by Jo Zebedee
Kordelasz reappeared with three bottled beers. He proffered one to Rinharte and another to Gallam. “It’s a bloody ruck at the bar,” he said, leaning close so as not to be overheard.
The beer was cold and wet, and flavoured with some fruit extract. Its sweetness could not disguise the low alcohol content or the bitter tang of hops.
Rinharte watched an altercation at a nearby stretch of wall. One man had offended another. It was unclear whether they knew each other. The first man pushed the second. He raised his fists. The second man put up his hands placatingly. Harsh words—inaudible to Rinharte over the din of conversation and background music—were spat. The two combatants reached an agreement and made their way to the exit. She watched them leave. A duel, of sorts. Proles were forbidden blades of longer than eight inches—and in this fief, personal weapons of any kind, so would have to use what Nature had given them. A pair of nobles or yeomen, of course, would have fought with their swords. Unsurprisingly, given the frequent outcome of such duels, peers did not challenge each other without great provocation. Rinharte had no way of knowing what had caused the argument, but she guessed it revolved around the woman left in the spot the two men had vacated.
Rinharte gazed at the woman, who sipped from a glass of some colourful liquid. She was pretty and curvaceous, and had dressed to maximise her looks in a low-cut gaudy dress. She did not appear at all concerned that her two suitors had left the bar to fight over her.
Some aspects of prole society, mused Rinharte, would remain a mystery to her.
“Is everywhere as busy as this?” she asked Gallam.
“On a weekend night? Yes.” The philologian sipped from her bottle. “But a crowd is good.”
Rinharte nodded absently in agreement.
“Can you…?” Gallam handed her drink to Rinharte. “I need to go somewhere.”
It was a moment before Rinharte interpreted the euphemism. “Oh. Of course.” She watched Gallam make her way across the room to the entrance to the toilets, and her eyes slid across a pair of women sitting at a table nearby. She turned back to them as something registered. It was not their appearance: a hatchet-faced ash-blonde with a scowl, and a beautiful platinum-blonde. Both were ship crew. Rinharte frowned. The pair made an odd couple, but it was not that which had captured her attention. She used Kordelasz as a shield and considered what had caught her eye.
When the ash-blonde rose to her feet and gestured to her companion that she was about to visit the toilet, realisation struck. Rinharte blinked in surprise. The woman wore the insignia of a ship’s captain on one shoulder of her coveralls, but it was the ship-patch on her breast which caused Rinharte’s reaction: a four-legged beast caught in a thicket.
Rinharte sucked in her breath.
“What’s the matter?” asked Kordelasz, leaning close. “You look as though you’ve just seen a bloody ghost.”
“I have.”
Kordelasz raised an eyebrow quizzically.
“In the corner,” explained Rinharte, “are two women, both from the same ship. One is the captain—don’t look now: she’s gone to the toilet. They’re from Divine Providence.”
Kordelasz didn’t understand.
“Divine Providence,” continued Rinharte, “is the data-freighter Vengeful travelled to Ralat to destroy.”
“I don’t understand.”
Rinharte sighed. “Nor do I. We had good intelligence on her route. She shouldn’t be here: it’s not her route and Vengeful should have caught her in Ralat.”
“Perhaps they missed her. It’s possible.”
“True, a single battlecruiser can’t patrol an entire planetary system. But even so, Divine Providence was not due to make land-fall at Minadar.” Rinharte peered at her bottle of beer, frowning. “I don’t know which is more puzzling: that the Admiral missed her target, or that Divine Providence did not follow her intended route.”
“Why did we have to destroy her?” asked Kordelasz. “I mean, a data-freighter?”
Rinharte looked up. “That, I can’t tell you. We had good reason to: that’s all you need to know.” She clenched one fist, and regarded it in faint puzzlement. “Yet we failed. Failed. Blood and corruption! A war against an enemy no one but the Admiral takes seriously, and they bloody escape us. The future—” Lifting her gaze, she smiled wryly at the marine-lieutenant— “looks somewhat bleak at this moment in time.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Once on the apron, the starship turned and made her way to the end of the runway. Like all vessels of her class, Divine Providence was an ungainly beast on the ground and seemed incapable of flight. The speed with which she hurtled along the runway soon dispelled the illusion. Taking to the air, the data-freighter pitched into a steep climb and powered skywards.
