Roche removed her hand from the switch and checked the name in the ship’s datapool; it didn’t register. Although she was no rigid stickler for standard military procedure, as Klose was, there were some broad guidelines she simply wouldn’t break. Admitting a mysterious visitor at her door in the middle of a potentially dangerous maneuver while on a priority mission was one of them.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m going to need a positive ident before I let you in. Come back later, when we’ve docked, and maybe we can discuss it.”
Symbolically turning her back on the door, she switched off the intercom.
With a hiss, the door slid open behind her. Roche’s left hand was instantly on the cover of the valise, slamming it closed, while her right reached across the narrow work space for her service pistol. The grip slid smoothly into place as she snap-turned to face the intruder.
Her breath caught in her throat.
His skin was very dark, almost chocolate-brown, and he was tall, a full half-head taller even than herself, with strong shoulders, a wide chest, and powerful hips and upper legs. He was dressed in a simple grey shipsuit, and its narrow fit accentuated the impression of power. He reminded Roche of an oversized Surin war-dancer—exuding a rare physical presence that went beyond simple strength—except that he appeared to be completely hairless. And looked like a Pristine Human, not an Exotic.
The smooth dome of his skull was lit by the overhead door-light as he took a step forward into the room. The flow of muscle beneath his shipsuit was powerful, oddly graceful, and potentially very dangerous.
Roche reacted with alarm. “Hold it right there,” she barked, gesturing with the pistol.
“I don’t understand,” he said, raising his hands placatingly. “Why did you let me in if—”
“Me let you in? I told you to go away. The door was locked.”
Despite the pistol trained on him, his eyes betrayed not the slightest hint of fear.
“I didn’t open it.” He glanced over his shoulder at the door, which remained open, then back to her. “If you want me to leave—”
“No, wait.” She grasped the handle of the valise and lifted it off the desk. “I want to know what you’re doing here.”
He lowered his hands slightly and took another step inside. The door slid shut behind him. “I was told to see you.”
“See me? Who told you this?”
He shrugged. “Somebody spoke to me through the security intercom in my cell. He told me that when the doors opened I was to come here to you, to these quarters. He gave me directions, but no name.” His face, when the light caught it, displayed a genuine puzzlement. “I’m sorry I can’t be any more specific than that.”
“You said you were in a cell,” said Roche, keeping the pistol trained upon him. “What happened to the guards? Didn’t they try to stop you?”
“I suppose they should have. But when the door opened, there was no one there.”
Suspicion made Roche apply slightly more pressure upon the trigger. “Conveniently allowing your escape.”
His eyes dropped to the muzzle of the pistol; when they met her own a second later, he was smiling. “If ‘escape’ is the appropriate word. After all, no one ever told me why I was locked up in the first place.”
“You’re not a transportee?” she asked, although something about his manner had already convinced her of that. He didn’t seem like a petty criminal: too self- possessed, perhaps, or too confident. And despite the absurdity of his tale, he didn’t seem to be lying. Roche’s curiosity began to outweigh her sense of caution.
“I don’t know what I am,” he said. “All I know is that I awoke a week ago and have been confined to a cell ever since. I have no memories of a time before that. All I have is my name.” He shrugged. “I was told that you would be able to help me.”
“Help you? In what way?”
He offered his hands, palms up, to demonstrate that he had no answer to that question either. If she wanted answers, she would have to deduce them herself from what scant information he had to offer.
Roche swallowed her frustration with difficulty, kicked the chair to him, and indicated for him to sit. Keeping the pistol trained carefully on his chest, she retreated to the far corner of the room to think.
Adoni Cane. If he wasn’t a transportee, then he could have been a passenger, but then why didn’t his name register in the datapool? He had to be lying. But why? She could ask the Box to investigate the mysterious message that had led Cane to her; it would have been recorded by security monitors, if it existed at all. And if it didn’t—
Her hand instinctively tightened on the valise as she realized the stranger’s intentions. Before she could express her concerns to the Box, the AI’s voice cut across her train of thought:
She blinked and subvocalized:
Roche swung her gaze to the screen. It showed an overhead view of the Midnight’s bridge, from cameras mounted above the access locks at the rear of the chamber, and took in most if not all of the hemispherical sweep of workstations.
