He eased the Joyau back on a direct in-system course toward Damcus, the fourth and only inhabited planet in the system.
“I’ll fix something to eat,” Alya volunteered.
“Thank you.” Van leaned back in the command seat. What would they find at Damcus? Confusion, chaos? The one thing they wouldn’t find were other interstellar ships. Of any kind.
The EDI indicators showed no ships anywhere in the system.
Six hours later, after another nap and another formulated meal, Van was back in the command couch, scanning the approach area to Damcus.
Damcus orbit control, this is Coalition ship Joyau, request approach clearance and docking.
Ship Joyau, say again.
Control, Joyau, request approach clearance and docking. Inbound for resumption of commercial operations.
Joyau, wait one.
Control, Joyau standing by. Continuing approach this time.
Van checked everything nearby, but could find no other traffic, not even in-system patrollers.
Joyau, interrogative combat out-system.
Van wondered. Samarra system was supposed to be under the new Protectorate. Had he been mistaken? Negative combat. Coalition cruiser provided escort, destroyed raiders.
Joyau, appreciate information. Raiders destroyed Argenti corvette on station for Protectorate. Oh…cleared to charlie one this time.
Understand cleared to charlie one. Reducing power for approach this time. Full identification follows, with Galstan authorization.
Joyau, interrogative status of Revenant systems.
Jerush system destroyed by unpredicted major solar flare…Coalition and Argenti fleets have occupied most Revenant systems.
Good!
The force of the emotion behind that single word rocked through Van, and it took a moment for him to return full concentration to the approach.
Orbit control. Have acquired beacon.
Joyau, lock charlie one is operative and ready. Welcome to Damcus!
Thank you, beginning locking.
Van did not open the Joyau’s lock to orbit control, although he did put the fusactors on standby and link to station power.
His first effort was to link into the planetary comm channels and begin to scan them. Before he set foot outside the ship, he wanted to know exactly what had occurred on Damcus. He began to jump from channel to channel and net to net.
…the interim assembly has urged restraint…calling the massacre of women and children in the Revenant compound beside the Damcusan High Temple ‘barbaric’ and ‘unworthy’ of the people of Samarra…The screen showed the smoldering rubble of a structure that had been situated on a hill overlooking a city.
…the last of the moral reeducation camps was bulldozed yesterday in Telfor as hundreds looked on and cheered…
…shortages of cereal grains in the plateau region…shipments of food seized from the Revenant Revealed Center in Dosodi have been diverted…
…fighting continues in the eastern highlands…more than ten thousand armed Revenants have seized Remorya after their defeat on the plains of Dhar…
Van continued to switch and study. After going through more than a hundred different channels in an hour, he was convinced that Samarra was not under Revenant control. On the other hand, he wasn’t certain whose control it was under, although the planetary capital of Alion was reported calm and under the control of the interim or provisional assembly.
He began to make links planetside.
All in all, it was two days later—filled with link conversations, agreements, negotiations, and what amounted to institutional bribery—before he finally left the Joyau. Within his shipsuit was a small military stunner, and at his waist was the nanite bodyshield and powerpack. The gray corridor outside the ship bore several long dark marks, as if lasers or other weapons had been used, and not thirty yards from the lock was a large and irregular synthetic patch, clearly recently applied.
He’d only gotten a dozen steps from the Joyau when three figures in shipsuits appeared. One, in a maroon suit, carried a military stunner slung over her shoulder. The other man and woman wore green, with orbit control logos on their chests.
“Ser? Commander Albert?”
“I’m Commander Albert,” Van replied.
“Ser…we just wanted to thank you, and to ask if you could carry messages outbound. We’ll pay double the interstellar rate.” That was the woman in green.
“The standard rate will be fine. IIS is a commercial operation. We don’t normally carry message traffic, but we’re equipped to do it. We’ll have to download at a spinward hub for retransmission, though. Would that be satisfactory?”
“Yes, ser.”
Van used his implant to access the stationnet and then the Joyau. Alya, Commander Albert here. We’re going to upload message traffic for later download at the next out-system hub.
We can only take a standard single load, ser.
I’ll tell them. Van turned to the three. “My chief tech tells me that we’re limited to one standard single load.”
“We won’t have that much. We’ve just gotten the station back in operation. Less than a week, ser.”
“You had to use shuttles to attack?”
The guard in maroon nodded.
“You’ll be going down to Alion on a station shuttle,” added the man. “We don’t have the commercial operations back yet. When you’re ready to return, just link to station operations, and we’ll send one down to pick you up.” He paused. “You’ll need to use paper credits. The transfer links don’t operate planetside. Better stop by the credit stall here.”
The three walked Van to the credit stall, where he obtained a thousand Samarran credits, hoping they would be enough, then to the shuttle bay. The woman guard accompanied him onto the shuttle.
An hour later, Van stepped outside the shuttle terminal in Alion—and was overwhelmed with the swirl of freezing air and smoke—smoke that held odors of burning wood, powder, hot metal, charred flesh, chemicals, plastics, and other synthetics exposed to excessive heat. For all that, there were three groundcars waiting, each with a driver gesturing.
Van stepped forward and took the first driver. He was glad he had the nanite bodyshield, and that terminal security had allowed him to bring down the stunner.
“Drohya building on the Occident.”
“Ah…I know that one…”
Van certainly hoped so. “How has the last week been?” he asked, once the groundcar pulled away.
“It has been terrible, but we have seen worst. Never…never
