by Marque
“You still—” Rafe began.
“I thought we were going to be discussing strategy,” Stella said. “Isn’t that right, Ky?”
“Right,” Ky said, switching tracks with some effort. “Now that we have some military assets, we can start doing something.”
“Do we know enough?”
“We know enough to get started,” Ky said. “If we wait until we know it all, we’ll wait forever.” On this she was confident; she saw surprise on Rafe’s face, but Stella just nodded. “But I have a few questions for Rafe.”
“And what are those?” Rafe asked.
“Does ISC know that some of its station managers are corrupted? Will there be . . . repercussions from them . . . if we remove one or two?”
“Remove, as in—”
“Kill,” Ky said.
Rafe went still all over for a moment, then one hand twitched.
“There’s not another quick way to get communications back up here,” she went on. “The station polity has no interest in listening to me. They aren’t suffering; they think they’re better off as they are. Other shippers are suffering, but they’re scared to do anything. Any legal approach will take weeks to months, and he’ll get away while doing more damage. We need him gone, out of his position permanently and quickly. That will give us some legitimacy in the eyes of the others.”
“Killing’s a bit extreme,” Rafe said, in a voice devoid of resonance. “Don’t you think?”
“Not in this instance,” Ky said.
“Ky—” Stella began, then stopped. She shook her head, then went on. “Ky, Vatta’s not—not ever been—that way.”
“Vatta’s not ever been at war,” Ky said. “We didn’t start it; I want Vatta around at the end of it. So, Rafe, what do you think ISC’s reaction will be?”
He was silent a moment, then folded his hands and gave her a steady look. “I think if there’s sufficient evidence of his treachery, they will overlook a . . . an accidental death. At least in the sense of taking no reprisals against other Vatta. I think they will be upset, however. It sets a bad precedent. ISC has never allowed anyone—government, commercial entity, whatever—to judge its people.”
“They didn’t take care of it,” Ky said. The edge in her voice surprised even her; she saw in their faces that they were both startled. “It cost lives—is costing lives. My position is that I am doing what they would do, and they had best accept it.”
“You sound almost as if you’re threatening ISC, Captain.” She did not miss the shift to formality. “If that is so, then I must remind you where my primary loyalty lies.”
“I hold your partnership agreement at present,” Ky said. “If you forswear that—”
He winced. “I know that. But—but you are asking me—perhaps asking me—to breach an older trust.”
“I don’t think so,” Ky said. “As an ISC agent—however covert—you are being asked to consider whether this ISC employee is guilty—”
“Oh, he’s guilty, all right,” Rafe said. “No doubt at all. Deep in the conspiracy. I have the evidence, too; I was on my way back to the ship with it when your people got in that trouble in the store.”
“Well, then. What would ISC do, assuming they had the resources at hand?”
“He’d be . . . all right, he’d be dead. We do have an . . . an enforcement arm that is . . . not subject to any governmental restrictions. So, do you want me to take him?” He looked haggard now; Ky wondered at that.
“Would you?” she asked. He stared back, his expression grim, and did not answer at once. She went on. “I expect you’d wait for orders from home. I expect you’ve had to do it, and don’t like it.”
“Not much,” Rafe said. His voice was breathy with the effort to keep it light.
“Then leave it to those who do,” Ky said. Stella drew in a sharp breath; Ky did not look at her. “What I ask of you, as the ISC representative, is agreement that he is guilty, that there is sufficient evidence, and that a quick removal is in the best interests of . . .” Her voice failed for an instant, remembering too well in the best interests of the Service . “—of ISC and its customers.”
Rafe nodded. “That—that I can do. I do not see a conflict between the partnership and my loyalty to ISC in making such a report.”
“Good,” Ky said. She smiled, but neither of them smiled back. Stella looked as if someone had hit her in the stomach; Rafe simply continued to look grim. “I’ll tell our liaison. They want to talk to you about the evidence.”
“It would be a good idea for me—for someone from ISC to have custody of it,” Rafe said. “And to give them authorization.”