Finesz returned her cup of tea to its saucer, and sat back in satisfaction. She was enjoying a drink, and the much-delayed launch of Divine Providence, from an open-air café on a viewing gallery in the starport’s aerofoil-shaped High Terminal.
That, she told herself as Divine Providence shrunk to a pinprick and was lost to sight, was the end of one line of enquiry. Not that she had learned a great deal from it.
The testimonies of the data-freighter’s crew had matched Assaun’s account in almost every detail, but Finesz still felt there was something missing from their statements. Poring over the documents, she had sensed some… fact, some piece of information, that all five of the crew had deliberately avoided mentioning. Its absence felt almost tangible. Unfortunately, that did not tell her what the missing information was.
The statements did make it abundantly clear that young Casimir Ormuz, general crew-member, had been Regimental-Lieutenant Merenilo’s target. Why was a mystery. But no surprise: the conspiracy itself was composed of mysteries.
Finesz had not had so much fun in years.
A waiter approached, sidling towards the table, and reaching out an arm to take Finesz’s empty cup. It was the OPI uniform. Amused, Finesz blocked him and picked the sprig of mint from her cup. The waiter froze. She looked up at him. A faint smile had stilled on his face. For several seconds, he did not move. Finesz sat back. The waiter’s arm shot forward and grabbed her saucer. It rattled alarmingly as he lifted it, spun about and hurried away.
Sucking on the mint, Finesz grinned at the waiter’s retreating back. She did not know why she had chosen to wear uniform—the boots and trousers were comfortable, although the jacket was tight and restrictive—but she was glad she had. And not only for the waiter’s reaction. She had caught worried glances from the patrons at the other tables. Their reaction cheered her—what did they have to hide? Or rather, what did they think they had to hide?
As Finesz crossed the High Terminal’s concourse, a sense of unease draped itself about her. It was a moment before she identified the cause: she was being followed. The concourse was the only area of the building where proles were allowed without having to accompany yeomen or nobles. It was a vast, open space, designed to resemble a Dardina plaza but roofed with great panes of tinted glass. Finesz was not as skilled as Assaun, or the late lamented Lihik, at surveillance, but she was more than capable of spotting a shadow of her own. Especially one as amateur as the man currently following her.
She increased her pace as she stepped onto the ramp leading down to the train station. Unfortunately, she was easy to spot in her uniform. From the underground hall at the foot of the ramp, archways led to various platforms. A whisper of wind, caused by trains entering and leaving the station, blew against Finesz’s face. She turned towards one ornate archway, and passed through it. Stepping quickly to one side, she turned and peered back into the central hall.
Her shadow could not follow her—the platform was for yeomen and nobles only. The train would have carriages for proles but they could only be boarded from a separate platform. Finesz cocked her head and tried to identify the man following her. It was no one she knew. He wore a prole’s tunic and trousers in blue, but s
eemed a little too self-assured. His gait, a brisk no-nonsense stride, put her in mind of a soldier, or a serjeant in one of the Martial Orders.
Had Norioko set someone to keep an eye on her? Was this investigation that sensitive, that important?
She heard a sibilant hiss and turned to see a train slide into view. Grinning, she entered a carriage and settled into one of the padded seats beside a window. This was the express train to Dardina. At all stations in that city, the first-class section was walled off from prole class. Her shadow had no way of knowing where she alighted.
It was a forty-minute journey from Minadar to Dardina. A young man in County Portage livery pushed a cart of snacks and beverages through the carriage. Finesz accepted a cup of tea. The carriage’s only other passenger was a very tall, black-haired woman wearing a metallic green coat over a plain white top, loose green trousers and flat-heeled pumps. She waved the servant away at his approach.
