Hope's Folly

by Linnea Sinclair

  The ship shuddered, hard. She stumbled, adrenaline spiking as she braced herself against the table. Philip’s hands grabbed her waist, his cane thudding to the decking. Then the room plunged into darkness. Again. And she heard the screech-thud, screech-thud of the blast doors slamming shut as the emergency lights trickled on.

  “What the hell?” She straightened, drawing her Stinger, aware of Philip’s hand on the small of her back. Aware of everything else too, her senses all but prickling. Two power failures?

  “Don’t know, but I don’t like it.” He flicked on the handbeam, playing it quickly across the bulkheads, left and right.

  “Stay there,” she told him, moving behind his chair. But he ignored her command and rose, moving with her. Admirals didn’t have to follow orders, evidently.

  “This one first,” he said, aiming the beam at the double doors to the corridor.

  The palm-pad lights were out. She hit the pad with her left hand anyway, expecting no response and getting none. And not seeing any manual override. But there had to be one.

  She sprinted to the single door to the bridge, the small circle of light pacing her. Those, too, were locked.

  She faced Philip in the dimness. “Where are the manual releases?”

  He came up next to her, holding the beam of light on the panel, frowning. “I honestly have no idea. These aren’t the original door pads. Hopefully Welford or Sparks—”

  “Admiral?” Welford’s muffled voice came through the door.

  Philip leaned against the door. “You break my ship again, Constantine?”

  “It’s not my doing, sir. I swear!”

  “Can you reach Sparks or Adney?”

  “We’re locked in. Everything’s out again. Datapads too.”

  Rya knew that. It was one of the first things she looked at after Philip grabbed her. “Whatever went thump triggered the blast doors,” Rya guessed out loud.

  Philip said something bitter under his breath in frustration. “Get back to that one console that’s hardwired in. If you need us to do something with the units in here, tell us. And get Tramer or Dillon working on the corridor doors. I do not like being held hostage on my own ship, by my own ship.”

  “Yes, sir,” Welford said, his voice fading, but not before Rya heard, “Goddamned Stryker-class bucket.”

  “Let’s pray that’s all this is,” Philip said, his voice hard. He turned the handbeam around, held it toward her. “See what you can find in here that will help us take these palm pads apart.”

  She found several things, including the broken lightpen, which Philip used to pry the faceplates off the palm pads. But no manual door overrides lurked beneath. And their fingers could find no release mechanisms on the doors or doorjambs or decking.

  Small thumps and grunts from the bridge told her Tramer and Dillon weren’t having any better luck.

  “Serious design flaw,” Philip grumbled.

  Rya folded herself down on the decking, her back against the door to the bridge. “This is incredibly annoying.” She didn’t do useless or helpless any better than Philip did.

  He slid down next to her with a grunt, which, seconds later, was followed by a self-derisive snort. “You know, if I was ten years younger and this mission wasn’t so damned critical … ”

  She glanced at him as his voice trailed off. His face was inches from hers, and she was seconds from blurting out that ten years didn’t matter one bit to her. But she knew she might be reading what she wanted into his words. And his face.

  And it would be just her luck that if she gave in to what her body was screaming for her to do—kiss him, right here, right now—the damned blast doors would open, sending them both flat on their backs and embarrassingly so in front of Welford, Tramer, and Mr. Nice Ass.

  Get over it, Rya.

  But he’s not married.

  He’s an admiral. Your commanding officer. Want to be accused of sleeping your way to the top?

  No, she didn’t. But God damn if it might not be well worth the risk.

  He was still watching her. Her arm ached from fighting the desire to reach up and touch his face. But that would give everything away and, if she was misreading him, would also give him just cause for booting her back to Calth 9. Unwanted and inappropriate sexual advances, or however the regulation read. Usually she could quote them word for word. But not now.

  Because something else slithered into her mind. Something she’d heard before and would hear again: Of all the women a man like Philip Guthrie could get, why in hell would he want you?

  Why in hell, indeed? She couldn’t think of one reason.

