Manticore Ascendant 1: A Call to Duty (eARC)

by David Weber

  The rest of his team had apparently been as bored and impatient for action as he had. Ninety seconds later, all fifty were gathered behind him, just out of view from the hatchway.

  “Shora?” Vachali murmured, not because he needed to confirm the team’s readiness but because it was traditional for a commander to touch base with his second before going into action.

  “Team ready,” Shora confirmed.

  Vachali nodded, his eyes flicking across the stolid faces and coiled-spring-ready bodies. They were certainly a colorful lot. Eleven were in vac suits, with bright-orange stripes to make them more visible in marginal lighting. Twenty wore Republic of Haven naval uniforms. The other nineteen, plus Vachali himself, were dressed in Cascan Defense Force outfits. The EVA team members had their hip pouches in place; the uniformed men had their bulkier kit cases floating at their sides. “EVA teams: go,” he ordered.

  Silently, the vac-suited men split into two groups and headed for the shuttle’s two side airlocks. “Com team, with me,” he continued. “The rest in twos: thirty seconds apart or as conditions warrant. Labroo, you have my case.”

  A moment later Vachali, Shora, Mota, and two of the others were swimming their way down the passageway toward the cozy little interior nest that housed Péridot’s bridge, CIC, and—most important of all at the moment—the ship’s communications center.

  If all went by the plan, Péridot would soon be theirs. If all didn’t go by the plan…well, the ship would still be theirs. It would just cost a lot more blood.

  * * *

  The tour had been fascinating, but by the time the group gathered in the lifts heading down into Péridot’s Alpha Spin section Gill was ready to call it a night. His eyes were tired, his throat was scratchy with the slightly lower humidity the Havenites maintained on their ships, and his head was crammed to overflowing with all the mental notes he’d taken over the past few hours.

  On top of that, his muscles were on the edge of a general all-over ache. People who’d never experienced zero-gee, he knew, usually had a mental picture of floating around like wingless angels in effortless bliss, when in fact it was at least as strenuous as travel through a normal gravity field. None of the weight, all of the inertia, as one of his instructors used to say. Gill was definitely looking forward to giving his upper body a break while his legs did all the transport work for a change.

  Earlier that afternoon, he’d hoped they could take one of the two narrow ladderways down to the wardroom, on the theory that you could learn a lot about a ship’s designer by how he put together his ladders. Now, he was more than content to take the lift.

  From what Captain Eigen had said on the shuttle that morning, Gill had expected the gathering in Péridot’s wardroom to be a much smaller affair than Commander Metzger’s description of the previous night’s dinner. He was therefore somewhat surprised to find the wardroom, if not packed to the bulkheads, nevertheless comfortably crowded. Something over half of them were officers, in a mixed group of Havenite and Cascan uniforms, while the other half were apparently the civilian delegates and their assistants.

  The size of the crowd had evidently taken Eigen by surprise, too. “Captain Henderson?” he murmured as their group filed out of the lift.

  “I’m afraid this is my doing,” Guzarwan spoke up before Henderson could reply. “It occurred to me that my earlier suggestion of limiting tonight’s gathering wasn’t very polite, not to mention highly undiplomatic. So I passed around a more general invitation this morning to the other delegates and arranged to have your steward fly some extra provisions up from the surface. All at Ueshiba’s expense, of course.”

  “I already told you there was no need for that,” Henderson growled.

  “Yes, you did,” Guzarwan agreed. “But I beg you to indulge my government just this once. After all, if we’re going to be allies—” he inclined his head at Eigen “—it would best if we were also friends.” He gestured across the room, toward a short, balding man having an animated discussion with a few other men. “I did of course clear it with Ambassador Boulanger, who I assumed would inform both of you.”

  “Well, he didn’t,” Flanders said stiffly. “More importantly, as Péridot is now under Cascan command, the ambassador has no authority whatsoever aboard her. He had no business authorizing anything, let alone a gathering like this.”

  Guzarwan winced. “Yes, I see,” he said. “My apologies to you, Sir.” He turned to Henderson. “And especially to you, Captain Henderson. I was under the impression that, given all the RHN personnel aboard, that the transition was still ongoing.”