In comfort and silence, Finesz sipped her tea and gazed out of the window at the tunnel wall rushing past. She considered her investigation. Divine Providence had launched for Ophold. The regimental-lieutenant was dead and his manner of death had told her nothing. She would have to make arrangements to follow the data-freighter. That was where the answers lay.
Finesz had finished her tea. The train slowed as it entered her station, a five-minute walk from the OPI bureau. She left the cup in the receptacle on her seat’s arm for the servant to collect and went to stand by the door. The train glided to a halt. The doors slid open. She stepped down onto the platform and strode for the exit. The ring of footsteps on the stone floor made her glance back in puzzlement. It was the black-haired woman in the green coat. She too had disembarked. Odd. She had not looked ready to leave the carriage when the train pulled into the station.
Odder still, the brisk stride with which the woman approached Finesz smacked too of a career in the military. It was no blasé stroll, nor the hurried pace of someone late for an appointment.
The woman marched past Finesz, through the exit, and up the ramp onto the street. Finesz spun on her heel to watch her. Perhaps she was mistaken. Perhaps Rafeer’s and Lihik’s deaths had made her see enemies everywhere. The woman had not looked back, had not even acknowledged Finesz’s existence.
Behind Finesz, the train whooshed out of the station, en route for its next stop.
Abruptly reaching a decision, Finesz crossed to the line of public caster-booths lining one section of the station’s wall. She called Assaun.
“Someone,” she told him, “is following me.”
“Ma’am?”
“Get a trooper here as quickly as possible—” She checked herself. “No.” The woman was likely gone by now. Picking up her trail would be impossible. “To the train station at Saha Square. If you’re quick, you might catch the train. He’ll still be on it.”
“Catch who?”
“He was tailing me at Minadar. Um, tall, well-built, rather dashing in fact, dark hair, late twenties to early thirties, wearing a blue tunic and trousers—”
“A prole?”
“Yes. At a guess, I’d say he was military or ex-military… Perhaps not an Imperial Regiment: they’re always too stiff and formal. The Navy? No, he had the air of a soldier. A Martial Order, perhaps; or some noble’s household troops. A… marine?” She shook her head. “No matter. Look for a man, a prole, but with the body-language of a military man. He should be easy enough to spot for anyone who knows what to look for.”
Assaun blinked impassively. “Ma’am.” He signed off.
Finesz marched into her office. “Get me Assaun,” she ordered Sayara. It had been easier to transfer the young woman to her team than apologise to her officer for borrowing her earlier. “Now.” She slammed the door to her office shut behind her.
Five minutes later, someone rapped on her door. Finesz, seated behind her desk, looked up. “Enter,” she said loudly.
It was Assaun.
“Well?” demanded Finesz.
The trooper, her—dare she say it?—right-hand man here on Darrus, gazed at her impassively.
“Did you find him?”
Assaun nodded. “Haris’s on him. Didn’t even make the station. Got him charging along the street from Saha Square to Makami. Hard to miss.”
Finesz frowned. “Makami? That’s where I…” She closed her eyes and gripped the edges of her desk fiercely. “The woman.”
“Woman, ma’am?”
She rose to her feet. “Assaun, if you’re in second class, how do you know if someone in first class has left the train?”
“In Dardina? No way to. Blocked off.”
“He knew. Why else would he disembark at Saha Square and rush back to Makami?”
“Someone told him.”
Grinning, Finesz dropped back into her chair. “Precisely. The woman. She was in the same carriage as me, got off at Makami too. I did wonder, but…” She gestured imperiously. “Tell Haris to get me a likeness of the man. We’ll see if we can identify him. And tell him to watch out for a woman: early or mid-thirties, tall… very tall, dark hair, wearing a quite distinctive coat in metallic green. And a picture of her, if he can get one.”
Assaun nodded in acknowledgement and left the office.
