“As you might expect, we have a mixture of opinions.”

  “Are we planning to surrender?” asked Grisham. None of this had yet sunk in.

  “That’s not yet decided,” said Danner.

  “Which means it isn’t a definite no.”

  “If something doesn’t change – and if we fail to keep a firm hand on the tiller - we’ll be out of the war in two years, Jed.”

  “The Kijol don’t know where our populated worlds are, sir. We could simply withdraw our fleet from contested territory.”

  “Without a fleet, we can’t protect our resource worlds. Without resources, we can’t build warships or Charos drives. Even if the Kijol don’t come hunting for our planets, we’ll have been sent back to the dark ages.”

  “What if the Kijol are losing their war, sir?” asked Grisham. “Their demand for our surrender seems premature. Let the enemy suffer hard times and then we emerge, ready to take back what we lost.”

  Danner laid his cards on the table. Or, as Grisham thought was more likely, he laid some of his cards on the table.

  “If we surrender, the Kijol will make cruel masters. They are a warlike species and the moment they control our economy, the HF will find itself building spaceships for the enemy fleet. We will never be free.”

  A suspicion was slowing growing in Grisham’s mind. He kept it to himself and asked another question. “Which way is the wind blowing in the Senate?”

  “Right now, it’s blowing around in circles and the senators are not likely to reach a consensus anytime soon. The Kijol asked for immediate surrender, but they obviously aren’t aware how long it takes the HF Senate to make any decision, big or small.”

  “Is there any plan beyond stalling for time?”

  Danner smiled. “One faction in the Senate has requested a meeting with the Kijol.”

  “I take it this wasn’t unanimous?”

  “Most of the Senate is in the dark.”

  “Then how—”

  “You don’t need to know,” Danner interrupted.

  “The Kijol accepted this meeting request?”

  “They did.”

  “And was the request from a pro-Kijol faction within the Senate, sir?”

  For a time, Danner didn’t speak and Grisham felt a tension in the room that hadn’t been there only a moment ago. The Admiral was considering speaking something of great importance and even now he wasn’t sure if it was the right move. Grisham felt a sudden unease, but he kept his expression neutral.

  “Some people – people who have first-hand experience of the Kijol – believe our civilian leaders are approaching these potential negotiations from the wrong angle.”

  “Which people believe this?” asked Grisham.

  “You know I’m not going to give you names, Jed,” said Danner. “The fact we’re having this conversation tells you I’m one of those people.” His eyes bored into Grisham. “Can I trust you, Jed?”

  The question caught Grisham unawares and he opened his mouth, unsure what he was about to say.

  “Think carefully before you answer,” Danner warned.

  Grisham held his tongue. His mind whirled. Something big was happening within military high command and probably within the Senate too. He was being invited to take sides, without having any real idea what the opposing parties stood for. Danner was dropping major hints, but this discussion wasn’t exactly an open and frank exchange of information.

  The longer he thought about it, the more Grisham realised he was actually being asked the simplest of questions. “Some people would prefer us to surrender, and others want to keep on fighting,” he said.

  Danner nodded. “And where do you stand, Jed? You’ve fought the Kijol as long as most.”

  “One moment you’re telling me we can’t win, the next you’re saying we can’t surrender,” said Grisham.

  “I’m giving you the facts as I see them. The HF is on the ropes, but our economies are strong and we have some bright people working in civilian fields that we’re even now reassigning to military research. We might pull this around.”

  “But if we surrender, we’ll be signing humanity’s future away to a species we can’t trust,” said Grisham. He met Danner’s eyes. “Even if we bring ourselves to technological parity, you told me the Kijol empire reaches farther than we ever suspected. Will we be able to defeat it?”

  “The question isn’t about defeating the Kijol,” said Danner. “It’s about whether we can make the HF such a tough nut to crack that the enemy will stop trying. As it happens, I’m one of those people who believes in the power of human endeavour. Put our backs to the wall, threaten our freedom, and woe betide anyone who thinks to fight us.”