Klose was standing on the podium, his first officer, Terrison, with him; both were studying the forward displays. There was a superficial impression of calm about the scene that belied the tension in their stances. Roche could tell at a glance that they and the other personnel on the bridge were operating under unusual pressure. Something had gone wrong.
As she watched, Janek, the tactician, turned from her station to face Klose and Terrison.
“Ident confirmed,” the tactician said. “Dato warships. Four of them.”
Roche slipped her hand onto the contact pad to overlay the navigation display in one corner of the screen, hardly believing what she was hearing. Dato ships? From where? The Dato Bloc had no business this side of the border.
A moment’s glance showed her what had happened: the three Eckandi “freighters” had deactivated their sophisticated camouflage systems, revealing the truth beneath. A dreadnought and three raiders, plus at least a dozen tiny fighters, swooping free of the dreadnought even as she watched.
// disturbance within the sector under Olmahoi control has both puzzled and concerned COE observers. Reaves in neighboring systems have reported surges in epsense II
Roche irritably killed the IDnet and swore softly to herself. Cane leaned closer; out of the corner of her eye she saw him echo her frown.
“Trouble?” he asked.
“You might say that.” Mindful that her pistol no longer covered him, she waved him back. “We’ve just cruised straight into an ambush.”
“Is there conflict between your people and the owners of these ships?”
“Are you serious?” She saw no indication of irony in his composed features. She had never met anyone who wasn’t at least vaguely aware of the political realities of the region. “How long have you been imprisoned here?”
“Seven days, as I said.”
“This really isn’t turning into a very good day for me,” she said, shaking her head. Then, returning to the screen before her, she added, “Officially the Commonwealth of Empires and the Dato Bloc are at peace.” She focused her attention on the ships on the screen. “But I get the impression that this isn’t official business.”
“Could it be a mistake?”
She glanced down at the valise. “Unlikely.”
The Dato ships had assumed a tight arrowhead formation and were powering up their drives to meet the incoming frigate. Alert strips above the door to her room flashed to amber simultaneously with the light in the tank. A sterile voice announced an order for provisional battle stations.
“Four against one,” mused Cane, studying the formation intently. “Not insuperable odds. Why hasn’t the captain—” He stopped in mid-sentence and glanced at Roche quizzically, as though suddenly remembering her presence. “You’re an officer. Why aren’t you on the bridg
e?”
“I’m just a guest, noncombat.” She turned to study him in return. If the impending battle concerned him, he didn’t show it. Even his voice echoed the easy strength and confidence of his physique. “What were you about to say? Do you know something about this?”
“Nothing.” Klose’s voice had taken Cane’s attention back to the screen, and Roche followed it at once.
“Any communication?” the captain had asked.
“None, sir.” The officer glanced up from his console. “They are not responding to our signals.”
“Janek: ETA?”
“Three minutes, sir,” replied the tactician without looking up. Then she leaned in close to her console. “Sir, that dreadnought—”
“What about it?”
“It’s not a dreadnought. Configuration reads way off.” She leaned in close again. “It could be the ship we’ve heard rumors about—the new Marauder.”
Roche studied the image forming on the screen. The ship did look different: a large dolioform drive facility connected to seven pointed nacelles by a complicated web of what looked like threads but were probably access tubes and girders made small by distance. Streamlined mouths at either end of the drive flashed red as the ship maneuvered; smaller spiracles on five of the nacelles were inactive but open, obviously weapon bays or fighter launchers ready for action. The ship looked like nothing Roche had seen before, but she could tell just by its appearance—an ominous cross between a spider and shark—that it was designed for speed and resilience in battle.
“Broadcast full battle alert,” announced Klose, his voice booming. “Seal the bridge and all compartments! Prepare for defensive maneuvers!”
“Too late,” mumbled Cane. “Much too late.”
“What is?”
“The captain should have attacked the moment he saw them.”
“Not Klose.” She grimaced bitterly. “He’d never risk a diplomatic incident on the off chance there’d been some sort of misunderstanding.”
“What do you think?” The approaching Dato ships glinted in Cane’s eyes. “Does this look like a misunderstanding to you?”
“They haven’t attacked us—”
“But they will,” Cane interjected calmly. “And if the captain waits any longer—”
A groan from the bulkheads interrupted him. The view in the telemetry display shifted suddenly as the Midnight’s engines kicked into life, thrusting the ship along a different course. Life support dampened the violent shift in momentum, leaving a lingering sense of disorientation in its wake.
