Our ships gathered in orbit about a planet whose name we never bothered to learn. We had to stay in high orbit to avoid the expanding cloud of debris which had once been a space station. As we waited for our raiding ships to return from the far corners of the star system, the planetary officials below offered us all the wealth they could scrape up with frantic pleas to not bombard them. We had no intention of attacking the planet, but we still accepted their tribute.

Back on Flower of Dirt, the Fleet Commanders found a room in which to hold a conference on inter-fleet cooperation. The after-action reports showed that, despite a lack of planning, the ships within each fleet coordinated their actions fairly well. Ships of different fleets, however, sometimes chased the same target and more than once nearly attacked each other. The situation in the space station had been even worse.

Moony's troops, caught in a dispute over supplies with Arden and Ormond's troops actually fired upon them. Only the arrival of Phil's troops under Force Leader Kouvaras's command had prevented numerous deaths.

"What this all means," Commander Sherman summed up, "is that we need to integrate our command and control structure across all the fleets."

Sherman was a late-middle-aged man with short iron-gray hair and a face that looked as if it had been carved out of meteoric iron by a bored technician with an industrial laser. He loved the art of war and was said to only smile just before he ordered an attack. He had fought in a number of bug wars before the colonies declared their independence and put him in charge of their defense. After retiring with full honors, he convinced the government of New Sparta that the growing problem of piracy needed his personal attention. Then, pursued by accusations of brutality and murder, he ended up fleeing a warrant for his arrest.

"With you in charge of it all, no doubt." Moony munched on a cracker with some sort of Cack food smeared across it. He leaned back in his chair and propped his feet on the table.

Sherman's face hardened. "I am the most experienced and the most senior officer here. But we can vote on that later. At the very least we should coordinate the C&Cs so we can tell the difference between friend and foe."

Moony ignored Sherman's piercing look and smeared more of the fishy smelling spread on another cracker. "What about Innman here? He's got more history with Sunshine—even escorted the bug to his home world."

"I said we will discuss that later."

Commander Solomon leaned over to Phil and muttered. "I hate to say it, but Moony's got a point."

Phil shrugged.

"Well, however you structure the organization, you can leave me out." Moony flicked a crumb at Sherman. "Universal Security has been detailed to take Doggedly's wife home."

"Wife?" I leaned over to Phil. "What does she have to do with anything?"

Solomon leaned over from Phil's other side to look at me. "Doggedly sent her to negotiate the contract with Shines Like the Sun. She also brought the credits to pay us."

"Most likely a payoff to keep us from invading." Arden gave Ormond a dark look.

Several commanders exchanged nervous glances. We'd all heard rumors that Sunshine had bigger plans in mind. The system we had attacked was on the edge of Bright Fortune's territory. We had circled around Unbounded space and had paused between those two territories and the territory of That Which Overturns, the latter of which led towards the Cack homeworld. Everyone from the fleet commanders to the lowest ranked spacer was quietly trying to guess which way we would move.

"I've heard Bright Fortune has fled his system with nearly his entire fleet," Sherman rumbled.

"Do you think Shines Like the Sun will finally try to get his revenge?" Innman asked. Ormond sipped his drink then said, "Bright Fortune is claiming Shines Like the Sun has designs on the Moiarchy."

"Which may just be to cover his own cowardice." Sherman scowled. "It could also be an attempt to gain reinforcements."

I called up a display of the transit system on the table before us. Except for a system called Beautiful Swiftly on the border between The Unbounded Ones and That Which Overturns, any other move would require us to commit to fighting someone. Why would Sunshine send Moony's fleet away now, I wondered. If we were to attack That Which Overturns, wouldn't we want all the ships together? Wouldn't we want Doggedly's wife as a hostage, if nothing else? "But who would believe him?" I asked. The commanders all frowned at me. "Even as big as we are, we couldn't take on the entire Moiarchy."

Sherman gave me a surprised and disgusted look as if he could neither believe I was capable of speech or of such stupidity. I looked around and noted similar looks from the other commanders. I also noted that aside from Moony who had brought sub-commander Newman to serve as something like a butler, none of them had brought their subs.

"If all the forces of the Moiarchy were collected in one place, that would be true," Sherman replied with condescending politeness. "But the Moiarchy is large and it ships are spread out. A force our size could easily swoop in and claim the Cack home world before they could gather to stop us. In most cases, such a force could never hope to hold it long, but Shines Like the Sun is second only to his brother in the number of inherited shares of the Moiarchy. He only has to kill Righteous Ruler and he will inherit a controlling interest."

The commanders exchanged silent questioning looks as they wondered if he'd really do it.

"You know, he's sleeping with her." Moony leaned back in his chair, leering.

"Who?" Solomon scowled at him.

"Sunshine and Doggedly's wife. He's sleeping with her."

"And that has what to do with...what?" Sherman demanded.

"Doggedly had to know it would happen. In fact, I think Doggedly sent her with that purpose in mind."

"Assuming all of this is more than mere salacious rumor." Innman sighed. "What do you think this means?"