  “I agree, sir,” said Grisham. “But wouldn’t unity be better than division?”

  “There is as yet no schism, and nobody can read the future,” said Danner. “This might all come to naught.” He pursed his lips as if he were considering something. “I told myself I wouldn’t show you this, but damnit, you should take a look.”

  As he spoke, Danner opened one of the drawers in his desk and withdrew a cardboard folder, which he slid across the desk. “Read it.”

  Grisham opened the folder. It contained a single sheet of paper upon which a couple of paragraphs and a list were printed. Reading it didn’t take long. When he was done, Grisham sat back. Things were starting to add up.

  “Ivey Metz was related to Senator McCulloch,” he said.

  It had long been clear that Ivey Metz – the founder of the Holy Church of Everlasting Serenity, the members of which had been slaughtered on Xaros – was well-connected in the Senate, since she’d managed to lay her hands on plenty of hardware that should never have fallen into civilian hands. Plus the fact that the CES had been granted seemingly unlimited funding to set up on Xaros. Here was proof if it were needed, that nepotism was alive and kicking within the Human Federation.

  “Finding out even that much took plenty of digging,” said Danner. “There’s more. Much more.”

  Grisham was intensely curious, and made no effort to keep it hidden. “What kind of more?”

  “Another little-known fact – so little known that I had to pull in many favours in order to learn it for myself - is that Senator Weston McCulloch is also distantly related to Senator Herschel Maynard. They might represent different planets, but they’re always on the same side when there’s an important vote.”

  Just hearing the name Herschel Maynard brought out the usual reaction in Grisham. He felt his anger surge and he clenched his teeth. “So there’s a connection,” Grisham said, his mind racing to think what precisely Danner was leading to.

  “Unity,” said Danner.

  “I don’t understand,” said Grisham.

  “It’s a political cabal. Its members claim to believe that the Human Federation’s expansion is too reliant on the military. They want jaw-jaw, not war-war. Some people might think of them as the Surrender Party. Funding for the CES was signed off by lead members of Unity.”

  For a man who not so long ago stated he would never – officially – learn the outcome of the investigation into how the CES had laid its hands on all that military hardware, Admiral Danner was surprisingly well-informed.

  “But Maynard is an asshole, sir,” said Grisham. “He has power and money. How could he possibly benefit from negotiating with the Kijol?”

  “More power and more money,” said Danner. “Let’s suppose, just for a moment, that this cabal within the Senate manages to sway the undecideds into agreeing a surrender. The Kijol might want to directly govern the Human Federation, but more likely they would prefer to hand over the reins to trusted individuals.”

  Grisham was about to ask why a human would willingly betray his own species for something so base as power over others. Then he remembered the number of despots and dictators in humanity’s past and suddenly it wasn’t too hard to imagine that somebody like Maynard and the others in the Unity cabal might crave surrender to the Kijol – particularly since they’d know how badly the war was going.

  “How much of this is speculation, sir? And how much of it is proven?”

  “Little of it is proven,” said Danner. “In truth, the cabal might have entirely different aims than those I’ve told you.” He stared at Grisham without blinking. “But this is clouding the bigger picture. Do you believe that surrender to the Kijol is a mistake we cannot afford to make? Can I trust you?”

  One part of Grisham wasn’t keen to take sides, but the dominant part wanted to have a say in his own future and hopefully turn that future into one that wasn’t dictated by the hatred and manipulations of Senator Herschel Maynard.

  Realising he was committing himself to a road from which he might never turn, Grisham nodded. “You can trust me.”

  Across the desk, Danner smiled a sad smile.

  TWO

  “Now you have my trust, what are you proposing, sir?” asked Grisham.

  “For the moment, I’m proposing nothing,” said Danner. “This might be the start of a long game, Jed. I, and others who share my views, are ensuring we’re ready for whatever might happen in the future.”

