He slapped intraship, heart pounding. “Sparks, punch it! Hit the gate, now! All hands, brace!”
Philip slammed against the back of his seat as the Folly’s jumpdrives kicked on, hard. Sublights screamed as power flooded the drives. The ship trembled, shaking, and the last thing Philip Guthrie saw before the Folly sliced through the gate was the twisted, rolling image of the Farosian Star-Ripper, literally ripping itself apart.
Jump transit was supposed to be the quiet time, the easy time. With no communication possible in or out, and no other ships to deal with or contact, the crew kicked back or attended to minor matters.
Rya leaned her elbows on the desktop in the vacant office at the far end of divisionals on Deck 2 Aft and scrubbed the heels of her hands against her aching eyes. Whoever stated that was a liar. Or had never worked for Tin Man Welford.
It had been four hours since they crossed the C-6 gate, four hours since they left the decimated Star-Ripper behind. Within ten minutes of gate transit, Welford corralled her—“as the new security chief”— into divisionals with a list of things to do that damned near spanned Calth sector. Her requests to speak to Philip were brushed off.
“The admiral’s extremely busy,” Welford had said tersely, then left before one word of explanation could come out of her mouth. The cat. Disty-boom. The crash of the lifts that had been foretold by the cargo driver before they even left Seth.
She couldn’t even send Philip a message. The deskscreen in the small office didn’t have that capability even if she knew the clearance codes.
She didn’t. Some chief of security she was.
Right now she was vetting the personnel jackets of every officer and crew member waiting at Ferrin’s— over one hundred twenty names. She knew it was necessary. It was on her own list of things to do before they hit the exit gate. But it took Commander Adney two days to clear the seventy-eight currently on board the Folly. Welford wanted it in hours.
Slagging slave driver. No wonder Captain Folly …
The image of the cat growling and spitting while Welford held him by the scruff surfaced in her mind. Captain Folly didn’t like Con Welford at all.
Captain Folly didn’t like disty-boom.
Maybe … Her gut tightened. Who else but Tin Man would know how to rig a bomb? Who else but Tin Man would know where to find something as obscure as disty-boom? Maybe it wasn’t Welford’s size at all that kept him from crawling with her into the maintenance tunnels as the fire raged.
Maybe he didn’t want the fire put out.
No. She paged down another screen, scrolling through a crew member’s references as part of her mind played good cop to her bad cop. Fact: Philip trusted Con Welford. Fact: Con Welford had been on the Loviti. Fact: Con Welford had helped her when Adney didn’t believe her about the intruder.
But they never found the intruder. Could Welford have—
“Bennton, you look tired.”
Rya glanced up, startled, one hand automatically flying to the Carver on her hip. The burly form of Burnaby Mather filled the doorway of the office.
“Don’t shoot!” He raised his hands. Both contained bottles of water. “Thought you might be thirsty. Don’t kill a man for trying to do a good deed, hey?”
She chuckled, releasing her grip on the weapon. He held a bottle out to her.
She stood, leaning over the desk, and grabbed it. “You’re a lifesaver.”
“Not much else for a commo to do in jump.” He pulled the seal off his water bottle. She did the same. “You’re stuck up here, just like the rest of the poor slag-heads stuck in their cabins on Three and Four. I hear the rumblings down there are getting louder.”
When Sachi and Tramer had stopped by briefly, two hours before, they’d mentioned there were two or three complainers, but nothing as bad as Mather made it sound. “People with too much time on their hands.” Rya shrugged. “You know it’s necessary.”
Mather swiveled a gray metal chair around, then plopped down, angling slightly to accommodate the Carver by his side. “Is it? Come on, Rya, do you really think we have some dangerous enemy agent on board?” He wiggled his eyebrows, then took a long draft of water.
She smiled at his attempt at levity, but it was a thin smile. “Someone set that fire.”
“So we’re sure it was set? Not just another malfunction?”
Mather didn’t know about the presence of disatone tylethelene in the lift shaft. He was command staff, off the Nowicki. Philip had given him a Carver. He should have been updated. But Philip hadn’t because there hadn’t been time for a full update meeting since the fire. Well, there was time now, but Welford had blocked any chance of that happening by stashing her in divisionals. Rya took a mouthful of cool water before answering. “Ever hear of disty-boom?”