  “No, Commodore Flanders is correct,” Henderson said, his voice marginally less annoyed. It was, Gill reflected, hard to stay mad at a person who was so abjectly apologetic for his lapse of judgment. “We’ll let it pass this time. But in the future, bear in mind that it’s the captain who has final authority aboard his or her ship. Civilian diplomats and even the captain’s own superiors are required to clear all operations and orders.”

  “I understand, Sir,” Guzarwan said, ducking his head. “My apologies.”

  “Now that we’ve got that settled, can we get to the main reason we’re all here?” Eigen asked. “You said you would have information for us.”

  “And my research has indeed borne fruit,” Guzarwan confirmed. “Unfortunately, there’s still one piece that has yet to fall into place. Captain Jalla is crunching the data aboard Wanderer, though, and we should have the entire story within a very few minutes.”

  “Why is Jalla doing the research?” Eigen asked, gesturing toward the silent Kichloo. “I thought Mr. Kichloo was your analyst. If there’s still work to be done, why is he here instead of back aboard Wanderer doing it?”

  “Because I wanted him at my side when I present our findings,” Guzarwan said, some stressed patience creeping into his voice. “Besides, the remaining work is all computerized data-crunching, which Captain Jalla can oversee as well as Mr. Kichloo. It will be only a few minutes more, I assure you.”

  Flanders and Henderson looked at each other. “I suppose we can keep everyone entertained a little longer,” Henderson said, his eyes flicking over to the buffet the stewards had laid out. “But this had better be worth it.”

  “Trust me,” Guzarwan promised. “It will.”

  * * *

  The trick to not looking like you were traveling in a bunch, Vachali had long ago learned, was simply to not travel in a bunch.

  There were risks to that approach, of course. In this case, if one of them was spotted and challenged by a genuine Havenite or Cascan, there would be no backup right at hand to help cajole, bluff, or shoot their way out of the situation. But with two ships’ worth of Havenites to draw on, plus an unknown number of Cascans being groomed for ship’s operations, the odds were that a few freshly unfamiliar faces wouldn’t even be noticed.

  Still, to be on the safe side, he made sure he and Mota traveled the axial passageways together. Mota was one of the best hackers in the business, but the kid was pathetically inept at cajoling, bluffing, or shooting.

  But as expected, neither of them rated even a second glance from anyone else in the passageways. Just as importantly, from the casual pace of the other crewmen and the equally casual tone of their conversations, it appeared that the watch was starting to wind down. Guzarwan had figured that would be the situation, but it wasn’t something Vachali had been willing to take on faith.

  There was no guard outside the communications room when he and Mota arrived. Shora, who’d led this particular intrusion, was already in place, floating outside the hatch and pretending to study his tablet. He waited until Vachali and Mota were ten seconds away, then popped open the hatch and floated inside.

  He was talking to the Cascan-uniformed man and woman in the compartment when Vachali arrived, closing the hatch behind him. “—down your system and route everything through the bridge while we’re running the tests,” Shora was saying to the clearly puzzled ratings. “The lieutenant will
explain further—ah; here he is now.” He swiveled on his handhold toward Vachali, his free hand slipping momentarily beneath his tunic, then swiveled back again to face the two Cascans.

  Neither of them even had time to gasp before he shot them.

  Vachali looked over his shoulder, to see Mota’s anxious face peering in through the hatch viewport. He gestured the other in, and Mota popped the hatch. “Clear?” he asked, his nose wrinkling with the faint smell of ozone.

  “Clear,” Vachali assured him. He didn’t much care for the afterscent of shock rounds, either—the acrid smell of an honest lead-loaded 10-millimeter always seemed more manly, as well as more honest. But using darts that could deliver a lethal current surge from an air-propelled weapon was a hell of a lot quieter than even a silenced handgun. Quieter, really, than anything except a knife. And for the moment, silence was the name of the game. “How long?” he asked.