  “Damn, I thought you were about to ask me to join the escort for the negotiation meeting.”

  “I don’t know when or where that’s happening,” said Danner. “Perhaps I won’t know until after it has taken place. Even if I did know, there’s little I could do to prevent it – not without revealing too much.”

  The HF fleet was large and under the command of several officers of admiral rank, so it didn’t seem entirely implausible that one of those officers could pull together an escort and send it out to meet the Kijol in secrecy. Word would eventually get out, Grisham was sure, but it would be after the event, not before.

  “Does this mean I’m returning to quarters, sir?”

  Danner laughed. “Hell, no! I’ve got a mission for you.” Opening the same drawer as earlier, he withdrew a second folder but didn’t immediately slide it across to Grisham. “You’re going to Ovintus.”

  Grisham racked his brains. “Never heard of the place.”

  “It’s a planet in the Daxin system, way out on the edges of Landol.”

  “Where the Kijol are pushing the hardest,” said Grisham.

  “That’s right.”

  “What’s the brief, sir?”

  “During a recent engagement with a new gen Eternus, one of our light cruisers – before it was destroyed by the enemy vessel – detected a combination of mineral particles on the Kijol battleship’s nose plating. Many years ago, one of our scouts visited Ovintus, where it recorded the same combination. It’s the only planet known to the Human Federation where these minerals occur in conditions that might lead to them becoming embedded within a spaceship’s armour plating.”

  “So the Eternus took a low-level flight through the planet’s atmosphere,” said Grisham. “Why does that call for a mission to Ovintus?”

  “Because the Kijol battleship’s armour had been corroded by a weapon type we’re unfamiliar with,” said Danner. “And because our fleet later encountered a second enemy vessel with the same mineral particles embedded in its nose plating, and with the same corrosion marks on its hull.”

  “That’s more than coincidence,” Grisham admitted. “Maybe the Kijol have an installation on Ovintus to resupply their warships.”

  “It’s a possibility,” said Danner. “Either way, you’re going to Ovintus.”

  “Here’s where you give me command of an HF battleship,” said Grisham.

  “I can’t give you a battleship, Jed. The Marauder is fully repaired.” Danner made a play of checking his wristwatch. “It broke out of lightspeed ten minutes ago, and you’re going to board it by shuttle.”

  “I’m still waiting to hear the mission goals, sir. The Marauder is a capable warship, but it’s still a Tibor-class when all’s said and done. If there’s a lot of Kijol traffic at Ovintus, the Marauder won’t be the right vessel to handle it.”

  “If you encounter Kijol warships I don’t expect you to engage,” said Danner. “I have a feeling in my guts that you’ll find something different.”

  “Like what?”

  “It’s only a hunch,” said Danner, making no effort to explain what his hunch was.

  “Is there any need for me to read the mission documentation?”

  “I’m sure you’ll be scrupulous in your preparation,” said Danner. He pointed at the door. “Go.”

  Rising and turning on his heel, Grisham headed for the exit. In the linking corridor, he paused for a moment. He was surprised how quickly he’d accepted these recent events. He’d cast his lot with people who were determined to continue the war against the Kijol, and yet, Grisham was not disappointed in his choice. Fighting was better than the alternative, assuming surrender was that alternative.

  The second door opened, revealing the personnel corridor outside. A few people were passing, though it wasn’t crowded, and he stopped briefly to get his bearings. He suddenly became aware that the two soldiers stationed at the door were watching him closely, and he remembered how their appearances were more that of trained killers than frontline soldiers.

  What if they were placed there in case I gave the wrong answer to Admiral Danner?

  The thought jumped unbidden into Grisham’s head, asking him to confront a question he wasn’t yet ready for.

  Maybe the Admiral just sees the need for protection. Politics are a dangerous game.

  Despite this second – more plausible – idea, Grisham was shaken. He’d been drawn into a wider game, albeit on the fringes, and he hoped it would play out while he was far away on the frontline.

