Sometimes, the messenger was as important as the message.
After over three days of a complete lack of ships and communication from the Crest, the first ship to arrive in-system was Penalty Fee…Captain Lorelei Simonsson, commanding.
That data barely percolated into Kira’s scanner reports before the second wave of ships arrived. A full carrier group, guarding multiple Army of the Royal Crest assault transports.
They dropped into Guadaloop orbit like a descending herd of locusts. Even the fragments of messages Kira was picking up from a light-hour away were fascinating—and their scanners were able to clearly pick out the shuttles swarming over multiple ships of the Navy of the Royal Crest.
“Someone is cleaning house,” Soler said with a satisfied tone. “That’s…enthusiastic.”
“Hopefully, they’re sticking to arrests and not lining people up against walls,” Kira said. She’d picked her side in this particular fight—and not just for money—but she was still all too aware of how messy and ugly civil wars could get.
In this case, speed and surprise carried the day. None of the SPP loyalists aboard the NRC ships had been expecting relief-and-arrest orders. They’d had, from what Kira could tell, the structures to convince their crews to follow them into mutiny—but they hadn’t had time to activate them.
“This was all an hour ago,” Kira said softly.
“Do we change our scheduled check-in?” Soler asked.
“No. We’re fifteen minutes from our next nova, sixty-five from the next check-in,” Kira estimated, eyeing the clocks. “We’ll check in as normal and we’ll move forward from there.
“The good news is that they sent Simonsson, so it looks like they’re arresting the SPP people, not the Royalists, which means that our employer appears to have pulled this off. The bad news is that our employer already set us up once. So…we shall see.”
* * *
Two hours later, Kira pulled her key staff together.
“We have a recorded message relayed by Dawnlord,” she told them, nodding to Patel. “It came encrypted under a cipher provided to us by the Crown Zharang, so this should be a good sign.”
Memorial Force’s ships were close enough together to talk in real-time and carry on a live virtual conference. Kira waited to be sure she had everyone’s attention and then started the decrypted video.
The image of Voski, Jade Panosyan’s aide and Dinastik Pahak bodyguard, appeared on the screen. The guard was in full gold-on-black uniform, with the two stars of a general on their collar.
“Just a bodyguard, I see,” Zoric muttered.
“Voski was the commander of the Crown Zharang’s bodyguard,” Kira pointed out. “That would make them the second-ranked officer of the Dinastik Pahak.”
The conversation was cut off when Voski started speaking.
“Commodore Demirci, this is General Voski of the Dinastik Pahak,” they said calmly. “While aspects of this conversation will be obvious to everyone, there are details and elements that I think should remain private between those already briefed on this affair.
“Firstly, I wish to update you on the state of affairs in the Crest. The Crest Planetary Police executed a search warrant on Sanctuary and Prosperity Party offices across the system five days ago.
“We were expecting some degree of legislative and active pushback,” they continued. “If Prime Minister Jeong had been in place, I suspect the pushback would have been more…measured.
“On the other hand, the level and type of evidence we came into possession of might have triggered the reaction we faced regardless,” Voski noted. “Several divisions of the Army of the Royal Crest attempted to seize the capital and arrest the King and Crown Zharang.
“They failed. The violence—and the SPP’s clear responsibility for it—provided the final straw. Over forty percent of the SPP’s members of Parliament are now under arrest, along with key supports in the NRC and ARC.
“His Majesty has officially dissolved the Parliament of the Royal Crest and called new elections for fifty-six days from today. Crown Zharang Jade’s plan has worked…sufficiently, if not perfectly.”
Kira nodded in silent relief. She’d figured, from the moment Penalty Fee’s beacon had been so clear on her commanding officer, but it was good to hear it confirmed.
“Along with that, however, I also am tasked to deal with the situation we created as our distraction,” Voski noted drily. “I must note that the ransom demand we received was for significantly more money than had been discussed previously.”
Maral Jeong had insisted she was worth more money than Kira thought—and Kira had been a little angry with her employer.
“Jade asked me to give you their personal apology for leaking your course,” Voski said levelly. “Removing one of the military levers from the SPP’s playbook was far too valuable to us. We hoped that you would be able to handle the situation, one way or another, but we made the call we had to.
“We will meet the increased random demand,” they concluded. “One ARC transport will be at the coordinates attached to this message at the listed time. No escorts. We will retrieve the Prime Minister and Cabinet then.”
Kira pulled the numbers and nodded. They were entirely workable.
“I also must confess that we did not actually expect Fortitude to survive this process,” Voski admitted. “While we cannot prevent you from leaving with her, I am authorized to offer a ten-billion-crest ransom for the carrier herself.
“I hope to see you shortly, Commodore Demirci.”
The message ended and Kira found herself glaring at the hologram tank.
“Sometimes, I would prefer that my employers be slightly less bluntly honest,” she said aloud. If Fortitude had gone down to the SPP loyalists’ bombers, Kira would not have survived.
“We’re not taking their money, are we?” Zoric asked. “The only reason we took this damn contract was to get the carrier.”
“Exactly,” Kira agreed. “I mean, we also took it to stick a finger in the Equilibrium Institute’s eye—mission accomplished there. But…”
She shook her head.
“No, we’re keeping Fortitude and Voski is going to give me the papers that say that’s legal,” she told her people. “Because those were promised to us.”
She turned to Milani.
“Get the prisoners ready for the exchange,” she ordered them. “But…don’t tell them anything. Let’s have this all be a pleasant surprise for Em Jeong.”