Roche blinked and shook her head. Cane seemed entirely unaffected, although she realized with alarm that he was standing much closer than he had been before. If he had wanted to overpower her, he could have done so easily during the maneuver. The fact that he hadn’t did not reassure her. That she had let him get that close in the first place—
Another disturbance rolled through the ship, more violent than the previous one. Cane’s hand came down on her shoulder. She brushed it aside with the hand holding the pistol before realizing that he was only steadying her.
He raised an eyebrow at her confusion, then turned back to the screen.
Klose had sent the Midnight angling along a path heading below the approaching triangle of Dato ships, demonstrating an initial reluctance to engage but without placing the ship in too vulnerable a position. The frigate’s contingent of five fighters peeled away to draw fire. Instantly, the arrowhead formation dissolved, with the Marauder swooping to intercept the Midnight and the three raiders at the rear peeling to either side and below to pen the COE frigate in a potential cross fire.
The Midnight turned again, to port, disturbing the deadly symmetry of the pattern. The Marauder followed while the raiders jockeyed for new positions.
Klose ordered the raising of hyperspace disrupters and E-shields. The Midnight’s armory targeted and tracked the Dato ships, awaiting the order to fire.
Roche’s hands gripped the valise tightly. Cane’s observations had been acute: she did want to be on the bridge, instead of watching the action impotently from her room; and Klose had indeed waited too long to act. Her heart beat faster; she was reluctant to take her eyes off the screen for fear she would miss the crucial moment.
When it came, however, it surprised her. The Dato raider to starboard of Midnight was the first to fire—not the Marauder. A salvo of flicker-bombs, dropping in and out of hyperspace with intermittent flashes of light, lashed toward the green dot at the center of the telemetry screen. Fast in its wake came a wave of A-P fire.
The first of the missiles struck the aft disrupters, making the ship shudder. Roche flinched automatically.
“Lucky,” said Cane, as Klose finally ordered the firing of the Midnight’s laser and A-P cannon. The power in Roche’s room flickered at the same time as spears of light darted across the telemetry screen in the direction of the dots representing the Dato ships. “If the trailing ship had fired first, a missile could have passed through the afterwash shields and blown the engines.”
“So why didn’t it?”
“I would have thought that was obvious,” he said. “They don’t intend to destroy us.” He glanced at her and the valise in turn. “There’s something aboard the Midnight they want.”
She ignored the unspoken implication. On the screen, the battle was proceeding rapidly. The lights flickered again, followed by wave after wave of subtle nausea as the Midnight weaved for position. Two of the fighters vanished as they engaged the Dato; outnumbered by ten to one, the Midnight’s contingent would not last long.
The Marauder, however, had not fired once. Under combined fire from the three raiders—two were easily a match for the aged frigate—the tiny singleship fighters were little more than target practice. A steady stream of missiles battered the Midnight’s disrupters and E-shields, gradually weakening them. It was only a matter of time before the shields failed entirely, leaving the frigate open to direct assault—or a boarding party.
Klose was no master tactician, but Roche doubted she could do any better herself. Besides, she had other priorities to consider.
The lights went out entirely for a split-second, then returned in emergency red. A tang of smoke filtered into the room, and the pit of her stomach rolled disturbingly. The last COE fighter fell with a flare of light. On the screen, the Dato raiders swooped nearer, harrowing the beleaguered frigate.
Roche came to a decision.
“Okay,” she said, swinging the valise into a more accessible position. Cane watched curiously from his position nearby, and she reverted to subvocals.
she snapped impatiently. Then, more calmly, she added,
On the screen
, one of the Dato raiders loomed, partially occluding the image of Sciacca’s World.
“Right.” She stood to leave, the valise gripped tightly in her hand. Cane, forgotten during her exchange with the Box, startled her as she turned to face the door. “You’re leaving?”
She hesitated briefly. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I have no choice.”
“What? Why?” Startled by the Box’s request, she spoke aloud. Cane frowned, but didn’t speak.
“What about it?”
“He is? How do you know that?”
“I—” She stopped. It made sense—but explained nothing. If that was so, why was he here?
Confusion wrinkled Cane’s brow. Roche belatedly realized that she’d been talking to the Box out loud, rather than by subvocalizing. What he made of her side of the conversation, she couldn’t even guess.
The Prodigal Sun Page 3