  Grisham strode along the corridor, still imagining the gazes of the soldiers on his back. Once he was out of sight, he used his pocket communicator to speak with Commander Lois Deneuve.

  “We have a mission,” he said.

  “Yes, sir. I already got the call,” said Deneuve in her heavily-accented voice. “We’re taking a deployment vessel from Shuttle Bay 19 and we’re docking with the Marauder.”

  “What about the others? Do they know?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I only heard about the mission myself a few minutes ago,” said Grisham.

  “You know what the HF military is like, sir,” said Deneuve. “It’s a well-oiled machine.”

  “That it is,” said Grisham without much conviction. “I’m on my way. Don’t leave without me.”

  “Have you got any details to share?” asked Deneuve.

  “Not yet. Once we’re onboard.”

  “Why was I expecting that answer?”

  Grisham smiled as he snapped his communicator shut and pushed it back into his leg pocket. The last few weeks had been the longest he’d ever spent on Bastion by some considerable margin, and he’d explored it thoroughly. Therefore, Grisham knew exactly where to find Shuttle Bay 19, and he headed for the airlifts that would take him closest.

  Soon, he was in Bay 19. The deployment vessel – which resembled a cigar fitted with a chain gun – looked tiny in a space which was designed to accommodate transports of every conceivable size. Grisham walked to the edge of the docking platform and activated the door midway along the vessel’s hull. The interior was lit in a dim blue and was distinctly compact, with ten rows of seats in total. Each row was made up from two seats on the portside and one on the starboard, with a narrow aisle between them.

  The shuttle was empty.

  Having made his way to the cockpit, Grisham squeezed into the centre seat and waited. Shortly, he was joined by Commander Deneuve, then Lieutenant Kaci Lopez arrived. She took the third and last cockpit seat.

  Minutes later, the final members of Grisham’s usual crew entered the shuttle, though they were obliged to sit in the passenger bay. Grisham requested clearance to depart and that clearance was granted. Under the guidance of the Bastion flight controller, the deployment shuttle was ejected into the darkness of space.

  “The Marauder is at five thousand klicks, Captain,” said Lopez. “At this shuttle’s eight klicks per second maximum, we should dock sometime next month.”

  “Let’s see if I can get us there in eleven minutes instead,” said Grisham.

  The deployment vessel’s engines rumbled like a farm tractor and the velocity gauge arrived at its underwhelming maximum. During the period of acceleration, Lopez obtained a sensor lock on the stationary Marauder and she put the feed up on the cockpit console’s middle screen.

  “Looks good as new,” said Grisham.

  “The shipyard could have swapped the old wreck for a completely new spaceship and we wouldn’t know about it,” said Deneuve.

  “Not likely,” said Grisham. “The military has a thing about warship names. It’s like a superstition – once a name is given, it won’t be transferred or used elsewhere while the original ship is still in service.”

  “We’re definitely looking at the old Marauder,” said Lopez. “The sensors have detected a difference in the colour where the armour was patched up. And there’s some nose scarring from our time at Xaros.”

  Grisham shouldn’t have cared. In theory, it didn’t make any difference what spaceship he flew, or how it was named. And yet it did matter. The Marauder had come through a tough encounter at Xaros and Grisham felt an attachment.

  “There’s the Marauder’s temporary crew, heading for the space station,” said Lopez, locking the sensors onto an identical deployment vessel, this one going in the opposite direction. “They’re going to pass within ten klicks of us.”

  “Forgive me if I don’t wave,” said Deneuve. She looked at Grisham. “Anyway, you were going to tell us about the mission.”

  “There’s nothing to tell, Commander. We’re heading out to a planet called Ovintus. Evidence suggests a couple of Kijol warships have visited the place recently. Some additional guesswork has made Admiral Danner believe the enemy might have run into trouble there.”

  “What made him believe that?” asked Deneuve.

  “Hull damage to an Eternus and to a second enemy vessel. Damage not consistent with that produced by one of our plasma warheads.”