Meanwhile the ship's repairs neared completion. The environmental system had had to be completely dismantled and refitted, filling the two lower decks with a terrible stench for several days. Apparently the sulfur bacteria had overgrown the backflow sludge, and coupled with the fungal contamination from the downstream scrubbers created a disgusting mix of smells. Worse than that, the insides of the main lines had become slightly pitted, providing a vast surface for the contaminants to grow on. So every meter of piping had to be replaced, as well as all valves, pumps, scrubbers, and filters.
Hollister still could not tell whether the problems were inherent in the new layout, or had resulted from deliberate sabotage. Attempts to model the failures on computer, and backtrack to a cause, led to six or seven different possible routes to trouble. Two of them would have involved a single component failure very early in the voyage—highly unlikely to be tampering, in Hollister's opinion. The others required multiple failures, and one clearly favored sabotage, with eight or ten minor misadjustments in remote compartments. But which of these was the real sequence of events, no one could now determine. In trying to correct the problems once they developed, Hollister and his most trusted technicians had handled virtually every exposed millimeter of the system.
Sassinak grimaced at Hollister's presentation. "So you can't tell me anything solid?"
"No, captain. I think myself sabotage was involved—things could have gone a lot worse, as the simulations show, and someone wanted to save his or her own life—but I can't prove it. Worse than that, I can't prevent it happening next time, either. If I request entirely new personnel, who's to say they're all loyal? And it needn't be an engineering specialist, although that's a good guess. Everyone knows some of the basics of environmental systems: they have to, in case of disaster. An agent could have been provided specialist knowledge, if it comes to that—Fleet's environmental systems use the same standard components as everyone else's."
"What about the other repairs?" Hollister nodded, and brought her up to date on those. The structural damage had required more dismantling of the portside than Sassinak expected; Hollister explained that was nearly always true. But repairs on that were complete, and on the portside pods as well. To his personal satisfaction, mounting the newest issue of pods there meant replacing half the starboard pods to match them . . . he had been worried, he confided, that their prolonged FTL flight on unbalanced pods, with the starboard pods taking the strain, might have caused hidden damage in them. None of the stealth gear had taken damage, and all the computer sections out of service had been replaced. It was just the environmental systems holding them up, and he calculated it would be another two weeks before it was done.
Sassinak began to wonder if the Zaid-Dayan would still be in refitting when Verstan's battle group returned with Huron's body. By now everyone had seen reports of the successful assault on the pirate base, holos of shattered domes and blasted prefab buildings. Sassinak stared at them, wondering if the base where she'd lived for her years as a slave had looked anything like this. At least her action had saved those children from being imprisoned in those domes. She visited the hospital once or twice, chatting with youngsters who were now orphans, as she had been. They were less damaged psychologically, if "less" meant anything. Looking at some of them, mute anguished survivors of inexplicable disaster, she almost cursed herself for not intervening before the colony was raided. But some had already bounced back, and some had relatives already coming to take them into known families.
The Board of Inquiry wound down, and turned in a preliminary report—subject to further analysis, the chair explained to her. She was commended for saving the children from the colony, and mildly scolded for not having saved the colony itself—although a dissenting comment argued that any such attempt would have been an unnecessary and reckless risk to her ship. She was commended for the outcome of the battle, but not for the methods she'd chosen. Entirely too risky, and not a good example for other commanders—but effective, and perhaps justified by circumstances. The structural damage to the Zaid-Dayan certainly resulted from her decision to allow the enemy too close, but the environmental system damage might well have been sabotage, or simply bad engineering in the first place. They approved of her handling of the suspected poisoner: "a deft manipulation of a politically explosive situation." Sassinak thought of the girl, now in the hands of the psychiatric ward of the Sector military hospital—could she ever be rehabilitated? Could she ever find a way to respect herself? Fleet wouldn't take another chance on her, that was certain. On the whole, the Board chair said, recapturing her full attention, they found that she had acted in the best interests of the service, although they could not give an unqualified approval.
Under the circumstances, that was the best she could hope for. Admiral Vannoy, Sector Commandant, would make his own decision about how this Board report would affect her future. She had worked with him several years before, and expected better from him than from the Board. He liked officers with initiative and boldness. Sure enough, when he called her in, he waved the report at her, then slapped it on his desk.
"The vultures gathered, eh?"
Sassinak cocked her head a little. "I think they were fair," she said.
