“Seven pilots, thirty-five crew.”
“That’s better than I was expecting,” Kira admitted after Bueller listed the number. “My guess was we’d lose ten of the pilots and at least forty of the crew.”
“Our people mostly like their jobs, their colleagues and their superiors,” Zoric said, glancing around the half-virtual senior officer meeting.
Kira, Zoric and Bueller were the only ones currently aboard Deception. The other three Captains were on the call, but it was still a small meeting of the core leadership. Kira would have preferred to pull Patel and Cartman into even these meetings—especially as Patel was the company’s third-largest shareholder!—but the two nova-group commanders were currently at the RRF’s Pilot Academy.
Giving a commencement address, of all things. Kira was busy enough that she’d been able to get out of it, but given that her people had been at the heart of the training program that had become the Pilot Academy, someone from Memorial Force had needed to give the address.
“I’ll admit it’s a warm, fuzzy feeling to have people stick with us as we go into the deep beyond,” Kira said. “The headache will be when we get back and need to swap our RRF loans for our originals.
“Some of them will end up joining the RRF permanently, I suspect.”
“We’ll have to deal with that then,” Michel noted. The mechanical-legged woman grimaced. “I’m hoping we’re getting good people from the RRF, though?”
“I trust Remington that far, at least,” Kira replied. She’d trust the RRF a bit further than that, in fact, which meant she wasn’t overly worried. “I’m starting to focus more on what’s in front of us.
“Konrad, how’d the freighter shopping go?”
“Well, that depends,” he admitted. “Last I checked, we’re only getting twenty million crests in cash for this whole affair.”
“Given that we’re promised a hundred-billion-crest carrier, I’m not side-eyeing the cash payment too hard,” Zoric said. “But that sounds like a problem?”
“I found a perfect ship for us,” Bueller told them. “Same class as Raccoon pre-conversion, so forty-five kilocubics. Secondhand, which puts a bit of a handle on the price, but in good shape.
“Even secondhand, though, well…she’s thirty-five million kroner.”
Kira nodded calmly, though she heard both McCaig and Michel inhale sharply in surprise.
“That’s more than we’re getting cash for this whole mission,” McCaig pointed out.
“And that’s why I wanted to check in with the senior officers before I closed the deal,” Bueller replied. “I’ve got lines on a few cheaper ships, but this one really matches our needs—plus the extra cover of helping hide Raccoon.”
“Secondhand merchant nova ships don’t generally go for much less than half a million per kilocubic,” Zoric pointed out. “And that’s crests, not kroner. She’s exactly what I’d expect for a ship like that.”
“We’re going to need logistics support for this mission—and for most missions after this,” Kira said. “While I intend to continue home-basing out of Redward until we get our carrier from them, we’re not likely to see a lot of operations in the Syntactic Cluster.
“That means we need a decent support base, a ship that can haul fuel and munitions and all of the other matériel of making war.” She looked at her subordinates. “I think we buy the ship Konrad has found, but I’m open to counterarguments.”
Everyone in the meeting except Bueller had at least some shares in Memorial Force, but Kira held fifty-one percent—to Zoric’s twenty and Patel’s eight. Michel and the other old Apollo hands had four apiece. The last nine were scattered through old Conviction hands like Mwangi.
“I agree,” Raccoon’s Captain said calmly. “The price is quite reasonable, honestly, and we need the support. I wouldn’t mind having somewhere to stuff spare torpedoes and class two drives, even though I’ll be damned if I’ll give any of them up!”
McCaig sighed, a surprisingly gentle sound from the massive man, and nodded.
“I’m not going to argue with Demirci, Zoric and Mwangi,” he told them. “I’m just a grunt with a share in the company who’s learning how to skipper a destroyer.”
He was doing far better at that than Kira had dared hope, too. It was probably going to matter.
“I know my vote is irrelevant at this point, but I agree,” Michel said with a chuckle. “I haven’t been aboard Raccoon since I got grounded. With the amount of space I take up these days, I almost felt bad for visiting!”
“You’re always more than welcome, Captain Michel,” Mwangi told her. “But yes, my ship is feeling a tad cramped these days.”
“All right,” Kira said. “Konrad, close the deal as soon as you can. We’re going to be picking up a platoon of Redward commandos along with our pilots and crew, and the freighter will probably be a handy place to store them.”