“Disty what?”
“An accelerant. Highly flammable, highly illegal, explosive. Banned years ago, so I didn’t catch it right away. Neither did Sparks. But it leaves a unique burn pattern. So, yeah, that was no malfunction.”
“We’ve got someone making bombs on this ship? You’re kidding, right?”
“We have the confirmed presence of disatone tylethelene at the source of the fire. It doesn’t mean whoever put it there is still on board. It doesn’t mean they’re not. However—”
“Those intruder incidents Tin Man found. You’re thinking someone got on board, rigged bombs.” Mather’s brow furrowed.
“Bomb,” she corrected. “Unless you know about another one.”
“Me?” He snorted. “I’m just Mather the Commo. Messages in, messages out.”
But he’d served on the Nowicki, was one of the officers handpicked by Captain Bralford to transfer to the Folly. He was part of the Folly’s advance team. Which meant he was not only trusted but had experience. “But you’d know if you overheard something that could relate to explosives. Or saw a message that might be suspect.”
“On this ship? Rya, my dear, you’re damned lucky I could get intraship up and limping. This isn’t Fleet. We don’t have the equipment to intercept. It took me twenty slagging minutes to get a live link with the Nowicki the other day, and it was all shits-and-sticks … Sorry.” He grinned sheepishly. “There was a lot of interference.”
She grinned back. “I know the expression.”
“Anyway, Scruffy—uh, that is, Admiral Guthrie— has all communications locked down, except the bridge and his own. There’s nothing to listen to.”
“Scruffy?” Rya leaned forward, lips twitching. “Scruffy?”
“You’ve never heard him called Scruffy Guthrie?”
“I’ve heard the Great Guthrie.”
“And Guth. Those are names he’ll admit to. But to most everyone who’s served under him, especially once he took over the Loviti, he’s Scruffy. Even Captain Bralford’s called him that. Behind his back.” Mather winked.
Rya thought for a moment. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen him the least bit scruffy.” Not even when rolling on the station floor, Norlack blasting chunks out of the shuttle counter. And not even when he was soaking wet, standing in the ready room, kissing her in the most self-indulgent manner. There was something innately elegant about Philip Guthrie even when he was thoroughly disheveled.
“That’s the whole point.” Mather’s eyes narrowed. “Daddy’s money keeps you looking nice and gets you even nicer assignments on nicer ships.”
“Except this one,” Rya pointed out, even as she considered the suddenly harsh tone in Mather’s voice. He reminded her at that moment of the sneering naked man she’d left in her bed on Calth 9. Whenever he couldn’t get his way, Barrister Matthew Crowley turned petulant. Like Mather did now.
Burnaby Mather was likely near Philip’s age. But his career had been less stellar, and it bothered him.
“Just goes to prove he’s human and, yes, there is a God,” Mather quipped. Then he laughed, his expression lightening. “Wow, listen to me. Telling tales about the Great Guthrie to Cory’s kid. Yeah, he’s had lots of breaks, g
ot the top assignments. But we all know he’s one hundred percent devoted to the Alliance. He’ll ask you to work long hours, but he’ll work even longer ones himself. The Great Guthrie.” Mather shook his head, smiling. “If anyone can get this bucket to Ferrin’s, he can. Providing, of course, someone doesn’t blow us out of the space lanes before we get there with that distoon stuff.”
“ Disty-boom,” Rya corrected. “But don’t worry. If there’s any more of that on board, I’ll find it.”
“What, you think someone has a big jar labeled Disty-Boom sitting in the middle of his cabin?”
“Labels aren’t required when you have Captain Folly.”
Mather frowned again. “Captain—you mean that cat?”
Rya nodded. “I had a piece of the damaged bulkhead from the lift earlier. He went into violent sneezing fits as soon as he came close to it. I’m going to test him later with other sections from the fire. If he keeps sneezing, well, then he’s as good as any high-tech sensor the arson guys use.”
“Get serious, Rya. You’re going to use a sneezing cat as evidence?”