  But Matt had wanted her, and before him there’d been Jason. In the past seven years, she’d not had trouble finding men for JFFS, as her friends put it. Just For Fun Sex. It was what a lot of her friends her age did, especially when careers were beginning to build and transfers could happen at any moment. Your JFFS buddy kept you from being lonely, gave you something to focus on other than the day’s aggravations. You made each other feel good.

  Then you moved on.

  But Philip Guthrie wasn’t like Matt or Jason.

  She turned her face away with a restrained sigh.

  Then a not so restrained one. Then a real deep breath.

  “They’re back,” she said, darting a glance his way.

  He nodded. “I know. Goddamned oranges.” He angled himself up. “Let’s try that other door again.”

  It took fifteen minutes for the lights to come back on this time and for the blast doors to unlock. Fifteen minutes during which Philip Guthrie questioned his sanity, his morals, and his definitely skewed sense of priority, all the while trying to get the damned ready-room doors open.

  He was worried about his ship and his crew. Images of people trapped in cabins and bays with no one knowing where they were—because there was no goddamned functional crew locator and no working central ship comm-link system yet—kept playing in his mind.

  Whenever every inch of him wasn’t aware of the presence of Rya Bennton.

  He was certifiably insane. He was sure of it. These past few months, the physical damage his body had taken, the stresses of losing one command and gaining another, the deaths of friends and crew—it had all taken a toll. That was the only explanation he could come up with as to why he was so emotionally vulnerable to—and fixated on—Cory Bennton’s twenty-nine-year-old daughter.

  This had to stop. But when the lights had failed again and he’d almost found her in his lap, and then when all means to escape the ready room were exhausted and she was again those few tantalizing inches away from him, and he had the damned stupidity to make the flippant comment that if he’d been ten years younger …

  Hell’s fat ass. He was certifiably insane.

  She was twenty-nine. She was Cory’s daughter. She had some young buck named Matt hot for her back on Calth 9. She was not for Philip Guthrie, divorced, jaded, and limping around like some ancient—yeah, Welford had deemed him so—relic.

  Plus, he had a ship to refit and a war to get under way.

  But when he was around Rya … he just wanted to keep being around Rya.

  This was not good.

  So he’d sent her to check the perimeters and recesses of the blast door to the corridor once more for hidden release mechanisms, because he knew if he sat that close to her any longer he was going to do something stupid.

  Like ask her if she ever dated older men.

  Then the lights flickered on, the palm pads activated, and Rya let out a surprised whoop.

  He was on the floor at that point, trying to pry up a section of the decking. He struggled to his feet, glad she was focused on getting the door open and a chair shoved in that same opening in case things went out again and not watching him do his best flailing-invalid imitation.

  Definitely the way to catch the eye of a woman sixteen years your junior.

  When she turned, he was standing, sweating, and swearing because the blast doors to the bridge had also op
ened. “Welford, get me status! I need to know what in hell’s going on here.”

  Deskscreens lit up, consoles flashed. The datapad on the ready-room desk pinged. Rya reached it before he did. “Commander Adney’s on her way up.”

  Adney arrived, then Sparks, then this team and that organized by Adney and Sparks. Philip sat at the head of the ready-room table, deskscreen up and active, datapad blinking and downloading, headache starting to kick in as his officers came and went with data, reports, small successes, and more problems.

  All because of mechanical failure. Basic, unimaginative mechanical failure on a ship past its prime, cobbled together with low-cost ittle-doos that—for reasons known only to God and the Fates—all decided to reach critical mass today. Just for him.

  Time to start fighting back.

  “I want the locks disengaged on the bridge and ready-room corridor doors,” he told Sparks. “Also my quarters and my office corridor door.”

  Sparks puffed his cheeks out in exasperation. “I don’t recommend that, Skipper. Ready room, okay. The bridge, well, it’s defensible. But your quarters, especially when you’re off duty, sleeping—”

  “Disengaged, Sparks.”