Less than ten minutes later, he was back. With no word of explanation, he came about Finesz’s desk, switched on her console and flicked several switches. The glass lit… and Finesz found herself gazing at the face of the man who had followed her from Minadar. The image moved. As she watched, the man lifted a glass of some amber beverage to his mouth and took a sip. There was a faraway look in his eyes. A flash of light flickered briefly across the picture.
“Live feed,” explained Assaun. “He’s across the street. In a bistro. Got a camera set up in one of the front offices.”
Finesz snorted in amusement. “He’s definitely not a professional, then, is he?” She bent forward and peered closely at the image. “Can you zoom in on his escutcheon?”
“At full zoom now.”
“Damn. Get a likeness, and run a check. I want to know who he is.”
Assaun nodded and left.
She stared at her shadower on the glass. He appeared far too confident and self-assured to be a prole. It must be the military training. Odd that she had never spotted that before. A thought occurred to her. She called Assaun on her caster. “Where are you checking?”
“Ma’am?”
“The man across the street: which data-pools are you checking?”
“Local census.”
“You won’t find him there.”
“Minadar Registrations.”
“Ah. Any luck?”
Assaun shook his head.
“How far back have you gone?”
“Three years.”
Finesz frowned. “No. I can’t believe he’s been on Darrus for more than three years. Is everyone who arrives on-planet registered at Minadar?”
Assaun nodded. “All passengers. All starships provide crew rosters. Except—”
“Yes?” demanded Finesz sharply.
“The Order of Replenishers never bother.” He shrugged.
“A sutler?” asked Finesz in wonder. “He could be. They have a security corps, a very good one.” She began to nod. “It fits… although where is beyond me. Yes, the Replenishers’ security corps.” She peered at Assaun’s image. “There’s no other way he could have arrived?”
“Legally? No.”
“What about illegally?”
“No point. Minadar’s an open port. Has to be, with the traffic at beginning and end of semester.”
“If he is a sutler… We can’t check their records, we can only put in a request. If he is one of theirs, they would hardly admit as much.” She swore.
“Keep checking?” asked Assaun.
“Yes. Yes, do so. The Order of Replenishers connection is a possibility, no more. Try the Navy List and the Regimental Rolls. We have access
to those. I’m convinced he’s had military experience.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“All hands to general quarters!” Klaxons roared. Feet thundered along gangways, up ramps. Bodies dived through hatchways. Rateds stepped smartly up to stations, and awaited orders. Petty officers appeared at their shoulders.
Standing at the railing of the Captain’s Bridge, the Admiral gazed down the conning tower well. Her crew worked in orderly fashion to meet the threat Lieutenant-Commander Voyna’s department had detected on their arrival in the Darrus system.
In the Pilothouse, two helmsmen each held a ship’s wheel and gazed fixedly at the wall of console glasses before them. A petty officer and the coxswain stood at parade rest behind them.
One deck below in Fire Control, Captain of Guns Lieutenant Falconet oversaw his rateds at the plotting table, fire control table and converger. They stood waiting patiently for data from:
Registrations/Acqusitions beneath them, where Lieutenant-Commander Voyna urged his operators to pinpoint the threat’s position.
The Admiral raised a hand, heard her executive officer, Commander Mubariz, behind her flick switches on the communications-console. “Report,” she said.
“It’s Sabre Horn, ma’am,” came Voyna’s voice. “Pumping data to the battle-consultant… now.”
The Admiral turned about. “She’s still here, Mr Mubariz?” she asked. “It has been eighteen days. What can she be waiting for?”
“Torpedoes in the battle-space!” called Voyna.
An image of the battlecruiser’s surroundings appeared in the battle-consultant’s table-top glass. The bloated sphere of Maradagaz, the swooping tracks of its satellites… and the frigate Sabre Horn, no more than 1,500,000 miles away. Between Vengeful and the Imperial Navy warship: a spread of torpedoes.
The Admiral gripped the edge of the battle-consultant’s top with both hands. “Spool the main gun up to full power,” she ordered.
Falconet’s image on the communications-console spoke: “Eight minutes to full power, ma’am.”