“An animal’s sense of smell is beyond a human’s range. That’s why dogs were used for centuries by arson investigators. It’s a valid methodology.”
“Sounds crazy to me, but what do I know? I’ve never even seen the cat sneeze.” Mather shrugged, rising. He touched his fingers to his forehead in salute. “Security Chief Bennton, I know you have work to do. But at least you’re not as thirsty.”
Rya raised the half-empty bottle. “I appreciate it.”
“Just doing what I can to make things right.” He patted the Carver on his hip and left.
Rya paged up the next prospective crew member’s data as Mather’s boot steps faded. Then there was the muted thud of the blast doors. She stared at the information on her screen, her eyes seeing but her mind refusing to focus.
Something about Mather’s petulance then sudden shift prickled her cop senses. She shook it off. Just because someone doesn’t worship Philip like you do doesn’t automatically make him suspect, she chided herself.
Being skipper of a space bucket wasn’t a popularity contest, her father often reminded her. Still …
She tapped in her security code and pulled up the current ship’s roster, scrolling through until she found Mather, Burnaby. She scanned quickly. If Welford came in and caught her not working on Ferrin’s clearances, there’d be hell to pay.
Okay. She was right on Mather’s age: late forties, a little older than Philip. Graduated from the academy the year before Philip. Mather’s most recent posting to the Nowicki came three years ago, after a transfer off the Waldor Rey. Olefar was the captain. She couldn’t remember his first name, only that her father had little respect for the man.
Mather was third commo on the Rey, third commo on the Nowicki, where he got his COMTAC rating right before the Empire fractured.
He also had several EFS commendations in his file: Exemplary Fleet Service. An EFS was long considered a perfunctory pat on the head, a way to reward someone not good enough to qualify for promotion.
No wonder Mather was bitter. He was the quintessential invisible officer. Never good enough to promote. Never bad enough to demote. He did his job but never went beyond—
But wait. One of the commendations was an EFS-Gold. Personally approved by Darius Tage, the Emperor’s primary adviser. The man who ordered the death of her father.
The commendation came a few months before Mather’s transfer to the Nowicki but without the usual promotion. It was as if Mather just blended back into the bulkheads again.
Definitely reason to be bitter. But was he bitter against the Empire or against Philip Guthrie personally? He was working against the Empire and for the Alliance. Just doing what I can to make things right, he’d said.
Made sense.
Didn’t it?
IMPERIAL SECURITY BULLETIN 73313-X5K:
Encryption Level Aldan 1/Top Secret
Immediate Action Required:
Command Prime is attempting to confirm reports of Guthrie’s departure from Seth prior to the strike team’s arrival. If this is indeed fact, please be aware drastic measures to correct this unacceptable error will now be initiated. This bulletin self-destructs in thirty seconds.
Philip checked the corner of his deskscreen as his door chimed. Command-staff code. He slipped his Carver from its holster anyway. The Star-Ripper was gone. The Folly was in the relative safety of jumpspace. But he had no illusions that they were safe, by any means. Con Welford stepped in through the opening door, eyes slightly narrowed, gray uniform shirtsleeves rolled up to his elbows, hands empty of his usual datapad. Neither Martoni, Tramer, nor Dillon was with him, as they were in the two earlier meetings. And his second in command looked tired, distracted. Defeated?
Ah. Con’s objections to the ploy to use the shuttle surfaced in Philip’s mind along with the informal bet: a bottle of rare Lashto brandy. Con had never been a cheerful loser.
And it had taken him almost four hours to come to Philip’s office alone to admit it. Granted, they were busy with other things—meetings with Martoni, briefings with Sparks, and in between Philip had stopped in sick bay to check on Adney’s progress—but … “You didn’t think my plan would work, did you?” he asked jovially as he holstered the Carver. “Where’s your faith, Constantine? More than that,” he slapped his palm on the top of his desk, “where’s my brandy?”
He waited for Con to take a seat. Con remained standing. “I’m glad it did, sir, but it was a risk. A big one.”
“The risk is over. You still owe me my brandy,” Philip answered.
“I’m concerned about another risk. Sir.”
