WITH THOUSANDS of ships spread over an area across which it can take months for a courier to deliver any message, any fleet needs rules to guide the conduct of its officers when acting independently. Traditionally these rules cover virtually every aspect of command decision and are referred to as the Articles of War.
Articles of War
Article VII
Every person subject to this act who shall—
(1) Traitorously hold Correspondence with or shall give Intelligence to the Enemy;
(2) Or fail to make known to the proper authorities any information received from the Enemy;
(3) Or shall relieve the Enemy with any supplies, shall suffer Death, or such other Punishment as is herein-after mentioned.
A year after one of the elite brainship decoys confirmed the existence of a massive Syndicate fleet, it had still not appeared to contest the Alliance occupation of Khalia. During this time thousands of intelligence officers, clerks, analysts, and scouts worked to locate the home worlds of the Syndicate of Families. Slowly, carefully, data were sifted and patterns analyzed. Even as they worked, everyone knew the peace was deceptive and there would come a battle that would determine the fate of both human empires.
The Fleet used this year to build and train. Thousands of ships were commissioned. Often they were manned by new recruits leavened with a few experienced officers. Slowly, frustratingly slowly, for Duane and his staff, these ships began to arrive at their forward bases on Target and nearby Khalia. Located only a few light-years apart, the planets were an almost-ideal base from which to strike out at the cluster suspected to contain the Syndicate.
For many months tensions between the still-proud Khalian warriors and Fleet personnel erupted into sporadic violence. Neither side was ready to forget or forgive the atrocities perpetrated by the other. Even as a grudging mutual respect developed, some incident was needed to jell the union of former foes, Fleet propagandists waited, hoping for some event they could make into a symbol of unity between the races. When the incident did occur, it involved two most unexpected participants.