousands of naval personnel into harm’s way? Perhaps the living and the dead were just numbers, figures so high the admirals couldn’t wrap their heads around them. Or perhaps they just lost the ability to care. He didn’t know and it wasn’t something he could ask. Who’d give him a honest answer.

Leo cleared his throat when the ceremony finally came to an end. “We’ll have a proper bender once we get back to Portahaven,” he said. There was no alcohol in the compartment, not while Shadow was still on detached duty, and if any pilots had a secret stash they’d be well advised to keep it out of his sight. “Until then ...”

He shook his head, then left the compartment and made his way down to the pilot quarters. Francis was already there, waiting for him. Leo nodded curtly – he was in no mode for Francis’s combination of good cheer and entitlement – and opened the hatch, stepping inside and looking for the empty bunks. Someone had put pictures of five of the dead pilots on the bunks, the sixth left unmarked. A sign no one had really liked him, Leo wondered, or a sign his friends simply hadn’t had a picture? Leo didn’t want to know. If the former, the poor bastard was too dead to care; if the latter ... he shook his head. It wouldn’t make anything any better.

“Here.” Francis held out a folded box. “And I’m sorry.”

Leo said nothing as he opened the box, then the drawer under the pilot’s bunk. There was no stigma to wearing a dead crewmate’s clothing; indeed, most crewmen expected their possessions, save for anything clearly personal, to be shared out amongst their former comrades. Leo took out the clothes, glanced at them briefly, then put them on the table. There was nothing of any real significance, nothing truly individual ... a flight suit, a set of civilian clothes, shirts and underwear, that could have belonged to anyone. Perhaps the poor bastard had left his private stuff at home, or perhaps he hadn’t had a home. Leo blinked away angry tears. The pilot hadn’t deserved to die. No one did.

“He died well,” Francis said. “Isn’t that all that matters?”

“It doesn’t make it any better,” Leo snarled. Perhaps he could convince Francis to go to the gym with him, for an off-the-record punch up. The pecking order amongst midshipmen was sometimes sorted out that way, if the First Middy was too much of a tyrant for his subordinates to stand. But they were both senior officers and settling their grudges in such a manner was frowned upon. “His wife, his family ... they’ll never see their husband and father again.”

Francis cocked his head. “Did he even have a family?”

“I don’t know,” Leo said. He could look it up, easily, but he didn’t really want to know. A young man was dead. It didn’t matter if he had a wife or kids, it didn’t matter if he had a strictly vanilla lifestyle or something so different it would raise eyebrows and suspicions of degeneracy, it didn’t matter ... all that mattered was that he was dead. “And it doesn’t really matter.”

He scowled. “Tell me, how many men died so your ancestor could make his name?”

Francis reddened. “My ancestors helped build Daybreak,” he snapped. “They established peace across the galaxy!”

“What, alone?” The old saying ran through Leo’s head. “Didn’t they even have a cook with them?”

“You know what I mean,” Francis said. “They paid the price.”

“They didn’t,” Leo said. “It was paid by everyone who died in their name.”

He put the remaining possessions on the table, shaking his head in dismay. The pilot had left nothing behind that could be returned to his family, not even a set of family pictures. No heirlooms, no nothing ... Leo cursed under his breath, hoping his squadron mates would find good homes for the clothes. It would let them keep the man’s memory alive even if the rest of the world forgot. But it was no consolation for a dead man.

Francis said nothing as they moved to the next bunk and opened the drawer, revealing a handful of family photos, two private datapads and a single set of yellow panties. Leo stared at them for a long moment, his thoughts spinning. He’d known an marine who’d gone into battle wearing his girlfriend’s underwear, which had raised eyebrows when he’d been wounded in battle and the medics had uncovered his little secret, but the panties looked too small to belong to the woman in the pictures. A trophy from a one-night stand? It wasn’t uncommon. Leo had done it himself, when he’d been young, horny and foolish. It hadn’t been until later that he’d learnt a little discretion.

“You think they belong to his wife?” Francis’s thoughts were trending in the same direction. “Or someone else?”

Leo hesitated. There was just no way to know. A one-night stand or a long-term relationship ... hell, he had no idea just what sort of agreement the dead man had with his wife. Perhaps she knew her husband had something on the side, perhaps she had something too, or perhaps she’d be shocked to receive a piece of underwear that very definitely wasn’t hers. Or perhaps he was completely wrong. The girl in the photos might be smaller than she looked.

“Better to make sure she never sees them,” Leo said. He dropped the underwear into the bin for disposal, then put the datapads and the photos in the box. “If she knew what he was doing, for whatever reason, it won’t make any difference. If she didn’t ...”

He shook his head. “At least this way she’ll recall him as a loving husband rather than a cheating scumbag.”

“You’re making the choice for her,” Francis pointed out. “Doesn’t she deserve the chance to decide for herself?”

“I don’t know,” Leo admitted. His father had died in the line of duty. Would he have felt better or worse about it if his father had been cheating on his mother before his death? “I can only do what feels right, and hope it is.”

He sealed the box, wrote the pilot’s name on the label, then put it on the table. He’d arrange for it to be held in storage until they returned to Portahaven, where it would be sent onwards to Daybreak ... he wondered, suddenly, if the censors would let the dead man’s family collect the datapads or if they’d insist on having a good look at them first. If there was something there the pilot wanted to remain secret ... he damn well shouldn’t have put it on a datapad on a naval ship, where it could be inspected at any moment.

Francis moved on to the next drawer. “This feels wrong ...”

Leo peered over his shoulder. The pilot had been a young woman, her underwear clearly visible ... some decidedly non-regulation. He would have expected Francis to laugh at the sight, or paw his way through it like a teenage boy who’d never really grown up and thought a glimpse of a woman’s underwear was ... he’d known Francis was growing up, a little, but he’d never quite believed it. And now ... the proof was in front of him.

“It should always feel wrong,” Leo said. The dead pilot’s secrets lay exposed, little secrets of no real consequence ... he sorted through the clothes quickly, adding them to the growing pile on the table. The pilots wouldn’t talk, no matter what they saw. They’d take the secrets to their grave, giving their dead comrade what privacy they could. “If it doesn’t, there’s something wrong with you.”

He gave Francis a sidelong look. “You’ve never done this before, have you?”

“You know it.” Francis looked grim. “I didn’t ... not even on Waterhen.”

Leo nodded. Francis had been put in stasis after the rebels had successfully captured Waterhen, severely wounding him in the process. Leo had recaptured the ship, but made certain to keep Francis in stasis until the ship returned to Yangtze. It had been for the good of his health as much as everything else ... he smiled, then sobered. Francis should have been the one to take care of the dead, collecting their possessions and sorting them out, but it had been Leo instead. And since then he’d never been in command of a ship.

Captain Warner should be doing this, Leo thought, with a sudden flash of anger. Not me.

“I know,” he said. “It doesn’t get any easier.”

