Trevor set his eyes on the room’s most important politician. If she was ever to offer a nugget of wisdom ...
Haas complied in a way fitting of her chosen profession.
“Symbols matter. Amity is the most powerful one we have. If the station thrives, the Collectorate thrives. It’s why Lana and I wanted you, Trevor, to be Governor. It’s why I allowed you to expand your powers, fire the Executive Board, and unleash Shadow Gambit.” She tilted her head toward the Sec Admin Chiefs and Shireena. “We need men and women who will not compromise the symbol. If you have to trample on the rights of a few to protect the symbol, you have my full support. Hard times are coming. We cannot compromise.”
Nice speech, Trevor thought. Easier to say in a classified briefing than before the public. If caught between a rock and a hard place, would she buckle on her no-compromise pledge?
“I agree, Madam President,” he said. “We do whatever it takes. Anything else, Carson?”
“No. But I suspect what you’re about to hear from the Captain and the Admiral will double-down on the narrative.”
Trevor turned to Capt. Graygone.
“Captain, has your investigation on the WTZ incursion produced any new leads?”
Graygone straightened his jacket and leaned forward.
“Incremental. Alas. We’re dealing with fragments. The enemy’s ship was all but vaporized. Our inquiries are ongoing.”
That sounded a lot like the summary he gave two weeks earlier, exactly twenty days after an unregistered Scram exited worm less than five kilometers from Episteme and approached on a suicidal trajectory. Graygone’s warship, the Styron, shredded it with a barrage of missiles less than a kilometer from impact.
The incident happened so quickly, no one inside Amity knew about it until the UNF released details ten hours later. Trevor was furious. The IC held a classified hearing. The public never learned how close Amity came to losing a spaceport and hundreds of lives.
“I’m sure you’re doing your best,” Trevor said, knowing he was about to piss off the man. “But I see little progress after thirty-six standard days.”
Graygone raised his hand as a stop sign.
“There’s no need to condescend, Governor.”
“I wasn’t trying to, Captain. The only reason people are not fleeing Amity in droves is because there were no witnesses to how close that ship penetrated. They believe the official story about an errant worm drive calculation. My concern is the pace of the UNF’s investigation and the lack of any change in the fleet’s disposition. A multi-ship attack might have succeeded.”
“Would have succeeded,” Graygone said without a hint of irony. “You’re right. We were fortunate. But we haven’t been sitting on our collective asses. The UNF is enacting a new plan. In short, this is my final confab as Battle Group leader. The Guardian fleet is about to undergo a significant change. Adm. Nagano will speak to it.”
A typical blindside. The UNF rarely submitted agenda items bearing substantive details. Trevor hated these sorts of surprises.
Nagano opened his tablet and expanded a holo featuring the entire Amity Station Exclusion Zone, which extended five hundred kilometers in all directions.
“The incident proved what we long suspected,” Nagano said. “A fleet of warships lacks the necessary reaction time in this age of unregistered worm drive access. Long-range tracking has been upgraded. It will help us detect incoming enemy. However, warships can only maneuver as fast as their system engines allow. The Styron happened to be in a prime location to hit the enemy.”
He showed the Battle Group’s location at the moment the Scram entered the Worm Transit Zone, highlighting Graygone’s ship.
“Had Styron been twenty degrees further aft of Episteme, it would not have been able to fire quickly enough to score a hit without risking the station itself. If we added warships, we improve our odds but redeploy valuable resources needed elsewhere.”
“Understood,” Trevor interrupted. “We always assumed three warships and their patrols would cover every blind spot.”
Nagano coughed with apparent irritation but resumed.
“The enemy – whether Black Star or their affiliates – will grow more sophisticated. We believe the best defense is one that cannot miss, no matter how close the worm aperture.”
Nagano shifted to a new model, showing one – wait, one? – ship guarding Amity. It hovered above the station, perpendicular to the three sectors. The major shift? A bubble grid of thousands of objects extending outward twenty kilometers.
“What is that?”
“A solution to two problems,” Nagano said. “We will reduce the Guardian fleet to a single ship which will protect the Commercial Transit Vector to Episteme and Harmony.” The illustration highlighted the CTV as a pair of narrow tunnels leading into and out of the spaceports. “Outside the vector, we will deploy two hundred thousand Carbedyne-fueled drones to form a defensive web. These drones carry miniaturized singularity bombs.
“If this sounds familiar, it should. The Aeternans have used this technique in their system for thirty years. Swarm war cruisers used a similar approach to shield their vessels – the Crust, they called it.”
Trevor saw the disbelief on his Chiefs’ faces. Shireena’s jaw dropped. Haas studied it like a technician; did she know ahead of time? Roe and Graygone offered no reaction.
“Back up,” Trevor said. “Admiral, did I hear you right? You’re going to deploy two hundred thousand?”
“Give or take a few hundred.”
“How in ten hells will this work if we’re under attack by multiple ships with advanced intel?”
“Easily answered.”
The illustration shifted to show Trevor’s exact scenario. Ten ships entered the narrow Exclusion Zone, pushing toward both spaceports. Instantly, the web shifted, with the drones along the zone’s perimeter closing in ahead of the advance to block the attackers. As the enemy neared, the outer drones sealed off the rear flanks. Then Trevor saw another wave of activity he never imagined.
The station fired on the trapped enemy.
“What am I looking at? Are those mounted turrets?”
“They are. The second phase of our operation will install guided particle missiles above the spaceports. What the singularity bombs do not vaporize, the missiles will. Combined with our upgraded tracking network, Amity will never be safer.”
Trevor saw it another way.
“Amity will be an armed encampment.”
