56

Ypres hadn’t changed much on the surface. Political unification hadn’t yet made any major changes to the positions of stations and shipping. It would, Kira was sure, but it had only been a few months and most of those under blockade.

Baron and Deception were arriving at Dikkebus, the most heavily populated and industrialized planet in the system. Not much had changed there, though Kira could pick out the signs of new shipyards as her ship slid into position flanking Duke.

The Federation had been busier than she’d thought. From what Commodore Shinoda had said, the two nova destroyers they’d given him for the Coalition Fleet had been half of the nova warships his people possessed.

Now eight Yprian destroyers orbited with the Redward cruisers. There were even a few lighter warships from other systems—the week since the battle had been enough for the balance to fully shift.

“Admiral Remington sends her regards, Commodore,” Zoric told Kira as the pilot surveyed the cruiser’s bridge. “You’re invited to join her aboard Duke at your convenience.”

“You think she really means my convenience?” Kira asked dryly. “She is an Admiral.”

There were few ways an Admiral could request someone to visit them that didn’t translate as “right now.”

“And we’re the people who saved the damn Cluster,” her Captain replied. “I think she might just. But I guess we don’t have much else to do.”

“We’ve still got some of their people on board, and they’ve still got some of our people on Seventh Fleet’s carriers,” Kira noted. “Can you coordinate that swap, Kavitha?”

“Easily,” Zoric promised. “When do I start getting replacement armor and dispersal networks? Or turrets, for that matter?”

Sixty-two of Deception’s crew were dead, killed when four of her heavy turrets had been blasted clean off her hull by particularly ballsy Cobra pilots. Fixing that damage was going to take a while.

“When we’re back in Redward, I think,” Kira said. “We’re not doing that work here. And that assumes you even still work for me.”

“That’s up to me, I’m pretty sure, which means I still work for you,” Zoric told her. “It’s… It’s what John would have wanted.”

“Thank you,” Kira replied, closing her eyes for a moment. “I guess I need to go catch a shuttle.”

* * *

Admiral Vilma Remington’s office aboard her cruiser was sparser than Kira might have expected. At the very least, she’d figured the old Admiral would have an “I love me” wall of certifications and decorations.

Instead, it was completely standard-issue. One desk. One ceiling-mounted hologram projector. Bare walls except for where the flag of Redward—a stylized red mountain behind a castle—was enameled onto the wall behind her.

That was it. The holoprojector was doing yeoman’s work, however, with a full display of the Syntactic Cluster hanging in the air above Remington’s desk as the woman studied it.

“Admiral Remington,” Kira greeted her. “You requested me.”

“I’d have Estanza too, if I could,” Remington said. “That man and I spent half a decade arguing everything from contract pricing to intergalactic politics to quantum physics. If I was remotely inclined toward men, I’d have dragged him to bed years ago.

“The absolute ass.”

The room was silent.

“But here we are,” Kira finally said, internalizing her own grief.

“So we are.” A bottle of something appeared on the desk and Remington poured two generous glasses. “Bengalissimo sherry,” she said, sliding the glass across the table. “The system produces a few nice things along with assholes and warships.”

“To John Estanza,” Kira toasted before sipping the smoothly sweet fortified wine. “And the mess he left me.”

“Do you know what happens to the mercenary company’s assets and people?” Remington asked.

Deception is mine but a bunch of her crew were John’s,” Kira admitted. “I’ll offer them contracts to transfer over once things quiet down. Right now, we’re limping along emotionally as well as physically.”

“The contract does include provisions for compensation in case of loss of hardware,” Remington told her. “I don’t think either of us expected it to be quite this messy, but it’s still covered.”

“Good to know, Admiral.”

“Em Demirci, unless you plan on taking Deception and leaving the Cluster right this moment, you and I are going to be working together for a while yet,” Remington told her. “Call me Vilma.”

“If you insist, Vilma,” Kira said.

Remington nodded firmly and gestured to the map.

“The good news is that I don’t need Deception right now,” she said. “While the best tactical and operational plan would be to move on Bengalissimo right now, before their allies send them more ships and tech, that would be contrary to our strategic objectives.”

“You want the rest of the Cluster involved,” Kira guessed.

“Exactly. Even if it’s only a token commitment from our allies, we need this to be a shared Free Trade Zone operation,” Remington confirmed. “I’m going to hold here in Ypres with Seventh Fleet until I am reinforced by those allies.

“While I would prefer to hang on to Deception, your ship is also the worst damaged after that affair. I presume you would like to repair her?”

“I would, yes,” Kira agreed.

“I’ll acknowledge your contract to support Seventh Fleet on our breakout and breakin as complete,” Remington told her. “I’ll leave valuing Conviction to the analysts on Redward, but I will sign off on a full compensation for her loss in principle and provide partial immediate compensation.”

“Immediate compensation, Vilma?” Kira asked with a raised eyebrow.

“We started this mess with five carriers and two hundred and ninety fighters,” the Admiral reminded her. “I still have four carriers…but there are only eighty RRF fighters aboard them. On the other hand, Deception can’t haul forty-five planes.”

A new hologram appeared, a familiar one.

“I know our freighter conversions aren’t worth a tenth of what Conviction was in a fight, but one would let you take your fighters back to Redward with you. Raccoon is currently carrying all of your fighters as it is, so transferring her crew and the couple of RRF fighters she still has aboard to another ship will be easy enough.

“She’s yours. Well, Conviction LLC’s, I guess,” Remington noted, “but it gives you a starting point. I hope you retrieved some useful gear from Conviction’s wreckage.”

“Angel Waldroup insisted,” Kira said with a sad chuckle. “We got three-quarters of her fabricators eating up Deception’s limited cargo space.”

“You can move them onto Raccoon or, well, do whatever you want,” the Admiral told her. “The ships are yours. The fighters are yours. The money is yours too, if that’s any consolation.”

“I lost dear friends in this mess,” Kira replied. “It’s not much of one, no.”

“I didn’t think it would be.” The ship vanished from the hologram. “I was never under the impression that you or John—or Shang Tzu, for that matter—were just mercenaries.”

Remington studied the map of the Cluster with the single baleful red icon of Bengalissimo glowing on it.

“There’ll be work for your people, however it all shakes out,” she promised. “But Deception needs repairs.”

“And escorts, I think, if I’m going to play this game,” Kira replied. “I don’t suppose I can get a sign-off from you allowing us to buy Serendipity-class destroyers?”

Remington chuckled.

“Kira, right now, you could get a sign-off from me to let you buy one of our fucking asteroid fortresses,” she replied. “We wouldn’t have survived without Deception and Conviction. I know the worth of the ‘mercenaries’ who stood by my side in the darkest hour of my people and our system.

“The messages I’ve sent to my King and Queen reflect that, Kira. You and your people may be mercenaries. You may have been born in a dozen star systems across a thousand light-years, but know this: you are Redward’s now. We know our own and you will always have a home and a place under my King.”

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