They went on to the final drawers, completing the task in grim silence. There was little to go back home, little to mark the fact the pilots had ever existed. Their names would be recalled, of course, but how many would be remembered as anything more than a name? Who would know the basic facts about Dennis Pittsburgh or Monica Ruthven? Who would care about their lives, when they could study the lives of the great generals and admirals instead? Leo felt a stab of guilt as the thought crossed his mind. God knew, he’d done the same himself when he’d been a kid. He’d studied the great leaders, but not the men under their command.

And when they study the life and times of Leo Morningstar, he asked himself, will they remember any of the poor bastards who died under my command?

“I’ll put the boxes in storage,” he said, when the task was finally done and the beds stripped down. There would be replacement pilots sooner or later. He made a mental note to ensure none of the older pilots gave the newbies a hard time. They couldn’t help moving into a dead man’s bunk. “You can tell the captain we’re done here.”

“He wants your after-action report too,” Francis said. “Ideally, before we return to base.”

Leo nodded. He’d written out a basic report as soon as they’d jumped into interstellar space, trying to get his thoughts down before his memory started playing tricks on him. It was astonishing, he’d been taught at the academy, just how quickly memories could start to fade – or how easily someone could be mistaken when they were under fire. It was tricky to sort out what had really happened when several men claimed the same kill, or thought their portion of the battlefield had been the most important part of the fight even though it had been a minor skirmish in the grand scheme of things. He’d have to go through the records too, making sure he had a proper understanding of what had actually happened ... no doubt, the tactical analysts would come up with their own understanding that differed from his in every detail even though he’d been the man on the spot.

They did that for the Battle of Yangtze, he thought, ruefully. And they came up with all sorts of ideas about how we could have won the engagement without losing a single ship.

“I’ll see to it,” he said. There was no point in complaining about it. The analysts might be able to highlight areas for improvement, if nothing else. “Did you write a report of your own?”

“I came, I saw, I conquered.” Francis shot him a toothy grin. “Do you think that’ll win me any awards?”

Leo had to laugh. “I think the admiral will recognise the quote,” he said. They’d studied Julius Caesar at the academy. “And then you’ll be in deep shit.”

“Spoilsport.”

“And you really need more detail,” Leo added, deadpan. “Caesar was writing for an audience he knew very well. You’re writing for a very different pair of eyes.”

“Spoilsport,” Francis said, again.

Leo shrugged. There had been no censors back then, not in the modern sense of the word. Caesar hadn’t had to worry about military security and secrecy. The Gauls he’d fought had already known details that would give modern security officers nightmares, from the army’s location to its intended target. Whatever Caesar wrote in his letters home, which were intended to be made public, it would be no surprise to his enemies. They’d been hammered well before the letters reached Rome.

“Just make sure you tell them what they need to know,” he advised. “And what they need to hear.”

“And what everyone wants to hear,” Francis said. “That’s important too.”

“If you say so,” Leo said.

Francis hesitated. “On a different note, what do I do about a pair of crewmen who were having a relationship and have now broken up? They’re insisting they can’t share a wardroom any longer?”

“You’re asking me?” Leo stopped and turned to face him. “Which of us is the XO, again?”

“Me,” Francis said. “But there’s nothing wrong with asking for advice.”

“That’s not quite what you said back at the academy,” Leo reminded him. “And to answer your question ...”

He hesitated, considering the problem. There was no regulation forbidding two crewmen from having a relationship, as long as they shared the same rank and it didn’t affect their duties. The navy knew it was likely to happen anyway, so regs tried to steer it in a productive – or at least harmless – direction rather than force it to go completely underground. But if it caused problems ...

“Call them both to your office,” Leo said. “Point out that they’re grown adults and should act like adults. If they can’t be responsible, they can face disciplinary proceedings ... not for having a relationship, not for breaking up, but for letting it affect their work. And if they don’t listen, you proceed with discipline without hesitation.”

“Thanks,” Francis said. “I’ll be sure to blame you if it goes wrong.”

Leo rolled his eyes. “Gee, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Francis teased, throwing a jaunty salute. “See you when I see you.”

He headed off. Leo watched him go, then carried the boxes down to storage before returning to his cabin. They’d be back at Portahaven soon enough, where the reports would be passed to Admiral Cox and he’d hopefully be able to take some leave. And then ...

Wait and see what happens, he told himself. Patience really wasn’t his strong point. The world will change soon enough.

 

Chapter Eighteen

“This is the spaceport strip, of course,” Leo said, as he and Flower walked down the road. “I don’t know why I expected anything different.”

He shook his head as he looked around. The spaceport strip was no different from every other red light district he’d visited, so much so that it was tempting to believe they were all the same place. Row upon row of bars, brothels, diners and shops, all intended to separate the hardened spacers from their hard-earned money; clusters of prostitutes and touts thronged the streets, the former offering hasty relief and the latter offering tours to funfairs, tourist attractions and anything else that might be of interest to a young man who’d spent the last few weeks cooped up in a cold metal box, all alone in the night. A handful of spaceport cops patrolled in the streets, but they’d do little as long as the spacers weren’t physically harmed by the locals. That was rare, Leo knew, and when it happened the locals normally dealt with it before the cops got involved. They all knew how much their community depended on the spacers. Anything that threatened the trade could not be tolerated.

It didn’t get any better as they walked onwards, glancing into the alleyways. A young man was leaning against a wall, receiving oral sex from a prostitute; another prostitute was bending over a garbage can, allowing an older spacer to fuck her from behind. Two more waited their turn ... Leo shuddered in disgust as he caught a glimpse of the woman. The poor bitch looked to be in her fifties and was probably younger, the rigours of life on the streets making her old before her time. He could guess her story. She’d gone to the city in search of the bright lights of civilisation, only to find herself indebted to a pimp and forced to prostitute herself to survive. There was no one who would save her, he knew, and if someone did she’d be replaced before the end of the day. There was never any shortage of young women forced to sell their bodies to keep themselves alive.

And if we did something about it, he mused sourly, we’d just drive it underground.

“Hey, big spender,” a woman called. “You two want to fuck?”

Leo shook his head. He’d done some things in his time, but ... there were limits. The poor woman looked older than the last ... he dropped a hand into his pocket and gave her a coin, then hurried onwards. Hopefully, the prostitute would be able to hide it before her pimp took it off her. If not ...

“You can’t save them all,” Flower said, quietly.

“I know,” Leo said. “It doesn’t help.”

The streets took on a slightly more civilised look as they reached the section reserved for senior officers and truly big spenders. Leo had been told the system was very democratic – if you had the money to pay, you were allowed in – but it didn’t look that much better than the other part of the spaceport strip. The girls looked younger and prettier, yet they still had the eyes of quiet desperation that marked people who knew they were barely keeping their heads above water. The weird buildings around them – they looked like something out of a children’s storybook – only added to the sense of unreality. A small home rested next to a towering structure ... he had no idea what they were and he didn’t want to know. It was just too much.