  “Not very,” Mota assured him as he maneuvered into an angled position above the two dead Cascans and got busy with the com board. “Everyone in place?”

  There was a chorus of acknowledgments from the rest of his team, scattered around the other control areas of the ship.

  “Okay,” Mota said. “Here we go.”

  He leaned in close to the keyboard, punching away like a berserk woodpecker. As he worked, Shora swiveled the chairs around, putting the corpses’ backs to the hatch so that even the small amount of blood staining their tunics wouldn’t be visible to anyone who glanced casually through the viewport. Vachali, for his part, stayed close to the hatch, his back blocking the view, while the scene was being set.

  For all his inexperience with guns and glib, Mota was definitely good at computers. Barely forty-five seconds later, he tapped a final key and nodded. “Bridge, CIC, and Alpha Spin are locked out of the intercom system,” he reported. “You’re good to go.”

  Vachali nodded. “Shora?”

  Shora had already pulled the headset off one of the Cascans and put it on. He nodded to Mota, and the tech tapped a key. “Attention, all personnel,” Shora said in a clipped, military tone and a pretty fair Havenite accent. “All RHN personnel returning to Saintonge are to report immediately to the RHN shuttle at Docking Port Three. I say again, immediately. All other non-essential RHN and CDF personnel are to report to Beta Spin for a special assembly with Commodore Flanders and Captain Henderson. Repeating—”

  He ran through the message again, then signaled Mota to key off. “Okay,” he said. “Let’s see if it works.”

  Two minutes ticked slowly by. Shora and Mota repositioned themselves to face the dead Cascans, feigning an animated conversation with the bodies, again for the benefit of any passersby. With the scene playing out, Vachali could now move out of the way of the viewport and into guard position out of sight beside the hatch. If the ploy didn’t work, the three of them and the other two loitering nearby would have to move immediately on the bridge and CIC. At that point, Guzarwan’s neat little hijacking would morph into a ship-wide running battle, with a toss-up as to whether they and the other teams scattered around the ship near the armory, engineering, and impeller rooms would be able to win the day.

  And then, the viber on Vachali’s wrist came to life, and he breathed a quiet sigh of relief. “They’re on the move,” he reported.

  “The Cascans seem pretty excited, too,” Shora confirmed, his voice sounding distracted as he concentrated on the spotter message coming through on his own viber.

  “Probably heard about all the extra food Guzarwan had brought up and figure they’re in for a treat,” Vachali said. Guzarwan had called it, all right, straight down the line. “Order Team Two to meet me at the Havenite shuttle and Team One to start moving to their Plan A positions. Mota, you have the uni-link relay system frozen?”

  “Completely,” Mota assured him.

  “Good,” Vachali said, pulling his uni-link out of his belt. “Open it up for mine—I need to let the Chief know he’s on.”

  Mota nodded and busied himself with the board again. “You’re in.”

  “Teams are on the move,” Shora added, keying an acknowledgment signal into his viber. “They should be ready when you are. How long do you want Mota and me to hang here after they finish hacking the rest of the security system?”

  “Until the Chief or Kichloo say otherwise,” Vachali said. “And stay on your toes. I’ll probably need you before this is over.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “Movement,” Vachali’s voice came tersely over Guzarwan’s uni-link. “Prime.”

  “Understood,” Guzarwan said solemnly, carefully suppressing the grim smile that wanted to come out. Phase One was complete, and from Vachali’s report it sounded like the plan was exactly on track.

  Now, with the Havenites and Cascans heading like obedient sheep to the pens where their herders had sent them, it was time for Phase Two.

  “You have news?” Flanders asked as Guzarwan put away the uni-link.

  “Yes,” Guzarwan said, putting some darkness into his voice. “And I’m afraid it’s worse than I expected.” He turned, caught Boulanger’s eye from halfway across the Alpha Spin wardroom, and beckoned him over.

  “Well?” Flanders prompted.

  “I’ll be happy to share the full story with you in a few minutes,” Guzarwan said as Boulanger joined them. “But first, I need to have a private word with Captain Eigen and Ambassador Boulanger.”

