Given what the footage actually showed, he saw no specific reason to disbelieve the rumours.
He walked to one of the wide windows of the observation gallery and looked down into the section of Arrivals beneath him. Some kind of civilian transport must have arrived recently at one of the docking ports serving this part of the ring, because crowds of people were making their way towards the gates.
Something caught his eye. There at one of the gates was some kind of disagreement; a woman with an older man, the man arguing with the guard. The guard had something in his hand, was gesturing with it. It was a swab pack.
Someone doesn’t want to be DNA screened, thought Brant. You’re not just fleeing the Shaeld Hratha, are you old timer?
He smiled to himself, and looked at the woman.
She was slim, quite pretty, and had short, bobbed hair which looked to be a deep chestnut colour. Bronze glimmered across it as she moved her head. She wore a close-fitting two piece suit and, bizarrely, she was sucking a lollipop.
His heart stopped.
He pressed his link, asked for security. He found himself talking quietly, as if the woman below might somehow hear him through the glass and the distance.
“Yes. It’s Operator Brant. There’s a man arguing with the guard at Arrivals, gate thirty-one. He’s with a woman; she has a lollipop. They’re extremely dangerous— what? No, of course not because of the lollipop. At least one of them is an enemy agent. Get them contained, quickly.”
He ended the call, and kept his eye on the pair. The argument had become heated. That in itself was not unusual; hardly any of the people coming in these days were aware of the new security protocols, and it had caused a great deal of animosity towards the gate staff.
No, what was unusual was that the man was travelling with Amarist Naeb.
She had changed her appearance since he last saw her: cut and coloured her hair, put some weight on again, added makeup and an expensive outfit, moved with the easy confidence of a celebrity.
But it was definitely her.
He waited until a ring of armed security officers had the pair surrounded, then went to join them.
• • •
Aker Santani scrutinised Fleet Admiral Bel-Messari across the desk. Light bounced off the top of his head. His finger nails needed a good trim. Frankly, his fingers and hands might have benefited from a quick shave. He had had to push his chair back a little to make room for his paunch.
Senior officer or not, she thought, you’d be kicked off my bridge until you sorted out your appearance.
They waited in silence until Admiral Kalabi arrived, hurrying in and making her apologies. Another victim of the delays on Fort Herses’ docking ring, Santani assumed. The fortress was routing so many refugees now that it was difficult to get through security in a timely fashion, even if you were a flag officer.
“Captain Santani,” Bel-Messari said, “are you quite happy that Admiral Kalabi acts as the second ranking officer in this meeting?”
“Absolutely,” Santani said. She glanced over at the other woman, and saw Kalabi raise her eyebrows briefly in an encouraging manner. “I can’t think of anyone more suited to the task, given what happened at Meccrace.”
“Quite,” said Bel-Messari.
He tapped at his holo, ignoring them both. Santani wondered why he could not have done that while they had waited for Kalabi to arrive.
She realised she was perched at the edge of her seat. It had been days now since she was given a date for this hearing, and all she wanted was for it to be over. To have an answer. She forced herself to relax into the chair, as subtly as she could.
Bel-Messari looked up. “I will be frank with you, Captain. It’s obvious now that the massive ship you described at Woe Tantalum probably was there, and that it was almost certainly one of these craft we now recognise as Shaeld Hrathan ‘dreadships’. That’s no longer in dispute.”
“As I’ve been saying all along, Admiral, it would have been a strangely prophetic thing for me to have made up.”
“Indeed. Now, the main issue we have is with your decision to ram your ship — the ICS Hammer — into the planet. That’s not gone down particularly well with Fleet Command, and obviously it goes without saying that the families of your deceased crew members are baying for blood.”
“With respect, Admiral, that was not the decision I made.”
“I have read the report you filed.”
Kalabi interjected. “I’d like to hear this anyway.”
“Very well.” Bel-Messari gestured towards Santani, sat back in his chair.
Santani had rehearsed for this moment, oh so many times.
“The strategic situation in orbit of Woe Tantalum was untenable,” she said. “It was a fight I could not win. Nor could I simply withdraw and leave our assets on the surface — one of which, I would point out, was a Shard of Her Imperial Majesty. I had no choice but to take Hammer into the atmosphere.”
“Again, that’s not really disputed. Our analysis of the logs from Disputer supports that aspect of your account.”
“The problem I had was that options kept disappearing. The dreadship followed us into the atmosphere, and it could still target us even then. There was nowhere to put the ship down safely — although we would presumably still have been under fire even if there were such a facility — and breaking for orbit again would have been suicide. Hammer simply didn’t have the capability to defeat that ship in a straight fight. We needed more firepower, and the only asset available to us at the time was the planet’s quarantine network.”
“And did you know,” Bel-Messari said slowly, “that it would target you as well?”
Time to gamble with the truth.
“Yes, I did. However I would say that I was hoping Hammer was small enough to only be in range of a few of the platforms, and tough enough to weather their barrage.”
“You took a calculated risk,” said Kalabi.
“Exactly.”
Bel-Messari drummed his fingers on the table for a moment.