"It means he's scared and desperate to survive. He doesn't want to side with Sunshine outright. If he would do that, he wouldn't have had to send his wife. But he also doesn't want Sunshine to kill him. He's trying to negotiate some sort of deal to ensure his survival however this plays out."

"So, you believe Shines Like the Sun is definitely going to attack the Moiarchy?" Phil asked.

"I'm saying Doggedly believes that and Shining Fortune believes that, so you'd best be prepared for your part in this civil war.

* * *

An alerting tone sounded and every display and smart surface on Flower of Dirt lit up with Shines Like the Sun's royal ideogram. The whistling and clicking voice of the announcer echoed from the ship's sound system followed by a machine-translated repetition.

"Requesting your awareness to the transaction of justice."

A pair of images, close-ups of Cack faces, appeared on the displays. There may have been subtle differences in their geometries but they were as good as identical to my eyes.

"Most Fortunate and his assistant have been tested and are concluded to have conducted planning harmful to Shines Like the Sun and his directives. Correcting action has been applied to his assistant. Being of the royal brood, Most Fortunate has requested traditional punishment of royals. Merciful Shines Like the Sun has agreed."

The display switched to a live video feed of a Cack standing in a featureless chamber wearing plastic plumage only slightly less ornate than Sunshine's own. Six other Cacks stepped up to the victim, helped him to the ground, each grasping a limb and holding it tight to immobilize him. A seventh stepped into range of the camera holding what I thought had been a purely ceremonial halberd. 

After quickly measuring the distance to the victim's neck with the halberd, the executioner smoothly chopped off Most Fortunate's head. The blood had a decidedly orange cast, though only a little oozed from the headless torso which thrashed violently. The six attendants struggled to restrain the body and I got the distinct impression that, had they let go, the corpse would have crashed about the small room for nearly a full minute before collapsing into a twitching pile of convulsing limbs.

"Reconciling honor and justice, your ruling officers have provided this occasion to advancing group enthusiasm and diligence."

Shocked, I turned to Phil who, except for the raised eyebrows, had a face frozen into expressionlessness. "It appears all is not well in Shines Like the Sun's inner circle," he said.

"You don't think the nobles heard some news that upset them, do you?"

Phil didn't answer. He didn't have to.

After the execution, Sunshine sent us back to our ships and told us to prepare to transit. Though he didn't expect us to have to fight, we were to prepare for that possibility.

Moony left to return Doggedly's wife and the fleets put Bright Fortune's territory behind, transiting to Beautiful Swiftly. From there we only had two potential targets and no one believed The Unbounded Ones were the enemy they would ultimately choose.

I can't believe we're doing this, I kept thinking as we rode the shuttle back to the Torchbearer. If we attacked the Moiarchy, the greatest military force in the known universe, and failed... the Solar System would be doomed. Those Who Dwell Within had only stopped their attack on us because of cost overruns. We weren't worth further expenditures to conquer. This attack would prove the Solarians were dangerous. The Earth, Mars, the colonies, no human settlement would survive their retaliation.

"Is it true, Sir?" a young spacer asked as we left the shuttle. "Are we attacking the Moiarchy?"

Phil returned her salute. "Shines Like the Sun hasn't said that we are, but don't worry. The other fleet commanders and I won't let us get in over our heads."

"Thank you, sir," she said, though her worried gaze followed us as we floated down the passageway.

I returned to my quarters/office where I sorted through a bunch of messages that, subtly or not, all asked the same question. I had only been there a few minutes before Phil flashed-messaged me. He wanted me to go get Force Leader Kouvaras and bring him to the Executive Conference Room. I could tell by his terse message that something was seriously wrong and I tried to imagine what would require Kouvaras' attention. The onboard troopers only had two jobs, repel boarders or board enemy ships.

I found Kouvaras conducting a surprise inspection of the weapons' lockers. Since Phil had not messaged Kouvaras, I assumed he wanted this meeting to be discreet. I waited at the door, watching him meticulously inspect the security sensors and the duty logs while a weapons master and two T1C's hovered nervously nearby. He observed me out of the corner of his eye but didn't acknowledge my presence. If it had only been routine ship's business, I would have interrupted him and left. He must have realized this because, as I waited there silently, he wrapped his inspection up quickly, pronounced everything satisfactory, and then floated over to me. "May I help you, sir?"

"If you have a moment, Commander Porter would like to see you in the ECR, right now."

His right eyebrow twitched upwards two millimeters. "Very good, sir."

He didn't say anything, just followed me to the conference room which was in the spinning habitat portion of the ship.

"Come in, both of you," Phil said as Kouvaras slid the door open.

The conference room was about the size of a normal berth, barely big enough to fit a smart table and still have room for people to sit around it. Next to Phil, at the far side of the table, sat a furious Commander Sherman.

Flushed in a deep angry red, his face was clenched as if holding back the volcano of his rage. I closed the door behind me. Kouvaras and I slipped into our seats.

No one said anything for a moment. Then, with a sharp intake of breath, Sherman spoke in a surprisingly calm voice.

"Gentlemen, I'm afraid the mutiny has begun."

 * * *

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J. A. Partridge