“That’ll make Milani happy,” McCaig said. “The task you’ve set them isn’t impossible, but it’s certainly not easy.”
“And if it wasn’t Milani, I might be concerned,” Kira replied. “But I know them. They’ll get it done.”
“Your faith in my former subordinate is touching,” McCaig said. “Are we going to learn more about what we’re getting into before we send them on a near-suicide mission?”
“That’s next up,” Kira told them all. “We need eyes on the ground in the Crest. While there is intelligence that we can only get from the Crown Zharang and their allies, I don’t want to be entirely reliant on them.
“I want to take a forward party to the Crest ahead of the fleet and scout the yards and everything else I can find.”
“And by take you mean going yourself?” Zoric asked.
“If I’m going to commit this entire mercenary fleet to a potential suicide mission, I want to put my eyes on the target,” Kira replied. “Only problem I see is the timeline. I’ve started mapping out civilian transport to the Crest, and it’s looking like eight weeks, minimum.
“Versus five to six for the rest of you. If I take a scouting party ahead now, working subtly, the rest of Memorial Force might just beat us there!”
“We have three months until the trials, correct?” Mwangi said. “We’ll want to wait here and double-check everything before we move out, anyway.”
“But you can also ask our employer for assistance in travel,” Zoric suggested. “They may have people moving back and forth with messages. I don’t know how much authority even three directors and the Crown Zharang of the Royal Crest have to sign off on hundred-trillion-crest loans on their own!”
“From what Jade said, you might be surprised,” Kira noted. “But you’re right. They may be able to get us a ride that won’t take two months.”
“You’ll want to keep the team small,” McCaig told her. “In a perfect world, I’d say take Milani, but…that won’t work. They’re needed to coordinate the integration of the commandos.”
“The fact they don’t take their armor off wouldn’t be a problem?” Mwangi asked.
“They have a medical-prosthetic version that they wear in places they cannot go armed,” Milani’s former boss told the carrier Captain. “And a doctor’s note, for that matter. Even I don’t know what Milani looks like under the dragon armor.”
Milani, Kira reflected, had managed something truly unusual in their time: a physical and gender presentation that people found strange. And that, she knew, just amused the hell out of the mercenary commando.
“Take Bueller,” Zoric said after the amused chuckle faded. “My suggestion, in fact, would be just the two of you and a handful of commandos to protect you.”
“I was figuring that Bueller was needed here,” Kira admitted, glancing over at her lover. They hadn’t talked about it in advance, though she hadn’t been planning on leaving for a week or so yet. “With bringing in new crew and everything…”
“Not having him will suck, yes,” Zoric agreed cheerfully. “On the other hand, do you know what will suck more?”
She glanced around the virtual meeting.
“If we steal that carrier and something fails because the Crest shipyards screwed up something basic. Bueller is the best engineer we’ve got and the most familiar with the tech level we’re looking at for Fortitude.
“If anyone can identify a problem before the ship launches, it’s him. If the trials are going to fail before the inspection ever happens, we need to know that chance exists.”
“The more time I have to look at the ship instead of the schematics, the better I can judge her,” Kira’s boyfriend admitted. “But there’s only so much I can do from the outside, and I don’t get the impression we’re going to be able to get aboard her in advance.”
Kira chuckled.
“Not a chance in hell,” she said. “From what Panosyan has said, the SPP is treating that ship as their own private baby. She might be Navy of the Royal Crest, but every officer and spacer aboard her is going to be a Sanctuary and Prosperity Party loyalist.”
“Damn. That’s fucked-up,” Mwangi said grimly. “They’re playing political games of that level with their fleet?”
“System defenses are probably more reasonable,” Kira pointed out. “The nova fleet can afford to be a bit weaker if it’s loyal. It’s not a trade I’d make, but I’m not surprised to see politicians making it.
“Especially politicians who are fudging elections and working with the Institute.” She smiled. “I’m more willing to assume malice on their part than incompetence, but I will be happy to find failures of theirs along the way.”
“We can hope,” Zoric said grimly. “Even if this all goes according to plan, we’re up against a lot of firepower.”
“I know,” Kira allowed. “Hence wanting to get an exact figure on what we’re dealing with. I’ll see if I can borrow a courier from the Bank of the Royal Crest.
“Worst-case scenario, I start booking passenger tickets while you all prepare for war!”