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[Legacy Of The Force] - 08(72)



“What am I looking at?” Caedus asked, knowing perfectly well but needing to hear it because he wanted to be wrong for once. The rest of the bridge seemed to recede from his field of view; the scanners and sensors in front of him were all he could see. He was angry, getting angrier, but it was silent and smoldering.

“The residual traces of an explosion, sir. The spectrometer analysis of the particle cloud shows it matches the material used for the Nonvideor-class minelayers.” The man swallowed. He was new: Tebut’s replacement. “The database, sir. We have a materials database to aid rescue and recovery missions, so we can tell which ships have been…”

All Caedus could hear was the faint machine chatter of the bridge instruments, and the quiet throb of drives and generators that was as reassuring as a heartbeat to the crew.

He felt they were expecting an explosion from him, too. But that would have been weakness. He felt that they were as shocked and angry as he was.

“How many are there… Loccin?” he asked, reading the man’s name tab. “I see three.”

“I’d have to get us line-of-sight with the other side of Fon-dor to be sure, but there may well be two more debris clouds out of vision. Just so you know I’m treble-checking… three of the jump exit coordinates match the three areas of debris.”

“Bridge to Flight Commander, “Caedus said. “Flight, get an X-wing out Core side of the planet and confirm debris fields and coordinates, please.”

The response filled the silent bridge over the shipwide comm, even though the flight commander was a soft-spoken woman. “Very good, sir.”

“Thank you, Flight. Now, someone tell me what’s happening on Fondor. What are they saying? Any HNE news feeds? Diplomatic protests?”

“Nothing from the Chief of State’s office, sir…”

“Yes, get me Niathal. She’s been sitting around with full comms for at least five hours, so she should be updating us, should she not?”

The bridge started coming back to life. The buzz of normal working conversation rose from whispers to normal volume.

“Sir, absolutely no mention of any incidents on HNE.”

“GA External Relations says no diplomatic contact, official or unofficial, sir.”

“GAG monitoring says their agents are reporting a continued high state of alert on Fondor, and a lot of military traffic between the surface and orbitals, but that’s been steady for several months.”

They’d been waiting for the GA to kick them back into line; it was only a matter of when.

Tahiri, who’d been watching Caedus with the expression of someone waiting for a live detonator to blow, edged up to him. “The minelayers were intercepted as soon as they dropped, then. They didn’t even get a chance to disperse.”

“Correct, Lieutenant Veila, subject to the findings on the two ships unaccounted for.”

“A hundred crew, yes? Complement of twenty per ship?”

“Yes.” The size and spread profile of the debris particles indicated massive explosions, as Caedus would have expected with mine-laden ships taking direct hits. The end was at least mercifully instant. I still care about my people. I’m not a monster. “Betrayed.”

“Fondor knew we were coming.”

“Lieutenant, Fondor knew we were coming for weeks, but they knew where and when we were arriving.” Caedus walked the width of the bridge and let his gaze fall on crew at random. All handpicked, screened for loyalty and the right attitude; and little opportunity to spy for Fondor this time. He felt no treachery, he really didn’t. If the leak wasn’t in this ship, the specific location could only have come from Fleet HQ, Comms, or someone directly in touch with the minelayers’ crews after they received their orders, and there had been very little time for that information to per-colate through the system. It wasn’t enough for someone to tip Fondor off that minelayers were coming. They’d had completely accurate coordinates that enabled them to destroy all the minelayers the instant they emerged into realspace. Fondorian patrols, even if they got very lucky, wouldn’t have been waiting close to the precise points.

“Ship’s company, “Caedus said quietly. “We have, at best, a criminally careless fool in the fleet, and, at worst, a traitor.”

Loccin turned to him. “Sir, we’re continuing with the mission, are we?”

“We are, “said Caedus. “We’re not turning tail and slinking home just because we haven’t established a cor-don. Battle plans always change. This is a setback, nothing more. I’ll be in my day cabin. Let me know when you get Admiral Niathal, and if Admiral Pellaeon makes contact, tell him nothing and patch him straight through. Let’s not alarm the Moffs, shall we?”