“There are more people on the streets than before,” Flower said, quietly. “The economic crunch is hitting them hard.”

Leo sucked in his breath. “Even during wartime?”

“Yes.” Flower steered him into a small cafe. “The economy is tottering because no one knows what’ll happen when the rebels attack. The admiral hasn’t helped by trying to fix prices. That never works in the long run.”

“I see,” Leo said. “And has anyone told him this?”

Flower shrugged. A waitress, wearing a disconcerting little girl outfit, showed them to a table and placed a pair of menus in front of them, then headed off, swinging her hips in a manner that drew the eye. Leo looked around the cafe, shaking his head in disbelief. The whole place looked like a child’s playroom, right down to the decor; even the tables looked as if they were made of plastic. It felt like a sick joke. He wasn’t sure why.

He returned his attention to her. “Why this place ...?”

“There are people who enjoy the chance to return to childhood,” Flower said.”Don’t you?”

Leo shook his head. “This isn’t childhood,” he said, as he scanned the menu. The drinks looked revoltingly sweet. “It’s a grotesque parody of childhood.”

He stared down at his hands for a long moment. He hadn’t had a bad childhood, all things considered, but his mother had been strict and overworked ... not a great combination. He’d been in trouble several times, felt the sting of the headmaster’s cane on his rear and threatened with arrest and detention ... he knew he’d been lucky to make it all the way to the academy. It could have been worse, he supposed; he could have been spoilt rotten like Francis. But ... it would have been nice to have a little more money, back in the day.

“It seems pointless,” he said. “Is there a point?”

“They say you can regress and rebuild yourself,” Flower said. “You play all day on the beach or wherever. The sun never burns. The ice cream never runs out. You get to enjoy pure childlike bliss, forgetting all your cares. And then you return to adulthood with solid foundations instead of ... whatever led you to seek such therapy in the first place.”

“Charming,” Leo muttered.

The waitress returned to take their orders, bowing low to expose the tops of her breasts. Leo ignored her as best he could, waiting for her to go before continuing the conversation. Flower seemed oddly amused by his reaction, although it was hard to be sure. She was a trained master at projecting just the right impression, adapting herself to whom she served. Leo felt a flicker of contempt for Captain Reginald. The asshole hadn’t known how remarkable she was when he’d taken her into his service.

Leo cocked his head. “Why are we here?”

“I thought it would be something different,” Flower said. “Do you like it?”

Leo shook his head. Everything was gaudy ... and subtly wrong. It wasn’t something he could put his finger on, but it was there. The unease only grew stronger as he looked around the cafe. The proportions were all slightly distorted. It took him a moment to realise it was how a child saw the world.

“No,” he said, as their drinks arrived. “It’s unpleasant.”

Flower smiled. “Sorry.”

“Thanks.” Leo took a sip of his drink. It was far too sweet. “What now?”

“We relax,” Flower said. “You know there is an upper-class brothel just down the road?”

“No,” Leo said. He had a long list of sexual conquests dating back all the way to the moment his balls dropped, but he’d never raped anyone. He’d never slept with anyone who’d been forced into it, by him or anyone else. The high class courtesans might be willing, but ... he shook his head. “I don’t want something like that.”

“My, you have changed,” Flower teased. “Are you well?”

The door opened before Leo could think of an answer. A well-dressed middle-aged man stepped into the cafe, wearing a simple yet probably expensive business suit. Leo frowned as the man’s eyes swept around the cafe, alighting on Leo ... Leo realised, with a sudden shock, that the man had come looking for him. His hand itched, ready to draw his pistol as the man walked over to him. Anyone tracking him down on shore leave was likely bad news.

“Captain Morningstar?”

“Commander,” Leo corrected. At least that little detail had been sorted out. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m Steve Atchley, Director of the Rathbones Consortium,” the man said, sitting on the far side of the table. “Can we talk?”

“Yes,” Leo said, reluctantly. The Rathbones Consortium? He’d never heard of it, which was likely good news. If he had heard of it, it would have probably been because the consortium was causing problems for the navy. “I don’t have much time, so please can we get right to the point?”

“You Daybreakers are always blunt,” Atchley said. “I like that about you.”

And I can believe as much or as little of that as I like, Leo thought. Daybreak bluntness could easily be offensive, although the colonials would be wise not to take offense. Are you telling me something you think I want to hear?

“Quite,” Leo said. “What do you want?”

Atchley shot him an unreadable look, but his movements betrayed his nerves. “You are a very famous Daybreaker,” he said. “Your feats are a matter of public record. Your arrival here speaks well of how seriously your superiors are taking the war.”

Leo gritted his teeth. Flattery was always dangerous. It inevitably led to trouble. “Get to the point.”

“We want your patronage,” Atchley said, bluntly. “We need your patronage. Name your price.”

“... What?” Leo hadn’t been sure what to expect, but this ...? “My patronage?”

“You are a very famous Daybreaker,” Atchley repeated. “It is only a matter of time until you enter politics. Your patronage will be very useful.”

Flower leaned forward, her voice crisp and clear. “Why him?”

Atchley looked unsure what to say. “Like I said, he is a very famous ...”

“But not that powerful, not yet,” Flower said. “Why do you and your consortium care?”

Leo nodded in agreement. He had a high opinion of himself – something shared with most Daybreakers – but he also knew his limits. If he’d followed a normal career path, he’d be lucky to make Lieutenant-Commander by now. Francis had, but Francis was older and had a powerful patron to boot. Leo’s patron hadn’t meddled nearly so much in his career.

“Put your cards on the table,” Leo said. “And then I’ll decide.”

Atchley said nothing for a long chilling moment, then made a visible decision to be open and honest. “Rathbones was formed to grow and develop the planet’s infrastructure with, dare I say, as little outsider support as possible. That put us at a disadvantage when this planet became a major fleet base, a disadvantage that only became worse when open war broke out and we lost what little influence we had. Our competitors, who were quicker to develop ties to Daybreak officials and businessmen, have had a certain degree of protection, but we haven’t. We have been locked out of contracts we need, seen our personnel stolen away or ... sometimes, simply removed. Some of our assets have been seized, without compensation. If this goes on, we’ll be unable to continue in business for much longer.”

He paused. “And if that happens, millions will be thrown out of work.”

Leo’s eyes narrowed. “The navy isn’t your only source of contracts, is it?”

“No, but the navy does take priority,” Atchley said. “We’re at the back of the line for vital supplies, everything from raw materials to HE3. We used to purchase raw materials from asteroid mining companies, for example, but most of them are now selling to the navy and the navy’s favoured suppliers. The asteroid miners we own simply can’t make up the shortfall in time, while our cloudscoops have been seized and turned over to the navy. And those are just the major issues. I can give you a full briefing if you want.”

