Eleven Months
The Kihtomer had been in transit for five hours when the update arrived.
No alarm sounded.
No one called the captain to the bridge.
It came through the ordinary peacekeeping channel and waited in the queue with maintenance reports, route notices, and two requests for medical supplies from a station the Kihtomer had never visited.
Commander Ilyan was still in the observation lounge.
Meret had one foot tucked beneath her.
Kes was reading.
Ilyan opened the update.
“Eleven months.”
Kes looked up.
“What?”
“The crossing.”
Meret stopped reading.
“It was seventeen.”
“It was.”
Meret lowered her foot to the floor and reached for her boots.
Kes set his tablet down.
“What changed?”
Ilyan turned the display toward them.
The familiar curves appeared.
Kestral still had the larger fleet.
Oran’s line still rose more steeply.
Only now the lines met sooner.
Much sooner.
“Revised intelligence?” Kes asked.
“No.”
“Losses?”
“No.”
“New construction?”
“Some.”
Meret pulled on one boot.
“Repair?”
“Twelve percent.”
“Training?”
“Fourteen.”
She reached for the other boot.
“Propulsion?”
“Seven.”
Kes frowned.
“That doesn’t move six months.”
“No.”
“Then where are the six months?”
Ilyan looked at the figures again.
Meret fastened the first boot.
“What’s civilian freight doing?”
Neither of them answered.
She zoomed in on the production curve.
It separated into its components.
Freight.
Repair.
Vehicles.
Communications.
Machine tooling.
Freight capacity was up twenty-two percent.
Kes leaned closer.
“Why?”
“Priority contracts.”
“For what?”
Meret scrolled.
“Strategic materials.”
The changes were small in isolation.
Second shifts and longer contracts. Modified specifications. Repair facilities certified for military work.
Freight corridors reassigned.
Civilian manufacturers producing components that did not appear anywhere under military output.
Kes watched the list grow.
“They’re converting.”
“Some of them,” Meret said.
“Into military factories?”
“No.”
She kept reading.
“Into factories that can support military production.”
Ilyan looked back at the projection.
Eleven months.
Kes sat down again.
“Did they declare mobilization?”
“No.”
“Emergency production authority?”
“No.”
“War economy?”
“No.”
Meret looked up.
“They didn’t change what the industries are.”
Ilyan waited.
“They changed what they’re for.”
No one said anything for a while.
Outside the window, the stars remained fixed.
The Kihtomer continued at warp.
Kes finally asked, “Does Kestral have this?”
Ilyan checked the distribution header.
“Yes.”
“The same update?”
“The same data.”
Meret looked at the two curves.
She finished fastening the second boot.
A service cart passed through the lounge.
Someone at the far end asked for more tea.
Meret opened the file again.
“Eleven months.”
No one corrected her.
WE&P by: EZorrillaMc&Co.
Travel in Life 