“Captain… it’s a close thing, but it does sound to me as though you made a decision based on desperation rather than tactical insight.”
“Well, Admiral, the situation was desperate.”
Kalabi shook her head very, very slightly, as if trying to tell Santani that that was the wrong thing to say.
“But,” Santani hastened to add, “It’s not as though I wanted Hammer to be put out of action. It’s not as though I wanted half the crew to die. You know, it’s a funny thing Admiral, but I keep hearing about all the people who died on Woe Tantalum. Yes, it’s tragic. No, there’s not a moment that goes by that I don’t hate myself for my part in it. But do you know what I don’t hear, Admiral? I don’t ever hear anyone mentioning the hundreds of people who are only alive now because those platforms got switched on.”
Admiral Kalabi beamed at her. Positioned as she was next to Bel-Messari, and with him looking at Santani, he had no idea that his colleague was secretly signalling a well done to the captain.
Kalabi’s face became instantly neutral in the same second that Bel-Messari turned to her.
“Admiral Kalabi?”
“Works for me,” she said cooly.
“I honestly wasn’t sure what I wanted from you in this meeting, Aker,” Bel-Messari said. “But now you have said that, I realise it’s exactly what I needed to hear.”
“Thank you, Admiral… I think?”
“Yes, you’ll be reinstated to rank.”
“Definitely thank you.”
Bel-Messari pushed a holo across the table towards her. She reached for it, pulled it towards her, and stared at the schematic.
“What is this?”
“That,” said Bel-Messari, “is a brand new Huntress-class heavy battleship, currently under construction at Hepira shipyard and destined to join the Fourteenth Fleet next month.”
“I don’t understand. Why am I looking at it?”
“Her Radiant Majesty, in
light of the current crisis, has ordered several of our shipyards to increase production, and to reallocate current builds to those fleets with Seawall losses. That ship will be ready within the week, and it will not be joining the Fourteenth. It will be joining the Second Fleet, registered as the Hammer II.”
“You mean…”
“Yes, Captain. That will be your new command. I trust you will take better care of her than you did her predecessor.”
Santani could not help herself; her eyes misted up. She had expected — and almost hoped — to be subjected to a formal disciplinary and the punishment of a desk role. But this…
“I don’t know what to say.”
“We’ll start trying to source a crew for you straight away,” said Kalabi. “I would imagine many survivors of the original Hammer will want to get back in action, and there may be some transfers available, but backfill is probably going to account for the majority of your new staff. Some of your crew are going to be very young in service; you might even end up with graduates fresh out of the Academy.”
“I’m sure I will manage.”
“I’m sure you will,” said Bel-Messari. “The ship’s holographic cores are already installed, and your security tokens will be uploaded within a few hours. So if you would like to inspect the areas which already have life support, you’re entirely welcome to do so.”
“There’s a regular shuttle service between Ramm Stallahad and Hepira yard,” said Kalabi. “It’s for the local work crews, of course, but it’s reasonably quick.”
“I’ll have someone let you know when your security has been coded,” said Bel-Messari. “They’ll show you where to go for the shuttle.”
Santani could barely trust herself to believe any of what she was hearing. Just like that, she was back in the game.
“Are you all right, Captain?” Kalabi asked.
Great. Crying in front of two admirals.
• • •
“Well, you’ve certainly changed a lot since we last met.”
Amarist Naeb stared back at Brant, an amused half-smile on her face. She had not spoken a word when she and Pammon were surrounded on the docking ring, nor when they were escorted away at gunpoint. Now she was in a holding cell, with Brant stood facing the chair to which she was shackled, and still she maintained her silence.
It was just like old times.
“Maybe not that much though, hey? You’re still a quiet one.”
She tilted her head, just a little, watching him with a predatory glint in her eyes.
“Why did you come to Laeara?”
No answer.
“Planning on repeating what you did on Kosling?”
No answer.
“What did you do with the Hector?”
No answer.
“You know, Amarist, if you don’t talk, you will be put away somewhere secure until either you become more cooperative, or you die of old age.”
Still nothing.
“Although, all things considered, it’s perhaps more likely you’ll be taken apart in a lab.”
Not a flicker.
“You know you barely killed anyone at Kosling? Sure, you destroyed the station, but we can build another one.”
He thought he saw her mouth move, but it was so slight a change that he may well have imagined it. He decided she might respond to a different tack.
“We’re learning a lot about what you are, you know,” he said. “All those friends of yours we captured on Woe Tantalum; they’re teaching us a great deal. Of course it would all be much faster if you just told us what you are, what you want. Who it is pulling your strings.”
She laughed nastily.
“I said something funny?”
“Oh, poor Occre Brant,” she crowed. “Playing the interrogator? Really? Why don’t you get Tirrano down here instead, and you can go sift some data. Branathes always thought she was a better operator than you. You do know that, don’t you?”
“I see,” he said. “What else do you know about Gordl Branathes?”
“Everything.”
“Be more specific.”
“I told you; everything. I know his thoughts, his moods, his desires, his fears. I know what he had for lunch on the third day of last month. I remember his childhood. I know everything he knew, and I know what plans he made for the future. Everything.”