“No, thank you,” Leo said. He was completely out of his depth. “What do you think I can do for you?”

“Give us your patronage,” Atchley said. “If you help us, we will help you ...”

“And then what?” Leo forced himself to meet Atchley’s eyes. A grown man should not look so desperate. “I am a mere commander. I don’t have the political power for my patronage to help you, not in any real sense. If I tried ... it wouldn’t work.”

He forced himself to think clearly. Perhaps he could forward the request to his patron, perhaps he could suggest offering Atchley and his consortium some help. But would that interfere with the navy’s mission? Preparing for the attack everyone knew was inevitable took priority, no matter how many local businessmen suffered. If the rebels attacked before the defences were ready ... Leo didn’t know for sure, but he’d bet good money Admiral Cox had orders to destroy as much as he could before he pulled out. It was what he’d do if he was issuing the orders.

“If Rathbones goes under, it will drag a great many others under too,” Atchley said, quietly. “The economy will likely collapse.”

“I can and I will do what I can,” Leo said. “But the blunt truth is that there’s very little I can do.”

“I see,” Atchley said. “I’m sorry for bothering you.”

He stood and made his way out the cafe, his head bowed as if he were labouring under some great weight. Leo understood, better than he cared to admit. He’d seen the same problem before, in the Yangtze Sector, where Daybreak chose winners and losers by offering support to the favoured few and denying it to the rest. That had been on a small scale, compared to this. If Atchley was right, and his facts could be checked, the planet was on the edge of an economic disaster. And that would be bad for the war effort.

“It may already be too late,” Flower said, quietly. “And he knows it.”

Leo nodded. Approaching him had been an act of sheer desperation. The locals had to study Daybreak politics, they had to know his influence was very limited. They’d be better off approaching Francis or someone else like him, someone with powerful connections and enough money to underwrite the consortium until it got back on its feet. And yet ... that sort of help came with strings attached. Were they hoping Leo would offer them help without strings? Or ...?

“Fuck,” he muttered. “What do I say to Admiral Cox?”

“Nothing.” Flower’s voice was suddenly hard. “He won’t appreciate you putting your nose where it doesn’t belong.”

Leo scowled. “But if this is a matter of interstellar security ...?”

“The admiral already knows the problem,” Flower said. “He’s not an idiot. He’s been assigned to this planet longer than you’ve been a naval officer. He knows and he’s chosen to do nothing, which means it suits him to do so. He won’t listen to you if you raise concerns ...”

“He should,” Leo said, although he knew it was pointless. “Is there anything we can do?”

“You can raise the matter in your letters home,” Flower said, in a tone that suggested she thought he was wasting his time. “But I wouldn’t get too hopeful. There are too many powerful people who want to maintain the status quo.”

Leo groaned inwardly, finishing his drink. The sweetness made his teeth ache. Naval coffee was supposed to be foul – he’d been assured it was tradition – but the sweetened coffee was worse. The waitress bobbled over again ... he paid for them both, then left a sizable tip. The smile the waitress offered him suggested she offered other services as well, but he was in no mood to take up the unspoken invitation. He wanted to go back to his ship and ...

Not your ship, not now, he reminded himself. Perhaps not ever again.

“You may as well go do whatever you like,” he said, as they walked back onto the streets and headed to the spaceport. There was something new in the air, a sense of brewing trouble ... he swore under his breath as he checked his pistol. If millions of people were thrown out of work, there would be riots ... and worse. The rebels would have millions of new recruits, some very dangerous. Perhaps that was the right way to put it, if he spoke to the admiral after all. “I just want to get back into orbit.”

“I’ll stick with you, if you don’t mind,” Flower said. “There’s not much to do in a day or two.”

Leo shrugged. Captain Warner had only authorised a day’s leave for his officers, making it tricky to go anywhere other than the spaceport strip. Leo suspected Captain Warner expected Shadow to be sent out again shortly, although it was impossible to be sure. It felt wrong to be so far out of the loop, when he’d been a commanding officer as well as a de facto fleet commodore. He supposed it was a reminder he’d been lucky to rise so far so quickly, that his career was now falling into a more normal pattern. But it was still incredibly galling.

“We’ll get a longer leave soon,” he said. “Hey, why don’t you try to figure out what we’re going to be doing next?”

“I suspect the admiral himself doesn’t know,” Flower said. “And he’s not really the type to take the offensive.”

“He can’t,” Leo said. The military logic was impeccable. “If he uncovers Portahaven ...”

He sighed, inwardly. The system thronged with starships and spacecraft. One or more of those ships would be a rebel spy, indistinguishable from the rest of the traffic. He’d bet everything he owned on it. The moment the admiral risked uncovering the system, the rebels would know and launch an offensive of their own. And with their key worlds unknown, at least for the moment, the rebels had less to lose by uncovering them.

And if they have millions of potential allies on the surface, he mused grimly, their offensive might succeed. And who knows what’ll happen then?

 

Comments would be nice, hint hint ...

 

Excellent, as usual. I'm really enjoying this new Leo Morningstar Saga. Captain Morningstar is gonna rank up there with the likes of Kirk, Piccard, Janeway, and dare I say it, Malcome Reynolds.

 

Chapter Twenty

The intelligence officer looked entirely harmless. Leo wasn’t impressed.

He looked to be a middle-aged man a few years older than Leo himself, his face so bland it was hard to describe. He didn’t look like an over-muscled buffoon nor did he look like a paper-pusher; he had an air of quiet competence that reminded Leo, in some ways, of Sergeant-Major Ramjet Boothroyd, although he lacked Boothroyd’s general don’t mess with me attitude. Leo rather suspected his training had followed a very different route. There was something about the man that suggested he could fit in anywhere.

“You can call me Sandford,” the man said, when he boarded Shadow. “It would probably be better not to think of me as anything else.”

“Got it.” Leo allowed himself a moment of relief that Sandford didn’t look anything like Sun Li. “You’re certain you can survive on Peppermint?”

“As long as you can get me down, I’ll be fine,” Sandford assured him. “You won’t be called upon to get me back up again.”

Leo nodded, studying the display thoughtfully as Shadow jumped out of the system. It had taken hours of arguing to convince Captain Warner to take a careful path to Peppermint, rather than taking the shortest possible route and risk detection on the way. There was no way to be sure the enemy didn’t know they were coming and even if they didn’t, they knew the importance of Peppermint. Placing scouts along possible jump routes would be logical, if they had the ships to spare. It would be a small price to pay for advance warning of their destination.

“You believe in being careful, I see,” Sandford said. “I must say, you’re not what I expected.”

Leo gave him a sharp look. “What did you expect?”

“Someone who’d charge into danger without a second thought,” Sandford said. “Your record suggests as much.”

