No Remorse by Eric Thomson

Author:Eric Thomson [Thomson, Eric]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sanddiver Books
Published: 2018-03-15T07:00:00+00:00

NINETEEN

“Shall we make our manners with the 63rd Battle Group?” Montero asked once Phoenix dropped out of FTL on Scandia’s hyperlimit after her round-trip away from prying eyes.

“Even though I don’t like placing myself in a situation where a bored flag officer might decide to exercise his or her prerogative, I suppose we should. Call it taking out an insurance policy in case we need to intimidate someone on the ground or God forbid, need actual fire support from orbit. Let them know we’ll be landing at the Arctic Training Center.”

“I’ll link us.”

Talyn felt a little strange at Montero occupying the station Decker manned during their last tour aboard the converted yacht. Hopefully, her regular partner was getting somewhere with the CO of the Scandia Regiment after avoiding any further unfortunate encounters on his way to Kollsvik.

“That was surprisingly easy,” Montero said a few minutes later. “The flagship accepted our JSOC codes, sent back a hearty welcome, and advised it will clear us with Scandian traffic control as well as let the training center know we’re coming.”

“How kind of them. I always thought the regular Navy wasn’t a big fan of our sort — or more precisely the sort we claim to be. Perhaps they’re just happy we intend to land straightaway and not bother anyone.”

“Or HQ greased the skids somehow. Commodore Ulrich has a history of Machiavellian sneakiness when it comes to helping his operatives in the field. Especially when his orders are of the ‘proceed at your own discretion’ variety.”

Talyn snorted. “I think the commodore can teach good old Niccolo Machiavelli a thing or two in matters of sheer deviousness. If this is indeed his handiwork, then I hope he did the same for Zack.” She climbed to her feet. “I’ve put the ship on automatic. The AI will accept traffic control instructions when those come in. Otherwise, there’s little for us to do until we reach Scandia, and I want to finish a book before we go haring off after plotters and wannabe putschists.”

“And I’ll climb back aboard my hobbyhorse and parse the most recent news from Scandia to see how things stand.” He swept an open hand over his console screen to call up the main feed and began reading.

A few moments later, Talyn heard him curse, and she returned to the bridge. “What?”

“They’ve announced the date when parliament will vote on the bill changing various bits of legislation that allowed the People’s Alliance to rule for so long. Apparently, the governor general is now saying she doesn’t support such a radical change and might refuse to sign the bill into law, which will trigger a crisis for sure. I don’t understand how Nygaard thinks she can thwart parliament. The damn position is mostly ceremonial, not executive, but she still has what they call residual powers. Although refusing to sign off on a bill voted into force by elected officials, so long as it doesn’t violate the constitution, isn’t one of them. Trust me, I checked after discovering Scandia’s unreported problems.

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