“Do it,” Ky said. “We might as well clean up the whole mess while we’re about it. Lee can set up the secure line for you on the bridge.”
“You surprise me,” Rafe said, as he got up. He left without saying anything more.
Stella put out her hand as if to touch Ky’s arm, then withdrew it. “Ky . . . I almost feel I don’t know you. I mean, when you said leave it to those who do . . . you didn’t mean yourself . . .” She let that trail away, then shook her head. “Of course not; you mean the mercs. I suppose they’d have to.”
Ky’s stomach tightened. On the one hand, Stella was her closest family member; she should tell Stella the truth. On the other . . . she could not face what she expected of Stella’s reaction. Not right now, anyway. Later, maybe.
“I’ll need a complete assessment of our financial situation,” she said instead. “I’m going to try to get a few other ships to sign on with us as a convoy under Mackensee protection. We can spread the cost that way. But even so, we’re going to have to be careful. That defensive suite wasn’t cheap.”
Stella nodded. “Right. And good idea about the convoy, Ky.”
“Thanks. It’ll depend on how scared the remaining traders are about attacks in dock.”
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
Ky made it to the bridge before Rafe was through talking to their liaison. He looked grim; Lt. Commander Johannson looked satisfied.
“We’d like to have your . . . agent . . . aboard for this,” Johannson said. “As he has ISC authorization.”
“Rafe?” Ky said, looking at him.
Rafe grimaced. “My value, to you and ISC both, is at least partly in my being known only as a ne’er-do-well. If I’m part of the hit—”
“I didn’t mean part of the team,” Johannson said. “In fact we’d rather not have you; we have enough unknowns in the equation already. But aboard ship here, in direct communication, ensuring that our people got the right . . . mmm . . . evidence.”
“Then only a shipload of your people would know who I am,” Rafe said. “And how many is that?”
“Do you really think—” Johannson began, then stopped. “All right. I see your point. Even if they don’t know your name, information could be stripped from them. Disguise?”
Rafe gave Ky a strange look. “Could I pass as Vatta, Captain?”
“The only Vattas declared aboard are me, Stella, and Toby,” Ky said. “You’d have to have been . . . oh . . . hiding out on Allway, or something. Maybe a Vatta ne’er-do-well? Old Uncle Jonas, ditched from the family for . . . I don’t know . . .”
“Being a ne’er-do-well,” Rafe said. “It doesn’t have to be specific, whether I got the second upstairs maid pregnant with twins or embezzled to cover my gambling debts. Years ago and no one knew it; I’d been erased from the family tree. Of course that doesn’t explain how I know what I know.”
“Bad boys don’t explain,” Ky said.
Rafe shook his head. “You are entirely too knowing for a young sprig of Vatta virtue, Captain. I begin to think you’ve spent some time in the back alleys of the universe yourself.”
“So . . . is that the story?” Johannson said, clearly impatient with their badinage.
“All right. I’ll use the same cover name,” Rafe said. “I was suddenly recalled to a sense of family duty when the Vatta ship blew up at Allway—or Stel
la seduced me, whichever is more believable—and Captain Vatta here put my nefarious skills to good use.”
“Coming aboard may be a problem,” Ky said. “You know—well, maybe you don’t—but we don’t have a standard passenger lock, only the emergency.” At least the hatch would work smoothly now.
“We’ll send a pod,” Johannson said. “Do you need a suit as well?”
“I have a suit,” Rafe said. “I might just mention how much I hate wearing it.”
“You might get yourself into it and start checking it out,” Ky said.
“Give some women command and they go . . . all right, I’m going.”
Ky turned to the vidscreen. “Any progress on the convoy specs, Commander?”
“Yes: we can handle four ships, including yours. I’ll transmit the list of those we think acceptable, ranked by our preference, which of course need not be yours. And there’s a red list, of ships we would not accept.”
“Fine. I’ll start contacting captains at once.”