Leo wondered, suddenly, if they’d met before. He’d always had a good head for names and faces, but Sandford had the kind of face that slipped right out of your mind and the skill needed to present a very wrong or completely misleading impression of himself. He could have been on Yangtze, attached to Admiral Blackthrone, or he could have been watching the proceedings back home on Daybreak. In some ways, he reminded Leo of Flower. They shared the same skill for blending in, without raising alarms. It would have been impressive if he hadn’t been unsure just what Sandford was playing at.

“I thought the idea was to get you down in one piece, not pieces,” he said, dryly. He had no patience for games. “If you have a death wish, you can indulge it somewhere else.”

Sandford laughed. “Can you get me down in one piece?”

“It depends,” Leo said. “Our intelligence is badly out of date. One month ... more than a month, really. Anything could have happened between then and now.”

He rubbed his forehead, feeling a headache starting to manifest between his eyes. “We’re just going to have to wait and see,” he said. “Unless you have a secret long-range FTL spy system on you.”

“I must have left it in my other pants,” Sandford said. “Do the best you can. I have faith in you.”

Leo nodded. “You go rest,” he said. “We’ll be there before you know it.”

He waited for Sandford to leave, then keyed his terminal and brought up the records from the last fly-through. The data might be outdated, but it was unlikely the enemy had either destroyed the remaining orbital industry or expanded it. That wasn’t a problem. The real problem was stealthed observation platforms, lurking in the wreckage and watching the surface for hostile activity. If they couldn’t be detected and neutralised, landing on the surface might be a one-way trip. Perhaps they could ride a piece of orbital debris down and then ...

No, he told himself. The rebels know that trick now.

He shook his head, then turned to bring up the reports from the gunboat crews. No major problems, just a handful of minor disciplinary issues that could be handled in-house, no need to inform Captain Warner or the XO. Leo didn’t want either poking their noses into his compartment, watching over his shoulder as he handled the matter. It was rare, almost unknown, for a crewman to request the captain’s presence for such a minor matter. Leo’s lips quirked in dark amusement. Wasting the captain’s time wasn’t a harmless little prank like murder.

The hatch opened. Francis stepped in.

Leo raised his eyebrows. “Any news from the bridge?”

“Nothing new,” Francis said, as the hatch closed behind him. “We’ll be at the target star on time, as planned. All is going well.”

“It is?” Leo wasn’t so sure. Francis sounded like someone troubled by an infinitively more worrisome thought. “You can refer to the target star by name, you know. Peppermint isn’t one of those worlds with unpronounceable names.”

Francis essayed a tight smile as he sat. “You recall all the jokes about the Welsh-ethnic worlds who insisted on naming their planets something unpronounceable?”

Leo nodded. It wasn’t that uncommon. Most ethnic worlds were named something in a tongue other than Standard English, the language that had become the de facto common tongue for the republic and nearly all spacefarers, even those who lived beyond the Rim. The standard procedure was to give the world a name in the common tongue too, something the locals often found offensive even when the name was something completely innocuous. Leo didn’t really care about their opinions. Spacefarers couldn’t afford to waste their time arguing over pronunciations when lives were at stake. It was a small price to pay for being part of the Pax Daybreak.

Insofar as that means anything these days, he thought, sourly. We’re at war – and this war is not going to be over by Christmas.

He leaned forward. “What do you want?”

Francis gave him a considering look. “What makes you think I want anything?”

Leo shrugged. “You’re slumming it down here?”

“The gunboats are the future,” Francis said. “And I would love to join you in the simulators.”

“You would?” Leo smirked. “People will talk.”

Francis gave him a considering look. “It could be worse.”

“It could be better too,” Leo pointed out. “What do you really want?”

“What makes you think I want anything, apart from a spin in the simulators or some hot man-on-man action?”

Leo rolled his eyes. Quite which of them was senior to the other was something that had never been clearly determined, because while he’d been confirmed in his rank before Francis – and was therefore senior by time in grade – Francis was the XO. He would be perfectly within his rights to take a simulator slot for himself and no one would give a damn, as long as he wasn’t neglecting his duties. And as for the other ... there was no point in even considering the issue. Even if he had been tempted, it would end poorly. There were some mistakes so mindbogglingly stupid they were beyond all hope of repair.

“You being you,” Leo said, dryly. “What do you want?”

Francis reached into his pocket and dropped a device on the table. Leo’s eyes narrowed. A privacy generator ... they were far from uncommon, but largely banned on warships unless the captain gave special authorisation. The devices projected bubbles of white noise designed to render each and every form of surveillance completely useless, from complicated bugs to the simple Mark-I ear. They weren’t entirely perfect, from what Leo recalled, but it was difficult to defeat them without tipping off the user. Or so he’d been told. The endless cold war between security officers determined to devise ways to safeguard the state and enemies equally determined to compromise it remained alive and well.

He met Francis’s eyes. “Are you supposed to have that?”

Francis looked back at him. “Does it matter?”

Leo said nothing for a long moment. Francis hadn’t asked him to sign off on the device’s presence on Shadow, which meant ... he hadn’t liked Captain Warner or he would have said as much. Leo’s blood ran cold as he considered the implications. Technically, he should report the device to his superior officer at once ... Francis had taken a hell of a risk showing it to him. Why? They might get on better these days, but there were limits. If it was ever proven that Leo had known the device existed ...

“It depends,” Leo said, finally. “Why do you have it?”

“Perhaps I want to keep my trysts secret,” Francis said. “Don’t you?”

Leo snorted. Francis was the XO. He damn well shouldn’t be having any trysts with anyone on Shadow and he damn well knew it. Anyone he tried to lure into the privacy tubes ... Leo shook his head. Francis was a pain in his rear, but not that sort of pain in his rear. Probably. It wasn’t as if he couldn’t blow off steam in the brothels, if he wanted a quick and dirty fuck. Leo had rather assumed that was what he’d been doing. It would hardly be out of character.

“Francis ...”

Francis leaned forward, suddenly serious. “The captain froze.”

Leo swore under his breath. “Francis ...”

“I was there,” Francis said. “The captain froze. Twice.”

“Fuck.” Leo swallowed, hard. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah,” Francis said. “I was there.”

Leo stared at his hands. “Is that ... is that why he was so hesitant about committing us to battle?”

“Yes.” Francis looked grim, his cocky smile – which had always irritated the hell out of Leo – entirely absent. “He was unable to make up his mind, even before the plan went off the rails.”

Leo grimaced. It was a cliché to say no battle plan ever survived contact with the enemy, but it was true. The enemy warships might not be in the right place, or the enemy CO might do entirely the wrong thing ... no plan lasted long, no matter how perfect it looked on paper, and no commander could survive without knowing when to ditch the plan and replace it with something put together on the fly. The captain’s hesitation might have cost them the engagement, if the enemy had managed to adapt to the presence of the gunboats. And they were flying straight into an infinitively more complicated engagement.

“Shit.”

“Yeah,” Francis echoed. “Shit.”

His voice was very quiet. “We had all the advantages we could possibly wish for,” he said, his tone never shifting. “And yet, we could have lost because our captain froze on the bridge.”

