Page 24 of Reformation
“They didn’t. Everything emitting an Alliance signal was incinerated within the first five minutes of battle. I used a few Alliance satellites farther out as bouncers, but this one is personal.”
Miles blinked. Even for Garrett, that was extreme. “You set up a personal satellite to orbit Pandora?”
“Disguised as a meteor,” Garrett confirmed.
“How long ago?”
“Years.” His son smiled grimly. “You can call me a lot of things, but you can’t say I’m unprepared.”
Possibly paranoid but never unprepared. And now Miles had good reason to be grateful for his son’s paranoia. “That’s true.” Miles shut his eyes and examined the ship signatures via implant for a long moment. All midsized, from the look of things, but that in and of itself didn’t really make any sense. This wasn’thow pirates operated. “Interesting that they managed to target Alliance satellites so specifically. Those signals are supposed to be un-hackable.”
“One more item for the list of ‘interesting’ things about this whole shit show,” Garrett said. “You see what’s going on now, of course.”
“I do.” Miles opened his eyes. “We’re going to have to recalibrate our shields if they’re going to stand up to heavy fire from our own weapons. I’m going to raise a lot of eyebrows in the engineering departments.”
“Let them rise. If your officers refuse to comply, you can always throw them in the brig or out an airlock, whichever is closer.”
“Garrett.”
“I’m serious. Don’t let your own people endanger your life because they don’t have their priorities straight.” He sat up in his chair. “Dad, if you happen to find evidence of a Drifter ship in the vicinity of Pandora, I need you to do your best to ensure that it survives, okay? This is really important.”
Miles’ stomach dropped. “This is about Cody, isn’t it?”
“I can’t say that for sure.” But there was surety in his son’s voice, in the cold glint of his eyes, in the way he clasped his hands together, like if he didn’t, they’d be squeezing someone’s throat. “Just look out for them. Please.”
“I’ll do that.”
“Thank you.”
“Anything for you, kid, you know that.”
Garrett nodded. “I know. Claudia and the girls are safe, by the way. I made sure of it.”
“Yeah, she messaged me.”
“Okay.” Garrett looked down at his hands for a second. “Keep me updated.”
“I will.” Miles ended the call without ceremony—more emotion wouldn’t do his son any good right then.
He took a moment for himself to read between the lines: Cody and Ten had run off with Drifters headed toward Pandora, there were twenty-nine ships that were far too big to be pirates, waiting for them once they arrived, and those ships were armed with plasma cannons. Probably standard torpedoes too, but the cannons were the thing that would cut through their shields without too much effort. Normal countermeasures didn’t work on them, and in fact, they’d only begun installing the cannons in Alliance ships within the past five years.
Miles called for Shen Lin. His personal secretary opened the door a moment later. “Sir?”
“Run an inventory analysis on all the public data we’ve got for Alliance shipyards. I want to see where supplies have gone, more particularly which ships have been upgraded to plasma, and which haven’t. I’d also like to see raw numbers for orders if possible. If a shipyard received eighty cannons and only installed sixty, I want to know it.”
If she wondered why he was giving her what probably seemed like busy work, she didn’t mention it. “Yes, sir.”
“Forward all of your findings to Garrett. File it under ‘thinking of you.’”
“And if I don’t find anything amiss?”
“Then we’ll still know something important.”Namely, that Raymond Alexander had managed to get his hands on enough funds to privately, and quietly, build a fleet of his own, which almost certainly meant he was stealing money from somewhere.
Either way, it would give them a lead. If Miles knew how Garrett’s mind worked, he knew that his son was already building a file of incriminating evidence. Anything Miles could do to thicken it, he would.
“Yes, sir.”
“Also, set up a group comm with all the captains in the rest of the fleet. I need to pass along some technical details.” There were sure to be dissenters when he proposed his strategy, but he could phrase it as a way to keep idle hands busy for the next few days and a learning experience for the cadets. In the end, too, he could simply tell them to get it done and expect that they would. And if someone didn’t, well …