“And how could you know all that?”
She laughed again, this time louder and for longer. It was as if he had said something hysterically funny, but for the life of him he could not see what that was.
“Answer me.”
“Because,” she gasped for breath, “I am all of us. We are me. I am.”
“Right,” he said. “I’ll be back shortly.”
He left the cell, and moved swiftly down the corridor towards the holding area control room. If she wanted to play it like an idiot, then she could have some time to cool down. In this context, ‘shortly’ meant a few hours: hours without company, refreshment, or even the option of standing up when her buttocks eventually went to sleep.
It was hardly torture per se, but it might make her start thinking about her long term future.
“You can secure three,” he told the woman in the control room. “Give me access to nine.”
“Yes Sir. Nine is ready for you.”
He walked farther down the corridor until he reached the holding cell containing Pammon, and entered.
Pammon, like Naeb, was shackled to a chair; the only piece of furniture in the bare, featureless room. Sat down, he did not look like much to be afraid of. But there had been a moment on the docking ring when something in his eyes had warned Brant to be very, very careful of him.
“We’ve run your DNA, Mister Pammon, and we know exactly who you are—”
“You see,” said Pammon, “what you have to understand is that when I say ‘I am’, I really do mean it in the most fundamentally literal of senses.”
Brant blinked at him. What an odd thing to say.
“I should thank you actually, Mister Pammon. Someone recently asked me to find you, and here you are. As large as life.”
“What a wonderful phrase! ‘As large as life’. Oh yes, I do like that. You are a poet, Occre Brant. And yet I doubt you have any idea how ironic those words are, how… prophetic.” Pammon leaned forwards, and the shackles grated against the chair. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll let you live long enough to find out, eh?”
This should really not be such a ball-ache, Brant thought. Pammon is even more mad than Naeb.
He left the cell.
“I’m going back to three,” he said as he passed the control room.
He returned to Naeb’s cell, opened the hatch, and stepped inside.
“Can’t say fairer than that,” said Naeb. “It’s not as though you of all people are going to get in my way, is it?”
“What?” Brant said.
“Do pay attention,” said Naeb. “I’m trying to—”
Brant had stepped back through the hatch while she was speaking, and he slammed it shut while she was still mid-sentence.
He ran past control — “Nine!” — and stepped through the hatch to Pammon’s cell.
“—talk to you. Isn’t that what you wanted?”
It’s one conversation, he thought.
“You look perturbed, Occre Brant. Are you starting to understand?”
“I think I am, yes.”
“You can’t possibly win. You do know that, don’t you?”
“What is it you want?” Brant asked. “You expected to be caught here, didn’t you?”
Pammon smiled, and Brant’s blood ran cold.
“Indeed. Bring me Doctor Bel-Ures, if you would be so kind.”
“Why in the many worlds would I want to do that?”
“Because if you do not, there will be severe consequences.”
“You must want her really badly, to occupy the Meccrace system and then risk your own lives coming here.”
“I am not ris
king my own life. This body is meaningless to me, as was that of Gordl Branathes. I am quite prepared to destroy Fort Laeara right this very moment, believe me.”
“You’re the one they’re calling Voice.”
“Am I? That’s just a word, Occre Brant. An empty, randomly chosen word.”
“Nevertheless, I think that’s who you are.”
“Well, it’s complicated. Now hurry along and make the arrangements. Time is ticking away for Fort Laeara.”
“Ticking away to what?”
“Severe consequences. I do believe I mentioned that already. One day, that’s all you have.”
Brant opened the hatch and stepped through.
“Good lad.”
He slammed it closed, asked control to ensure both cells were secure, and left the holding area. Once he was back in the open, free corridors of the station, away from the sterile and forbidding detention level, he hit his link and requested Tirrano.
“What is it Brant?”
“Those people I mentioned, who were snagged at Arrivals…?”
“What about them?”
“They’re both Mouthpieces. They’re Voice.”
“Are you sure?”
“One of them says that if we don’t hand over Bel-Ures, there will be consequences. I think they mean to destroy the fortress.”
“Get real, Occre. We have them in custody, and half the armada is right outside.”
“I really don’t think it’s quite that many ships—”
“Well, however many. It’s still a lot. Most of Seawall’s stragglers are passing through here.”
“And half of them are in no fit state to fight. A single dreadship could paste them all.”
There was a pause, and he imagined her struggling to find a way of agreeing with him without it looking as though she had been wrong.
“They would likely send more than one dreadship, if Meccrace was anything to go by.”
There it was. “Yes, Peras. I imagine they would.”
“I’ll alert Fleet.”
“There’s something else: Caden’s report, from Meccrace. Voice claimed he never goes anywhere unaccompanied. There might be Shaeld Hratha on the fortress right now.”
“Right. Then we have a serious problem. I’ll see if we can detect anything onboard Laeara that shouldn’t be here. You find out whatever you can about Doctor Bel-Ures and her oh-so-secret work. Go right up the chain, tell them I sent you and tell them why. First Meccrace, now this: she must be very important to them and that means she’s very important to us too.”
Books One to Three Omnibus (Armada Wars) Page 74
