Command Decision

by Elizabeth Moon

  “They’re all alive,” she said. “I’m transmitting the files to you now.”

  “Thank you,” he said. He looked drawn; Ky multiplied what she had seen in her own sick bay by…however many casualties there’d been…and understood. “If only we hadn’t had so many out in EVA. Now—where did you people come from? And why?”

  Ky started in again. “We jumped in from Adelaide System. Our scout—you should have his beacon as Glorious—had reported the system empty except for your two ships.”

  “And that was about twelve days ago, you said? We have a brief scan contact from back then, but no hail. The enemy…you say you know who they are?”

  “You don’t?” Ky asked.

  “No. Never heard of pirates attacking armed ships like ours before.”

  Ky summarized what had been happening.

  “They’ve taken whole systems? And we don’t know…oh. Yes, of course, the ansibles being out. They must be part of that, too…”

  “Possibly,” Ky said. “Certainly they’re making good use of communications being disrupted.”

  “So…who’s paying for your bunch? The…um…Space Defense Force or whatever you’re calling it? Organized pretty fast, wasn’t it?”

  “It’s multisystem,” Ky said.

  “Yes, but the last I heard, Slotter Key’s ansible was out…so how did they let you know they were in on this?”

  “Colonel, I’m not comfortable discussing this kind of thing over an open connection, even with scrambling. My scouts don’t think there’s anyone else in this system, but what if there’s a stealthed observer ship somewhere?”

  “I see your point. All right. We’ll talk later, in a more secure location.”

  Down in the starboard crew area, Pitt and her people already had their area ready for inspection. Sergeant Crayle had shown them the mess area, and Ky found them cleaning up after a meal.

  “Officer on deck!” Pitt called out, and the others all came to attention.

  “At ease,” Ky said. “Have you found everything you need?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Nice ship you have here…bit more than the other one.”

  “Thanks. It’s a repossession; this ship was stolen from Vatta decades ago, and I got it back.”

  “Yes, ma’am, I did hear something about that. Was a pirate ship, wasn’t it?”

  “That’s right. I re-registered her, after we got her cleaned up and refitted. Good to see you again, Master Sergeant Pitt.”

  “Good to see you in the role you were meant for, ma’am, if I may be so bold. ’Specially since we really needed some help out there.”

  “Wish we’d been a bit sooner,” Ky said. “What happened to your sentries?”

  “Blown away before we knew it. They knew exactly where to look, apparently. First I heard, it was ‘Abort exercise, return to ships.’”

  “So…there’s probably an observer here somewhere. Stealthed…we haven’t spotted anything…” The suggestion she’d made to Kalin, because she didn’t want to discuss the tenuous nature of the Space Defense Force, might have teeth.

  “Almost certainly. And a spy at our last stopover, too. Not that our people are loose-lipped, but we went into the Powdern jump point with the right vector to come out here. It’s only got the two endpoints, where we’d come from and this one.”

  “Come up to my office with me for a bit,” Ky said. Pitt sent her people back to work and followed Ky. When they reached the office, Ky waved her to a seat and sat down herself, behind the desk.

  “Nice,” Pitt commented, glancing around.

  “If it was a spy where you were, communicating with someone here, where the system ansible doesn’t work, how do you suppose the message went?” Ky asked.

  “Is that a trick question? Without an ansible, it would have to be…” Pitt’s expression changed. “It’s…it would be impossible.”

  “Yeah,” Ky said. “We’re all so used to universal ansible access—to having real-time communication—that the implications of not having it can slip by. If there was no working ansible where you were—Powdern?—and no working ansible here, then a spy there couldn’t communicate to ships here. Without another kind of ansible.”

  “But there isn’t another kind of ansible,” Pitt said. “Everyone knows that…oh.” She stared at Ky. “There is? And you know about it?”

  “The pirates have a way of communicating instantaneously across interstellar space,” Ky said. “It’s a ship-mounted ansible.”