  “What sort of word?” Boulanger asked.

  “No,” Flanders said flatly before Guzarwan could answer. “Not without me.”

  “Or me,” Henderson seconded.

  “I’m sorry, gentlemen,” Guzarwan said, just as firmly. “It turns out that there’s a larger civilian component to this than I’d realized. I have to give Ambassador Boulanger an opportunity to respond privately to the allegations I’m about to present to you and the rest of the company.”

  Flanders looked at Boulanger. The other shrugged helplessly.

  “I have no idea what this is about,” he said.

  Flanders eyed him another second, then turned back to Guzarwan.

  “And Captain Eigen?” he asked, making the question a challenge.

  “He’s the highest Manticoran official present,” Guzarwan said. “I know he’s not a civilian, but it’s the best I can do. All I can say right now is that he and Mr. Boulanger need to hear this together, and in private.”

  “I have no objection,” Boulanger said. “In fact, I’ll admit to being intrigued.”

  “I have a great number of objections,” Flanders growled. “Captain Eigen?”

  “I don’t like it, either,” Eigen said. “But I’m willing to go along.”

  “Captain Henderson?” Flanders asked, turning finally to the Cascan. “This vessel is under your command. You have the final say.”

  “I agree that it’s ridiculous, not to mention insulting,” Henderson said reluctantly. “But unless we want to whip up some truth serum or a torture wheel it doesn’t look like we’ll ever find out this big bad secret unless we play along.” He fixed Guzarwan with a glare that was probably designed to shrivel junior officers. “Five minutes,” he added sternly. “No more.”

  “Five minutes should be sufficient,” Guzarwan promised.

  Henderson still looked like he was sucking on a sour grape, but he nodded. “All right. There’s a storage compartment at the aft end of the wardroom. You can talk there.”

  “If it’s all the same with you, Captain, I’d prefer to use the conference room near your office on the next level inward,” Guzarwan said diffidently. “The one we saw on the tour earlier. It’s more private, and there are larger displays I can link my tablet into.”

  “Fine,” Henderson growled. “Just get on with it.”

  “Thank you.” Guzarwan gestured to Boulanger and Eigen. “Gentlemen?”

  He led the way to the lift, wondering if any of the others had noticed that Kichloo had drifted away at the same time he’d called Boulanger over to join the
conversation.

  They probably hadn’t. Kichloo was very good at drifting, after all. And military people, despite their fancy uniforms and warships, really weren’t all that observant.

  “Can you at least give us a hint?” Boulanger asked as the lift started up.

  “All in good time, Ambassador,” Guzarwan said. “All in good time.”

  The lift car came to a halt, and the doors slid open. Eigen took a step toward the opening—

  And abruptly reversed direction as Kichloo rolled like a silent ocean wave into the car, the muzzle of his gun pressed into Eigen’s stomach. “Softly, now—very softly,” Guzarwan warned, his own gun pressed against Boulanger’s side. “No shouting, yelling, or screaming. Not even so much as a preliminary deep breath. I assure you we can kill you much faster than you can summon help.”

  Eigen recovered first. “Who are you?” he asked, his voice tense but under good control.

  “The new masters of this ship,” Guzarwan told him. “Depending on your actions over the next few minutes, the transfer of ownership can go through peacefully or with serious loss of blood.”

  Boulanger let out a long, shuddering breath. “Captain, you can’t let them—”

  “Quiet,” Eigen said.

  He hadn’t so much as raised his voice, but Boulanger broke off his protest and sputtered into silence.

  “Very good,” Guzarwan said approvingly. “Here’s how it’s going to work. You and Ambassador Boulanger will accompany us to the bridge and persuade the duty officer to hand over the lock codes for the impellers, helm, and navigation. Once we have the codes and my men have started bringing up the wedge, you’ll give the abandon-ship warning and order the crew to the escape pods. We take off, you get picked up by Saintonge or Guardian or one of the other ships, and the incident will be over. Granted, you’ll end up with some egg on your faces, but at least you and the rest of the men and women aboard will still be breathing. I think that’s a fair exchange.”