Captain Solein Harper of My Bess looked just as forbidding as the first time Ky had talked to him, but at least he didn’t cut off the contact the moment he saw her face.
“You’ve probably heard we’ve hired Mackensee for our next voyage,” she said.
“I heard,” he said. “Two warships to a trader is pretty hefty protection, I’d think.”
“So it is,” Ky said. “Would you be interested in convoy space?”
“Convoy?”
“Mackensee assures me that they can protect four ships in fairly close convoy.”
“Where are you headed?” He wouldn’t have asked that much if he hadn’t wanted to come, she knew.
“Haven’t decided yet,” Ky said. “Where were you bound?”
“Nowhere until I can be sure of communications, but I’m eating up profit sitting here.”
“Communications here will improve shortly,” Ky said, hoping she was right. “If you’re interested, a convoy share will be one-quarter the escort cost, minus the Vatta basic contract. Ten thousand.”
“Ten thousand! What, you think I haul platinum or something? Eight.”
“Nine,” Ky said. “For you.”
“Done,” he said. He would have gone to ten, she knew, if she’d pushed. But nine was a big help, and his goodwill might be a bigger one. “In Vatta accounts here?”
“On safe arrival,” Ky said.
“Ah.” His face relaxed; now he looked tough but not vicious. “That’s honorably done, Captain Vatta. You’ll want another one or two, will you?”
“You have someone to recommend?”
“Polly Tendel—independent, fairly new, broke off from Dillon four years ago. Seems a decent sort, kind of rough around the edges.”
Ky glanced at the Mackensee list. Tendel was there, though not in the first five. “All right. You want to contact her?”
“I can . . . same terms?”
“Yes.”
A half hour later, Ky had the rest of the convoy lined up: Harper’s My Bess, Tendel’s Lacewing, and Sindarin Gold’s Beauty of Bel . All the ships had passed muster with Mackensee, and—according to the transmissions from the station—all were in the process of clearing for departure. As the contract specified, Mackensee had control of the convoy, and thus the rendezvous point. Ky let them handle it. She spoke to Rafe before he transferred to the Gloucester, then tried not to hover over her engineering crew as they finished installing the new defensive suite. She could not resist loading the installation manual to her own workstation, where she could follow their progress without interfering.
She caught herself yawning, and remembered that many hours ago she had been wishing for time to take a nap before the Mackensee officers came aboard. Had she really been awake that long? Another jaw-cracking yawn, and she decided that awake might not be the right term. She called down to Engineering.
“What now?” Quincy asked.
“Sorry,” Ky said. “Just letting you know I’ll be in my cabin, hopefully asleep. You need a break, too.”
“I had one, and it’s about time you did. I’ll put anything new on your board.”
Stella, when Ky came into her cabin, said the same thing. “And someone will call you if they need you; you know that.”
“Yes, Cousin,” Ky said. She should shower . . . but she was on the bed, asleep, before that thought ended.
When the call came, she’d had almost five hours of sleep. It was Rafe, on the Mackensee ship.
“I’m going to have to go with them,” he said. “I can’t . . . explain how certain things work, and how to secure the evidence needed without compromising my other oaths.” He grimaced. “Not as part of the . . . er . . . main team, but in a separate group. These people don’t trust me, which I suppose is natural, so they won’t let me go to the local office alone.”
“If it’s necessary,” Ky said.
“Oh, it’s necessary.” Rafe glanced aside; though only his face appeared on the screen, Ky was sure he was conveying the presence of an auditor.
“Well, then . . .” Ky couldn’t think what to say. Be careful seemed both unnecessary and insulting.
“I believe Lieutenant Commander Johannson wants to speak to you,” Rafe said, turning away.
“Captain Vatta,” Johannson said, coming into pickup range. “The other ships in the convoy are now beyond primary danger range, headed for rendezvous. Your representative has convinced us there is sufficient reason for the actions planned. I must now formally ask if your orders concerning ISC personnel remain?”
“Yes,” Ky said.
“All right; just checking. We’re scheduled to start the operation within the hour, with the transfer of your representative and certain other personnel.”