  “But that’s…everyone’s always said—”

  “It’s impossible, yes. But it’s not. It’s technology that the ISC tried to keep under wraps. I don’t know how it got out but it did, and it explains the coordination of the pirate attacks.”

  “It would,” Pitt said. “Real-time communication in combat? Fantastic.” Then her expression changed again. “You…certainly showed up in time. How do you know about this?”

  “When I captured this ship, it was full of all sorts of goodies,” Ky said. “Among them, sixty shipboard ansibles. One mounted ready for use, the rest crated and ready, I presume, to sell or hand over to the other pirates. At that time I had aboard an ISC agent, who just about came apart when he saw them. He knew what they were, and what they did, and he wanted to impound the lot.”

  “I’ll bet he did,” Pitt said.

  “However, I persuaded him that if the man who’d run this ship had them, the tech was already out of the bag and couldn’t be stuffed back in. I refused to turn them over or destroy them.”

  Pitt cocked her head. “You have grown up a lot, you know?”

  “It’s been an interesting time,” Ky said. “What you don’t know is that most of my family is dead.”

  “What?”

  “Someone—I think this same group of pirates, in collaboration with someone in the government of my home planet—set out to destroy my family and my family’s business. My parents and siblings are dead, along with many others; ships and crews were attacked as well as the corporate headquarters and some of the homes.”

  Pitt looked stunned. “When did this happen?”

  “Shortly after I got back to Belinta…about the same time the ansibles started going out. I didn’t find out about all of it until I got to Lastway.” Ky shook her head. “Not a good topic of conversation, actually, but yes—I’ve changed. Not entirely…for the better.”

  “I wouldn’t wish that on anyone,” Pitt said. “But I’m damned glad you showed up when you did.”

  CHAPTER

  SIXTEEN

  “I want you to go back and tell your commander about this personally,” Ky said. “I don’t want to transmit it over conventional radio.”

  “He’s not expecting me back,” Pitt said. “I’m supposed to take care of our people here—”

  “Will he let you come back, d’you think, if I tell him I’m sending you with an urgent message?”

  “Probably. But why don’t you go? Or send one of your own crew?”

  “He knows you,” Ky said. “He knows of me, but he knows you—”

  Her office com binged. “Captain, Captain Ransome wants to speak to you. Shall I patch it through?”

  “Go ahead,” Ky said. To Pitt, she said, “Ransome’s someone we met on Adelaide. I’m using him and his ships as scouts.” She tilted the vidscreen so Pitt could see it.

  “Captain Vatta!” Ransome’s broad grin went with the tone of delight. “Guess what! We found the observer!”

  “Where?” Ky asked.

  “At…uh…” He turned, and someone handed him a note. “24-893-2217. Fully stealthed, as you suggested, and transmitting on its own ansi—” He stopped, seeming to notice Pitt for the first time. “—thingie,” he finished. “Anyway, we…er…we recorded it, and we stripped the beacon, and I just thought, you know, we could blow it away if you like. It’s quite close, well within our range—”

  Pitt was staring at the screen with an expression of horrified fascination. “What—”

  “Just a
minute,” Ky said. “Captain Ransome, do I understand you to say that you have stripped that ship’s beacon?”

  “Oh, yes. Neat as an oolun sucking a pinkfish off the hook.”

  “You are aware that they will know their beacon’s been stripped?”

  “I don’t think so,” Ransome said. “We were very careful. You said you didn’t want—”

  Losing her temper would accomplish nothing at this point. Ky fought it down. She hadn’t told them to go looking for the observer, but she hadn’t told them not to. She’d told them to go about their business…and for Teddy Ransome, that meant sneaking up behind stealthed enemy ships for the fun of it. “Do you think you could ease away without being detected?” Ky asked.

  He looked hurt. “I could…but where’s the fun in that? Why can’t I just blow it away? I’m in the perfect position.”

  He was in the perfect position to be blown up himself if he didn’t get out of there, Ky thought. If she didn’t blow him up herself. “We may have need of it,” she said instead. “We’re not getting any other prizes out of this, you know.”