“I suppose that explains why he didn’t give me a bollocking for taking action myself,” Leo mused. “If I’d complained, there would be a full record of his own actions as well as mine.”

“Quite,” Francis agreed. “Leo, what the fuck are we going to do?”

His question hung in the air, a Sword of Damocles waiting to fall. “If he freezes again ...”

Leo nodded, unwilling to face the question and yet unable to look away. The first engagement had been simple, a brute force offensive that would end in total victory or shameful retreat. They’d planned it carefully, ensuring they could bug out and run if the enemy proved stronger or more capable than they’d expected. But Peppermint ... there were too many moving parts, too many things that could go wrong and require an officer to think on his feet. If Captain Warner froze again, he could get the ship destroyed and the entire crew blown to hell.

“Shit,” he said, again.

Francis nodded, curtly. “What are we going to do?”

Leo cocked his head. “What do you think we can do?”

“I wish I knew,” Francis said. “Leo, this is ...”

His voice trailed off. Leo nodded in grim understanding. They were talking mutiny ... no, barratry. Possibly. There wasn’t much case law, not in the republic. His academy instructors had talked about it in the same manner old biddies talked about sex, as if the whole subject was too scurrilous to mention. The captain’s near-boundless authority while the ship was away from port could not be questioned, except under very specific circumstances, and the Admiralty would take a very dim view of anything that even remotely smacked of mutinous talk. If they were caught discussing it, they’d both be for the high jump. Francis’s connections couldn’t protect him against something like that.

“I don’t think there’s anything we can do, legally speaking,” Leo said.

Francis shot him a disgusted look. “When did you give a damn about legality?”

“I always cared about following the regs,” Leo said. A twinge of the old bitterness welled up within him. “We can’t all have family connections covering our rears.”

“You left me in stasis on Waterhen,” Francis pointed out. “Didn’t you?”

“That was for your own good,” Leo said, sardonically. It was true enough, he supposed, but not completely true. “If I’d wanted you dead, I could have taken you out of the tube and watched you bleed to death.”

Francis looked unconvinced. Leo didn’t really blame him. They both knew Leo hadn’t given much of a damn about Francis’s life. If he’d been released from the tube, and survived the shipboard doctor’s emergency surgery, he would have reassumed command of Waterhen and rewritten the logs to present himself as a great hero, rather than the idiot who’d screwed up and let a warship – no matter how outdated – fall into enemy hands. In the end, Leo had saved Francis’s career as much as he’d saved his own. He wondered, idly, if he’d ever be forgiven for it.

“Fine. Whatever.” Francis stood and started to pace. “What do we do about this captain?”

Leo considered the problem for a long moment. No answers presented themselves. Their legal duty was to report the matter to the Fleet or Port Admiral, depending on the exact circumstances, but that was Admiral Cox, the man who’d put Captain Warner in command ... there was no way in hell, Leo was sure, that he’d want to do anything that might call his judgement into question. He’d be more interested in blaming Leo for noticing than in actually doing something about it.

“Maybe he’ll be injured,” he said, finally. “Maybe we can put him in a stasis tube too.”

Francis shot him a disgusted look. “Be serious.”

“Hah.” Leo didn’t bother to argue. Francis had a point. “What else can we do?”

He ticked off points on his fingers as he spoke. “We cannot relieve him of command. He isn’t displaying signs of either insanity or treason, which are about the only grounds he can be relieved of command by his officers.”

“We could make a case that failing to press the offensive is treason,” Francis said. He was clutching at straws and they both knew it. “It’s certainly against standing orders.”

“He’d point out that he was commanding an experimental vessel, with uncertain abilities,” Le countered. “And it wouldn’t be an indefensible argument. Certainly not from the Admiralty’s point of view.”

He leaned forward. “And we can’t relieve him on medical grounds either,” he added. “The doctor will not file a false report into the log – and yes, it would be false. There’s no reason to think he’s sickening, is there?”

Francis muttered something under his breath. “No,” he said. “His exercise patterns aren’t great, of course, but if that was an acceptable grounds for relief” – he made a show of counting on his fingers – “half the fleet’s captains would be relieved. I’m pretty sure your exercise patterns aren’t great either.”

Leo made a rude gesture. Everyone knew the regs on fitness were considered advisory at best, simply because senior officers rarely had the time to hit the shipboard gym. He made as much time as he could, but ... he shook his head. There was no way they could use that as an excuse for relieving their captain. Once the Admiralty stopped laughing, Leo and Francis would be for the high jump. Literally.

“There isn’t much we can do,” he said. “But if the captain freezes again ...”

He scowled, tapping the console and bringing up the latest data from Peppermint. The latest ... hopelessly outdated ... he cursed under his breath. Peppermint wasn’t a stage-one colony world, somewhere utterly irreverent as far as the war was concerned. It was a genuine chokepoint, a planet the rebels needed to hold ... a planet Daybreak needed to recover and the enemy knew it. They’d likely have moved more warships into the system, positioning them to ambush any relief force ... it would tie their fleets down, Leo told himself, but that was of no importance if Daybreak couldn’t muster the firepower to deal with them. And for that they needed hard intelligence.

“Fuck,” he muttered, again.

“Quite.” Francis reached for the privacy generator, then paused. “Are you going to mention this to anyone?”

“No,” Leo said. He wasn’t being entirely truthful. He’d tell Flower. “Are you?”

Francis grimaced. “My family can’t do much to help, right now.”

“Welcome to the wonderful world of being completely without major connections,” Leo said, sardonically. “Sucks, doesn’t it?”

“You have a Grand Senator pulling strings for you,” Francis snapped. “You’d have been booted out of the academy if he hadn’t saved your ass.”

“And you would never have got in without your family,” Leo countered. “Right?”

Francis snorted. “You keep an eye on the captain too,” he said, as he picked up the privacy generator. “And if anyone asks, we were discussing tactics.”

“If anyone asks, we’re fucked anyway,” Leo pointed out. In theory, the shipboard sensors should have completely missed the privacy bubble. In the real world ... he wasn’t so sure. The only sign no one had noticed a gap in shipboard coverage as the lack of security officers breaking down the hatch. “There’s no excuse for having that thing.”

“We all have secrets,” Francis said. “Don’t we?”

He clicked off the generator, then strode out of the compartment.

 

I'm sorry about the delays - whatever I've caught now is kicking my ass.

Chapter Twenty-One

“Good luck,” Captain Warner said. “We’ll see you when we see you.”

Leo said nothing as the gunboat drifted into open space, the gas jets slowly turning the craft to orientate itself on the primary star. Peppermint was little different to countless other star systems within the republic, a vast desert of nothingness broken only by a tiny star, a handful of tiny planets and hundreds upon hundreds of asteroids, comets and other pieces of space junk. A flicker of nervousness ran through him as he studied the passive sensor display. They’d jumped into the system a long way from the planet itself, and any sensor arrays set up before the war, but it was impossible to be certain their arrival had gone unnoticed. There was a war on. The enemy were going to treat every random burst of energy as hostile until proven otherwise.