“What’s the plan?” Ky asked.
“You mean in detail?”
“Yes,” Ky said.
Johannson frowned. “It’s need-to-know, ma’am,” he said. “I don’t think you should be too concerned—”
“We studied this in the Academy,” Ky said. “I’m just curious to know how you’d go about it.”
He looked askance, eyebrows high. “You studied how to set up a take-out?”
“Yes. It was part of special ops, level two.”
“Slotter Key must be an interesting place,” he said. “Suppose you tell me how you’d set it up, and I’ll tell you if you’re right.”
Ky thought back to Colonel Aspin’s lecture. “You can do it with a minimal team, if you have to,” she said. “Sniper and spotter. Better is a half squad, and better yet a squad. Squad leader commands the squad, but the spotter ranks the sniper. Ideally, you’ve got plenty of intel about the area. You have routes in and out planned. You are hot on com, half the squad spread, covering the routes, the other half in reserve.”
“Hmmm. So . . . what do you know of the station manager’s routine?”
“Not much. I know the ISC offices are on Hub Three, and I’d presume the manager’s would be the most secure . . .” Rafe knew. They knew Rafe knew; they had Rafe aboard with them.
“Almost. Quite central, anyway. He lives on the same hub, two sectors away. Travels any of five routes, all distinct, and has staggered random times for arrival and departure. Once he’s past the first intersection, he can be almost anywhere.”
“Tagger? We were told to tag if possible.”
“Tags are traceable. We prefer CAID—you know what that is?”
Ky did. It was considered the latest and best method of remote identification. “So you’d have a plan, and internal line of travel, from each of his known alternate routes, plus a way of detecting if he’s off track and getting someone to him. Here, you’d probably use your people who were stationed here in the recruiting and consultancy positions. They know things about the station that aren’t in the public specs, I’d bet.”
“They do,” Johannson said, without elaborating further.
“Now you need some kind of disturbance,” Ky said. “Something to cover the moments
around the hit, give the sniper time to break down the weapon and move out of the range of concern. Lots of ways to do that, but there’s another place your local staff could help. Bet they’ve made friends with people onstation.”
“You do have the main elements,” he said. “But I still see no reason for you to know the specific details. One of the rules you haven’t quoted at me yet is, there’s no such thing as secure communications.”
“You’re right,” Ky said. She didn’t want him to be right. She wanted to see it all, learn it, but in this instance learning could be followed by dying . Though she was paying for them to take the risk, that didn’t justify making it bigger. She left it there, not asking how big a team would go with Rafe to secure evidence and get the ansible working properly again.
Hours crawled by. She didn’t know when to start worrying, when to stop worrying. They were still in close enough to pick up some near-com chatter, but Ky could make little out of it. Ship to ship, the convoy reported in as they cleared local traffic control. Ky, on her own bridge, waited for what she could not really anticipate . . . except trouble. Going back to sleep was not an option. Instead, she munched on food she barely tasted, and tried to concentrate on the operating manual for the defensive suite.
Finally theREADY light on her Mackensee-installed secure com winked; Ky keyed in access. “Got ’im,” was the terse response. “Clean, employee’s agent reports ansible hookups restored, and backfiles accessed. Estimates less than fifteen minutes to open ansible contacts and file dumping.”
“If anyone else has a working ansible,” Ky said. “The backfiles should be interesting, though.”
“We already have someone working on ours,” Johannson said.
Lee turned to her. “Captain, the Lastway ansible reports eight blocks of stored messages for Vatta personnel . . . haul or wipe?”
“Haul ’em all,” Ky said. “Somewhere in there might be a clue to what exactly is going on.”
Ship chatter rose around them as the Lastway ISC operation opened the equivalent of vast ears and tongue and began responding to everyone. Evidently Vatta messages hadn’t been the only ones sequestered.
“Hailing Vatta ship Gary Tobai, “came from Tendel on Lacewing . “What happened to the ansible? We’ve got a mass of backfile messages.”