  “I agree with Commander Sparks.” Rya appeared in the open ready-room doorway on his right. He shot her a narrow-eyed glance, because she’d left the bridge an hour ago with Sachi Holton, and Philip had just calmed his brain and body down where she was concerned.

  She shot him a similar glance back. “I’m not one hundred percent sure this isn’t sabotage utilizing already known mechanical flaws. You know there hasn’t been sufficient time to do a thorough assessment.”

  “Sir,” he prompted her.

  “Sir,” she said, but he could tell by the way her hazel eyes flashed at him she hated his decision.

  Sparks coughed.

  Philip realized he and Rya were staring at each other. Or, rather, he was trapped by the intensity of her gaze, which held a distinct similarity to the way she’d looked at him just before she’d launched a forkful of peas at him from across her parents’ dining table twenty years ago.

  “Disengage those locks,” he said, looking abruptly away from her and back at Sparks, perched on the edge of the table. “Discussion on this subject is now officially closed.”

  “I’ll get to it within the hour,” Sparks said.

  Rya ducked back into the corridor. Sparks followed her.

  Adney strode in.

  “I know you wanted to head out for Ferrin’s in two, three shipdays,” she said. “I’m just not confident, even with Sparks working on everything now, that we can do that.”

  She handed him her datapad, and he spent the next ten minutes reading the various reports in grim silence while Adney went to the bridge and came back again. He could have blamed Jodey. He could have blamed Pavyer, the fruit exporter. But the reality was that a good portion of the ship had been inoperative for years because it had functioned strictly for cargo, even when the Farosians had it. Now it was full of live bodies, and those live bodies—living, breathing, eating, showering, and flushing—put stress on long-unused systems.

  Or else—and Rya’s warnings echoed in his head—the two systems failures were designed to look that way.

  “I need to know how close we can get,” he told Adney, synching her datapad to his deskscreen and downloading yet more reports. “Tell Sparks to concentrate on what needs to be done in dock. If there are less-critical repairs we can make under way, push those back.” He wanted to move on his timetable, not dance like a puppet for the Imperials or the Farosians.

  He handed her the datapad, his mind still processing the data as Adney turned toward the bridge.

  “Commander,” he said, calling her back from the double doorway. “One more thing.” He motioned her over. He lowered his voice. “For security reasons, Sparks, you, and I are the only ones who will know our exact departure time until thirty minutes before departure.”

  “Mather … ?”

  “I know you worked with him, and I know you trust him, but I’m not willing to discount anything at this point. The three of us, Dina. That’s it. If anyone else asks, tell them we’re still working on it. Half hour’s notice is all I’m going to give anyone. Fifteen minutes would be preferable.”

  “You think Samling and Mirrow weren’t the only moles.” It wasn’t a question.

  “I don’t discount anything,” he repeated.

  He could tell by the stiff set of her shoulders that Dina Adney wasn’t happy as she headed back to the bridge, again. But happy no longer was an option. Doing everything he could to guarantee the safety of everyone on board was.

  Even the moles.

  In spite of Rya’s assertion that neither the Imperials nor the Farosians were amateurs, there was always a chance that individual agents might panic, or at least try something stupid if things went awry. He needed to force them out into the open, now.

  The Folly’s shakedown cruise was going to be a shakedown in more ways than one.

  He grabbed Con Welford about an hour later and walked each deck on an unofficial inspection tour of the ship, limping a bit less noticeably, he hoped. The Folly was eighty-five percent the old Stockwell, but there had been changes, including new temporary walls in cargo bays and a couple of new access tunnels. Much of the ship’s intraship system had been disconnected. Cargo haulers carried less crew than a military heavy cruiser. Some of the equipment, he suspected, had been stripped out and sold to raise funds. Farosian or fruit, he didn’t know.

  Rya popped in and out of his peripheral vision—and other senses—during the trek. He assumed they were simply on a complementary orbit, but he didn’t discount that Adney had assigned him a bodyguard. But he didn’t need a bodyguard, and especially not one so distracting. He’d have to talk to Adney about that—after he cleared the other three hundred critical things off his plate first.