Which wouldn’t be a bad idea, on paper, Leo mused. They know we won’t stay on the defensive forever.

He tapped the console, activating the drive field just long enough to start the gunboat on a ballistic trajectory that should take it close enough to the planet to get a good view without being pinged by active sensors. Should. Leo was painfully aware the rebels were revoltingly ingenious and anyone who managed to take and hold sensor superiority would have a decisive edge, when the missiles started flying. They’d be pouring endless resources into improving their sensors as much as everything else, making sure they could get accurate target locks on Daybreak starships as well as shoot at them. Daybreak was doing the same, of course, but unless the techs came up with something wholly new it was unlikely there would be any great improvement. You just couldn’t put a timetable on such things.

“Here we go,” he said, more to himself than his crew. “Get some sleep. You’ll need it.”

Flight Lieutenant Gaby Parker glanced at him. “What’ll we do if they catch us?”

“Die,” Leo said, bluntly. They had strict orders to keep the enemy from getting a good look at a gunboat, which meant surrender wasn’t an option. Leo was fairly sure it wasn’t an option for him anyway. Gayle was still out there and she had every reason to hate him. “There’s no way we can escape, if they draw a bead on us without us noticing.”

He sighed inwardly, his eyes lingering on the display. The passive sensors were the finest known to mankind, but they could only pick up active energy sources ... a starship prowling the system without bothering to conceal her exact location, for example, or a missile roaring towards the gunboat at a respectable fraction of the speed of light. There could be anything out there in the darkness, from a stealthed sensor platform to a clocked starship, watching and waiting for the gunboat crew to make a tiny yet utterly fatal mistake. Leo’s lips quirked at the thought. The holoflicks depicting life in the navy had never shown just how boring it could be, for some strange reason. It was always action, action and more action.

But that wouldn’t go down so well with the viewers, he thought, dryly. Who wants to watch a starship captain watching paint dry?

His mood darkened as he recalled Francis’s words, his fears about the captain. Francis had taken a hell of a risk discussing his concerns with Leo, a risk great enough to convince Leo that his concerns were genuine. Leo could have blown the whistle and watched gleefully as Francis’s career went up in smoke ... Francis knew it too. And yet he’d taken the risk ... Leo scowled, his mind running in circles. There were few options for relieving a commanding officer, his thoughts pointed out time and time again, and it would likely be the end of his career – their careers – even if the Board of Inquiry decided they’d done the right thing. The navy didn’t like junior officers removing their superiors from command.

The time ticked on mercilessly, each second like an hour as the gunboat plunged towards Peppermint. They were flying at unimaginable speed and yet, on the scale of a star system, they might as well be crawling. Leo forced himself to get some sleep, cursing the designers under his breath for not making the gunboat more comfortable. It wouldn’t be the last time a gunboat was sent out on a recon mission ... he wondered, suddenly, if the rebels were using shuttles to recon targets too. It was something worth considering, particularly in a system as active as Portahaven. The navy couldn’t hope to inspect even a tiny fraction of the shuttles buzzing around the system and everyone knew it. No reasonable number of random inspections could be sure of catching a rebel ship. Everyone knew that too.

He jerked awake, from a fitful sleep, as the alarm pinged. His hands were halfway to the pilot’s console, ready to flash-wake the gunboat and fight to the finish, before his conscious mind caught up with him. The planet was suddenly a hell of a lot closer, so close it felt wrong that he couldn’t see it with the naked eye. The passive sensors were scoping out the gravity well, noting the odd little fluctuations in the gravity field that suggested the rebels were deploying gravity generators to make it harder for anyone to sneak up on the planet, as well as tagging everything in orbit. Everything radiating a signal, at least. A small piece of space debris might go completely unnoticed until it was too late.

“Odd,” Gaby said. “What are they doing with their gravity fields?”

Leo glanced at her. “What do you mean?”

“The field is ... constantly transient,” Gaby said. “Like they’re turning it on and off and on again ... why?”

“Good question,” Leo said. He studied the sensor pattern for a long moment, drawing a blank. The rebels weren’t fools and yet they were doing something utterly foolish. The wear and tear they had to be putting on their machinery was staggering. Leo knew what the beancounters back home would say, if they thought he was wearing his gear out at such a terrifying speed, and it wouldn’t be a suggestion he be given a medal. “What do you think they’re doing?”

“Perhaps they think they can yank a ship out of FTL ahead of time,” Flight Lieutenant Thomas Aquitaine offered. “Or perhaps it’s a kind of gravimetric sensor?”

Leo rather doubted the former, unless the rebels were genuinely mad. The rebels would have to get incredibly lucky to yank even one ship out of FTL and even if they did, it would hardly be worth the wear and tear on their equipment. They’d have to know when a starship was coming, and her precise trajectory, to be sure of making the crazy plan work ... and even the slightest mistake could easily lead to total failure. It would be a colossal waste of resources even if it worked. But was it some kind of sensor system? Everything had a gravity signature, even something as tiny as the gunboats, and if the sensors were capable of tracking them ...

He cursed under his breath. “Copy all the data into the dead man’s hand,” he ordered. They were too far from Shadow to be sure of making contact with lasers and using anything else would betray their presence to the enemy. “We’ll send it out if they get a solid lock on us.”

“Aye, sir,” Gaby said. “We’re not going to pass that close to the high orbitals.”

Leo nodded, watching as more and more data flowed into the databanks. The high orbitals had been badly damaged during the fighting, the orbital defences wrecked in several hours of fighting ... an odd little engagement, one driven by both sides being determined to keep the orbital industrial nodes as intact as possible. It looked as if most of the nodes had been taken intact, although – judging by their reduced radiation emissions – the last-ditch plan to wipe or lockdown the control software had succeeded. The enemy would be bringing in hacking experts to undo the damage, of course, but it would take quite some time to either undo the lockdown or pull out and replace the datacores. He found it oddly reassuring. The rebel hacking techniques were clearly no better than Daybreak’s.

Unless that’s what they want us to think, for some reason, he mused. The paranoid thought flitted through his mind and refused to leave. Why ...?

He shook his head. The logistics of interstellar war were nightmarish. Both sides were fighting on a shoestring, all the more so as one side pushed deep into the other’s territory while the other had lost the fleet bases and depots it had painstakingly established over the past few decades. There was no way in hell the rebels wouldn’t bring the industrial nodes online if they could, just to start churning out everything they needed to keep their forces supplied. No admiral in his right mind would do anything else. There wouldn’t be any upsides at all.