  “Oh.” His face sobered briefly, then returned to that expression of glee. “So…if I offered to buy you another ship the same size, then could I blow this one away?”

  Ky just managed not to let her jaw drop. “I…suppose so,” she said finally. She glanced at Pitt, whose face had gone unreadable again, though she had a very intentional glint in her eye. “Go ahead then, Captain Ransome.” She closed the connection and put her head on her desk for a moment, then looked up at Pitt.

  “And I thought you were a potential loose cannon,” Pitt said. “Who is that decorative character and why are you having anything to do with him?”

  “His name’s Theodore Albert Driscoll Ransome,” Ky said. “He and his friends—who all have long names and about as much sense as wild rabbits—got together in their personal ships to hunt pirates in their home system.”

  “He is good looking,” Pitt said. “If you like that kind.”

  Ky scowled. “What matters to me is that he has three ships with superior speed and maneuverability, he’s richer than stink, and he’s willing to use his ships and his money to help us. I don’t care about his looks.”

  Pitt gave her a long look, then nodded. “The major thought you were too susceptible, but I can tell you’re not. Not now, anyway. Is he trustworthy?”

  Ky shrugged, still a little annoyed that Pitt might think she’d been affected by Teddy Ransome’s looks. “He went where I told him to go, and did what I asked him to do during the fight,” she said. “I haven’t known him long enough to assess his long-range reliability. I suspect, though, that he’ll stick it out as long as it’s exciting and suits his sense of adventure, and then go do something else.”

  “I’ve seen that kind before,” Pitt said, nodding. “They can be useful cannon fodder as long as they do what you tell them.” She looked around again, as if assessing the décor. “So…you want me to convince my commander that this marvelous technology exists and…and what?”

  “See if he wants it,” Ky said. “By the way…Teddy’s forty-seven point three light-hours away. Did you notice any lag?”

  “He was what? That’s…a long way.”

  “Yes. And you know this system’s ansible isn’t working.”

  “Can you confirm the distance?”

  “Your own scan can do that,” Ky said with a shrug. “I agree, the timing of his call was convenient, but he’s out there.”

  “Can you just call our ship on that thing?”

  “No. Each node has to have a unit, and ships are movable nodes. That’s how it was explained to me.”

  “Can it interface with system ansibles?”

  “Not at present. Our units can’t. But I don’t expect that to last, frankly. And if the pirates get that technology before the rest of us—”

  “—we’re all in serious trouble. All right. I’ll need to call and get permission to return.”

  “I’ll take you up to the bridge,” Ky said. “Tell him I’d like to talk to him about this, and other things,” she added. “But when we’re in a secure location.”

  “I’m sure he’ll be interested…though you still haven’t answered his question about who’s footing the bill for this Space Defense Force we never heard of before…surely not the gallant Captain Ransome…?”

  “That, too, is something I’ll want to talk to him about,” Ky said.

  Pitt shook her head. “With all due respect, ma’am, you are getting entirely too canny for one of your tender years.”

  “Captain Vatta!” That was Ransome again, this time with his mop of blond hair in an untidy muddle. “I am delighted to report that the observer ship has been immobilized without injury to Glorious or her crew.”

  “Immobilized?” Ky asked.

  “Well…in a way. I know you would like another ship, and so we…er…fired our EMP mines at her, the whole salvo. She fired back, but our anti-missile missiles intercepted most of theirs and our shields held against the rest. And now she’s dark—not transmitting at all, not moving.”

  “That may not last,” Ky said. “Some ships have self-repairing AI systems.”

  “I know…I was going to ask your permission to board and secure her.”

  “Board—! How big is she?”

  “Larger than Courageous, but not as large as Vanguard,” he said. “My crew have done hostile boardings—we took back ships from those criminals in our system.” From his expression, he might start saying Please, please, please! any moment.

  “I can’t stop you,” Ky said, “but I don’t want to lose you or your crew, and I can’t spare one of the larger ships; we’re all involved in recovering Mackensee casualties. Do you think you should have Furious or Courageous over there?”