  Like dinner. Somehow lunch had slipped by him. He realized that as he stood in the general mess hall on Deck 3 and watched Con try to cadge a protein tube out of a recalcitrant dispenser. Philip had told Adney he’d help with galley duties before he’d realized the Folly’s menu was the least of her problems.

  But now … Actually, there was little else for him to be doing. He’d read all the reports, authorized what needed to be done. He’d met with Adney and his command staff. There might be three hundred critical things to finish yet, but at least two hundred eighty-eight of them were under way. The other dozen he couldn’t do one damned thing about.

  He hadn’t read himself on board. Without a working intraship system, it didn’t seem right. But if he gathered most everyone in the mess hall for dinner … A plan formed.

  Philip Guthrie felt useful again.

  He grabbed Con’s wrist, stopping the man from shoving something brown, tubular, and disgusting in his mouth. “Don’t do that.”

  “Sir?”

  He tugged the lieutenant toward the galley doors. “I put an order through for supplies a few hours ago. Let’s see what’s come in.”

  Quite a bit. Three crew were unpacking, shelving, and securing. They straightened, saluting. He returned the gesture, then poked through the open dull-gray plastic duro-hards. He checked perishables. Not bad, he thought, picking up a large yellow roasting pepper and sniffing it. Though if he had access to those incoming funds Sullivan had snagged for him … but they were two shipweeks away yet. A gala dinner, then, when they arrived.

  Con was eyeing him strangely.

  Philip put down the pepper and smiled. “Do me a favor,” he asked, pointing to a workstation against the wall. “Find out from the personnel rosters who’s admitted to a talent for cooking, and if they’re not critical elsewhere, get four or five down here in the next half hour.” He plucked a few boxes and bags from a duro-hard. “We’re going to have ourselves a decent dinner.”

  “Finally,” Martoni said. “This should be the last one.” Rya saw the reflections of the conveyor freightloader’s flashing red lig
hts as they strobed the wide cargo passageway. She stepped closer to the cargo bay’s airlock, where Martoni leaned against a pylon, one of the coveted working datapads in hand. With intraship and comm links still not functioning reliably, the datapads were the only way officers could com municate with one another when they weren’t at a deskscreen.

  Martoni tilted the pad’s screen toward her. “All the supplies Commander Sparkington ordered are here. Eight duro-hards. Same routine as the others.”

  “Not a problem.” She, Martoni, and four other crew had spent the past two hours clearing incoming supplies. Nothing got on the ship unless it was thoroughly inspected, counted, and verified.

  He handed her the pad. “Log everything here, then patch it to a workstation to upload the data to Commander Adney’s files.” He hesitated. “Sorry I can’t give you the comm-link codes for it, but this is Commander Adney’s.”

  That meant she was locked out of all the pad’s functions except for data input and transmittal.

  “I’ll either be in Adney’s office or in divisionals,” he continued. “You can leave it with the commander when you’re done.”

  She waved him on. She and Martoni had been running from one assignment to the next the entire day. Now he was off again for another meeting. She’d finish up here.

  She met the loader’s driver at the base of the cargo ramp, synched the loader’s manifest datapad with hers, and, by the impatient tapping of the stocky woman’s boot, could tell she was taking far longer than the driver liked in double-checking everything. Too bad.

  “Heard you had some mechanical problems on board,” the woman said.

  Rya’s scrutiny hesitated, but only for a second. There was no way the Folly’s problems should have made it to dock. “Just came on shift,” she lied. “Woke up late.” She yawned, then grinned self-consciously. “Did I miss something exciting?”

  “Something about a lift dropping four decks, crashing in one of your shuttle bays, I think.” The woman shrugged.

  “You serious? Anyone get hurt?”

  “Not that I heard.”

  “Well, damn!” Rya disengaged the two units, her mind parsing the woman’s story while she continued her role as cargohand. “Everything looks perfect. You people make my job easier. I appreciate that, you know?”