Sir. Philip finally caught it. Far too many “sirs” from a man he’d known for years. And not a threat against the ship or Con wouldn’t be so obviously hesitant. This was something Con didn’t want to talk about. Philip had a feeling he didn’t want to talk about it either. “Sit, Constantine.”
Con didn’t move. “Requesting permission to speak freely, Admiral.”
“Sit.” Philip didn’t like the sound of this at all. “We’ve served together a long time. Been through a lot. You want to tell me something, you tell me.”
Con sat stiffly and laced his hands together at his knees. “We have been through a lot. That’s why I’m concerned. I think you’re stressed. Pushing yourself too hard.”
“Stressed? Hell, yeah, I’m stressed. We’re all stressed. This is damned near war—”
“I think it’s affecting your decisions. You’re still recovering from your injuries. You know Doc Galan released you only because you gave her no other choice.”
Affecting his decisions? “My leg and hip were injured, Constantine. Not my mind. Or are you saying that’s not working well either?”
“Philip, I’ve known you a long time. I can think of no one I respect as much as you. But since Raft Thirty, since the problems on Sullivan’s ship, you’ve … changed. I can sense it. Jodey sensed it.”
Philip leaned back in his chair and regarded Con through narrowed eyes. He heard echoes of some of the conversations he had with Jodey weeks ago in Con’s words. He was touched by their concern. But they hadn’t seen what he had. “Death has a way of realigning your priorities.”
“So does losing your wife.”
Con’s words hit him like a slap in the face. Philip willed himself not to flinch. “Chaz? You think I’m sitting in this godforsaken bucket because of Chaz?”
“I think decisions you’re making on the Folly are partly affected by seeing her with Sullivan—”
“I’m happy as hell for her! That’s something you and Jodey can’t seem to get through your heads.”
“—and partly by what happened at Raft Thirty. I don’t know what it would be like to see your officers, your friends executed. But it has to have impact. It has had impact.”
“Are you accusing me of neglecting my duties, Mr. Welford?” Philip’s tone went colder than he ever t
hought it could when speaking with Con Welford. His longtime officer. His friend.
Con lowered his face and scrubbed his hands over it. “God, no, Philip. It’s not that.”
“Then what is it?”
Con looked up. “It’s your infatuation with Sub-Lieutenant Bennton.”
Philip felt as if he’d been blindsided. “Rya?”
“You’re her CO. You’re twenty years older than she is—”
“Sixteen.”
“—and she’s an ImpSec-trained assassin with a death wish. No, hear me out,” Con said quickly when Philip leaned forward. “She wants to take down the Empire and she doesn’t care who she has to walk over, kill, or sleep with to accomplish that task. Believe me, Philip, I know. I’ve talked to her and to people on Calth Nine who know her. Sachi Holton is right: Rya Bennton is scary. But you’re so tied up in knots over Cory Bennton’s death and over losing Chaz, you can’t see what you’re doing here.”
Philip realized he was breathing hard. “What exactly is it you think I’m doing?”
“If I didn’t respect you so much, I wouldn’t be forced to say this. You’re making a fool of yourself. I don’t want to see that happen. Jodey doesn’t want to see that happen. Sparks doesn’t want to see that happen.”
“Sparks?”
“You really think no one’s noticed, don’t you?”
“I think,” he said, spacing his words carefully, “someone is creating—imagining—a problem where there is none. Not with me. Not with Rya Bennton. And if anyone on Calth Nine—who in hell gave you permission to do that?” He blurted the last part out, because Con’s admission finally registered: I’ve talked to people on Calth Nine who know her.
“Adney.”
Adney? God. “So on the advice of a woman severely deficient in her mental faculties, you go poking around into Rya’s past?” He didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of his voice.
“This was before Adney’s collapse. I worked personnel clearances with her before you even made Kirro. Bennton’s jacket worried her. It worried me. I checked further and I think,” and he hesitated, taking a breath, “my worries are justified. You said it yourself many times: she’s ImpSec. Not just ImpSec but Special Protection Service. They’re highly, intensely trained. It was ImpSec that hunted down the Loviti crew on Corsau.”
Hope's Folly Page 24