  “If you could release Courageous, that would be perfect,” he said, brightening up. “Just in case…”

  “Go ahead, then,” Ky said. “But keep your scans on. Just because you found one—”

  “—doesn’t mean there aren’t others. I understand, Captain Vatta.”

  Ky called Metaire on tight-beam and spoke to Colonel Kalin. “In about forty-eight hours, you’ll pick up warhead detonations here—” She recited the coordinates. “One of our people out there found a stealthed observation ship and immobilized it. They’re trying to board; I’ll keep you informed.”

  “Master Sergeant Pitt’s told me about your…uh…” Ky could see the struggle to find another word. “We do need to talk, Captain Vatta. Assuming Master Sergeant Pitt’s report is accurate, there are…um…both tactical and strategic implications…”

  “Indeed there are,” Ky said. “But since this is not a secure location, I think that talk should be deferred to a better place and time, where we can demonstrate the object.”

  “You would not consider coming aboard Metaire?”

  “Would you consider coming here? I am not comfortable leaving my ship while the situation is so uncertain.”

  “Point taken. No, I can’t come. Our regulations forbid my leaving my command.”

  “We both know Master Sergeant Pitt. I would like to use her as a courier, if that’s acceptable. I realize she has duties to personnel, but—”

  “It’s acceptable.”

  “Good. I’ll be sending along some tactical analysis you may not have yet, and some suggestions based on that, for your consideration.”

  Ky looked at the system plot as she waited for Pitt’s return. If a large pirate force moved in, they were clumped too close. “Move Bassoon out,” she told Pettygrew. “If trouble jumps in, we want to be set up to defend Metaire as well as ourselves. I need to stay physically close for a while, because I’m using a courier to share sensitive data.”

  “Right,” he said. “We’ll keep an eye out. What’s Ransome up to?”

  “Let me get Argelos on, too—” Ky waited until Argelos come into the contact. “Ransome’s found and immobilized a stealthed observer ship,” she said to the
m both. “It was transmitting on the pirate channels; he’s stopped that. Now his crew and the Glorious crew are trying to board and capture it.”

  “He’s an idiot,” Argelos said. “A shipful of pirates? It’ll be a disaster.”

  “Well, he’s done all right so far,” Ky said. “It seemed worth a try to me. If he gets the ship relatively undamaged, we’ll have a chance to learn more about the tech the pirates had.”

  “More than Osman left you?”

  “I don’t know how close Osman was to the power structure of the current bunch,” Ky said. “It’s said thieves fall out with thieves, and certainly there wasn’t stealth tech aboard Vanguard. We need to beware any others; they might have had more than one.”

  “Right,” Pettygrew said. “I’ll keep a careful watch.”

  “Kalin expects a relief group of Mackensee ships to show up in…what is it now, ten days? Anyway, I’ll find out if we need to do something about those mines at the jump point. I know we mapped a safe route through, but if they come in fast—”

  “What about trying to fix the system ansible? It’s only a relay; maybe its inbox is just stuffed.”

  “We don’t have Rafe,” Ky said.

  “No, but I’ve got Dozi Lattin. She thinks it’s possible she might be able to unstick it, if it’s something simple like that.”

  “You can try,” Ky said. “But the watch is more critical right now.”

  “Understood. We’ll just ease up to it and see what she thinks.”

  Pitt arrived back within the hour, on a shuttle with more wounded and a senior sergeant to take over as NCOIC of the contingent billeted on Vanguard.

  “The colonel thinks you’re part brilliant, part crazy, and part scary as hell. That’s a direct quote, ma’am,” Pitt said, handing over a hardcopy packet. “And he told me to say that.”

  “What I am now is hungry,” Ky said. “How about you?”

  “No thank you, ma’am. I ate when I came aboard, you’ll recall. But I don’t mind waiting while you—”

  “Good.” Ky turned to Hugh. “Hugh, have them send something light to my office, please. And patch my office comunit through to the ship’s ansible again. I need to check on Ransome.”