More data flowed into the display, revealing a small squadron of enemy starships holding position near the industrial nodes. Not as many as Leo had expected ... he eyed the display sourly, wondering if there were more starships lurking within the gravity field. The risk of being jumped would be minimal, he conceded, and easily outweighed by the prospect of luring an attacking squadron into a trap. His optical sensors weren’t picking up anything suspicious, but at such ranges it was impossible to be sure they weren’t missing something. It wouldn’t be the first time. The clouds of debris could easily hide something too ... his eyes narrowed as the passive sensors picked out a handful of satellites, monitoring both the high orbitals and the planetary surface. Not enough to create a complete police state, thankfully, but more than enough to make it hard for any loyalists to form an army. They’d be smashed from orbit before they became a threat.

Assuming there are any loyalists on the surface, Leo mused. The limited information made it hard, if not impossible, to be sure of anything. Sandford insisted there was a resistance on the surface, but how could he be sure? The Daybreakers could have been interned. The former settlers had no reason to be loyal. The poor bastard could be walking right into a trap. We just don’t know anything for sure.

The alarm pinged, again. Leo sucked in his breath. They were reaching Point Alpha, the moment they’d have to make a choice between altering their trajectory enough to swing around the planet or heading onwards to link up with Shadow once again. Captain Warner had left the choice in Leo’s hands, something Leo would have been happier about if he hadn’t worried it was a sign of indecision. The man on the spot should make the call ... he ground his teeth in frustration. It would be so much easier if he hadn’t had his doubts about his commanding officer.

Gaby cleared her throat. “Sir?”

Leo forced himself to think. They were undetected. He couldn’t imagine the enemy leaving them alive if they’d caught a sniff of their presence, unless they were intended to serve as the bait in a trap. But that would be risky with so much at stake ... he rubbed his forehead, cursing under his breath. The gambler in him was tempted to swing around the planet, to raise the stakes still higher; a year ago, he would have done it without hesitation. Now ... there was a certain elegance in cashing in his chips, pulling back to report home and plan the insertion without the enemy having the slightest idea they’d been pinged. And that meant ...

“We’ll return to the barn,” he said, feeling torn. His younger self would have been outraged at the mere suggestion. The thought made him smile. It wasn’t as if he were an old man of ninety. He was twenty-two! “And then we’ll decide how to proceed.”

“Yes, sir.”

Leo kept a wary eye on the sensors as they drifted away from the planet, watching carefully for any sign they might have been noticed. It didn’t seem too likely, he told himself time and time again, but it was just impossible to be sure. Was it a trap of some kind? Or was he just being paranoid? Or ... he cursed under his breath, all too aware his doubts were a tiny fraction of the doubts and fears that would pass through his commander’s mind. Captain Warner might just be looking for an excuse to call the whole mission off ...

At least Francis wasn’t so doubtful, Leo reflected, as they made their way home. He had the exact opposite problem.

There was little time to rest, once they returned to Shadow. He barely had a moment to splash water on his face and grab something to eat before he was summoned to the briefing compartment. Captain Warner, Francis and Sandford were waiting for him, studying the sensor records from the flyby. The analysts had done a good job, given how little they had to work with, but there were still a number of question marks hanging over the display. And with every passing second, the records became more and more outdated. They all knew how much could change in a few short hours.

“You could have flown closer to the planet,” Captain Warner observed. “Why didn’t you?”

It was my call, Leo thought, with a flicker of ill-concealed irritation. He was too drained to keep himself under tight control. You left the decision in my hands.

He had to fight to speak calmly. “I judged we didn’t need to risk flying closer,” he said, instead. “There was no point in compromising the mission when we already had the data we required.”

“I agree,” Sandford said. “Can you get me down to the surface?”

A flash of … something crossed the captain’s face. “Commander Morningstar?”

Leo studied the display for a long moment, pretending to think. The delay gave him a few moments to calm himself. He’d worked out the details on the flight back to the carrier, although ... a lot depended on just how willing Captain Warner was to take risks. The operation would be chancy and even if it worked perfectly, the secret of the gunboats would be out. Assuming, of course, that it wasn’t already ... he cursed under his breath. He needed sleep, proper sleep. A few hours in a cramped gunboat simply wasn’t enough.

“Getting close to the planet isn’t a problem, sir,” Leo said, after a moment. “The tricky part is getting into the planet’s atmosphere. There are no convenient pieces of space debris to ride down ...”

“There are hundreds of bits of junk orbiting the planet,” Captain Warner said, curtly.

“They’re all in stable orbits,” Sandford pointed out, sarcastically. “If the enemy sees one suddenly fall out of orbit, they’ll draw the right conclusions and attack.”

Leo couldn’t have put it better himself. “We need a diversion, sir,” he said. “I propose the gunboats attack the industrial nodes, presenting a threat the enemy will not be able to ignore. They’ll move to counter the new threat, which will give us a chance to sneak through their defences, land on the surface and take off again.”

“You’ll have a very tight window to get there and back,” Francis pointed out. “We could use ECM to clear the way, make them unsure what they’re actually seeing ...”

“We don’t want to spoof them too well,” Leo said. If the rebels saw thousands of battleships bearing down on them, they’d know they were being conned. “Just confuse them long enough to get in and out. Hopefully, we’ll mess up their sensor records too.”

“We have orders to keep the gunboats as secret as possible,” Captain Warner said. “You’re suggesting we risk exposure.”

Leo shared a glance with Francis. “Captain, with all due respect, the enemy have already seen the gunboats in action,” he said. “It is too late to keep their existence under wraps.”

Captain Warner met his eyes. “We don’t know that ...”

“There’s no way to be certain they didn’t have someone covertly keeping an eye on New Lilac,” Francis said. “One cloaked starship, even a lone stealthed platform, would be more than enough.”

“Or a spy somewhere on Portahaven,” Leo added.

Sandford leaned forward. “Captain, your orders are to get me down to the surface by any means necessary,” he said. “Ideally, the enemy shouldn’t realise I was inserted in the first place. If using the gunboats means that my arrival passes unnoticed, you must use the gunboats. They will not stay secret forever.”

Leo sighed, inwardly. The captain wasn’t wrong to be concerned. Ideally, the gunboats would have remained a secret until the kinks in the design were worked out and a proper doctrine for their use developed, but time was not on their side. They needed an edge ... which ran the risk of the enemy coming up with gunboats and gunboat countermeasures of their own.

“Very well.” Captain Warner leaned back in his chair. “Mr XO, you will come up with a plan to deploy the gunboats and ECM drones. Our goal will be to raid the system, rather than press the issue. Commander Morningstar, you’ll tighten up the insertion plan before departure. Just remember we won’t be able to remain in the system if they come after us.”

Leo nodded. That had been true from the moment he’d taken command of Shadow. The gunboat carrier couldn’t hope to take on a destroyer, let alone anything bigger, if her gunboats were already deployed elsewhere. If the enemy got a hard lock on her exact location, she would have to run if she didn’t want to die ...

But, as the meeting came to an end, it still left a bad taste in his mouth.