"Within their limits, I hear under your words. So they were—some Boards would have landed on you a lot harder for coming in with damage like that. And for having a Fleet distress beacon telling the universe that a Fleet cruiser had bumped its nose on something painful. Bad for our reputation. But I'm satisfied: you got back a load of kids—frightened out of their wits, some of them hurt, but still alive and free. And you defeated one of their little surprise packages—which, by the way, have caused more than one cruiser to come to grief. You're the first survivor to come out with a good profile of them and the specifics of their faked IFF signals: that's worth all the rest, to my mind. And then you managed to stick tight, undiscovered, and pick up quite a bit of useful information. Now we know how well the stealth technologies work in real life. All in all, I'm pleased, Commander, as you probably expected. After all—you know my prejudices. We're going to put you back out on the same kind of patrol, in another part of the sector, and hope you catch another odd fish."
"Sir, there is one thing—"
"Yes?"
"I'd like to have more options free in case of another encounter."
"Such as?"
"Last time my orders specified that surveillance was my primary mission—and on that basis, I did nothing when the colony was attacked. My crew and I both had problems with that . . . and I'd like to be free to act if we should face another such situation."
The admiral's eyes fell. "Commander, you have an excellent record, but isn't it possible that in this case your own experience is affecting your judgment? We've tried direct, immediate confrontation before, and repeatedly the perpetrators, or some of them, have been able to escape, and strike again. Tracking them to their source must be more important—"
"In the long term, yes, sir. But for the people who die, who are orphaned or enslaved—have you been to the hospital, sir, and talked to any of the kids Huron brought in?"
"Well, no . . . no, I haven't."
"All they want to know is why Fleet couldn't prevent the attack—why their parents died—and what's going to happen to them now. And it's not just my own feeling, sir. Lieutenant Commander Huron, my exec, was very upset about my decision not to intervene—and, as you know, he insisted on joining the attack force, and then the landing party, and he died. Other officers and crew have expressed the same feelings—"
"Openly? To you?" Sassinak could tell he did not entirely approve of such openness.
She nodded. "Some of them. Others in conversations I overheard. They don't like to think of themselves—of Fleet—as standing by idly, in safety, while helpless civilians get killed and captured."
"I see. Hmm. I still feel, Commander, that surveillance must be your primary mission, but under the circumstances . . . and considering your crew's most recent e
xperience . . . yes, if you find it absolutely necessary to engage a hostile force, to save innocent lives . . . yes. And I'll amend your orders to make that discretion explicit." He looked closely at her. "But I'm not going to take kindly to any shoot-'em-up action you get into that's not absolutely necessary, is that clear? You've damn near bankrupted our sector repair budget for the next eighteen standard months, with that bucket of bent bolts you brought into the yard, so take better care of it. And call for help if you need it—don't wait until you're shot to pieces."
"Yes, sir!" She left his office with a lighter heart. No, she would not get into an unnecessary fight—but she wouldn't have to go through the misery of standing by while others suffered, either.
In the meantime, she would be busy checking in additional crew. Some were those who had been assigned to the prize vessel, but had not gone back out with the battle group. Others were newly assigned to replace casualties or transfers out.
BOOK FOUR
Chapter Fourteen
"Commander Sassinak . . ." The voice was vaguely familiar; Sassinak pulled her attention out of an engineering report and glanced up. Incredulous joy engulfed her.
"Ford!" She could hardly believe it, and then wondered why she hadn't already known. Surely the name would have been on the roster of incoming officers—
"Lieutenant Commander Hakrar broke a leg and two ribs in a waterboat race . . . and they offered it to me, so—" His broad grin was the same as ever, but now he subdued it. "Lieutenant Commander Fordeliton reporting for duty, captain." He held out his order chip, and she took it, feeding it into the reader. Her side screen came up with a list.
"There're just a few chores waiting for you, as you can see—"
"Mmm. Maybe I should have stopped for a drink before I reported aboard." He leaned over to take a look at the screen, and feigned shock. "Good grief, Commander, hasn't anyone done any work on this ship since you docked?"
Sassinak found herself grinning. "Did you see the holos of the damage we came in with?"
"No—but I heard rumors of a Board of Inquiry. Bad fight?"
"Fairly stiff. I'll tell you later. For now—" She looked him up and down. The same dark bronze face, the same lean body that could slouch carelessly in a dockside bar or dance elegantly at a diplomatic reception, the same tone of voice, wordlessly offering support without challenge. If she had had her pick of all the possible executive officers, he would have been the one. And yet—she wasn't ready for anything more, not yet. Would he understand? "Just get yourself settled, and we'll have a briefing at 1500. Need any help?"
"No, Commander, thank you. I met your Weapons Officer on the way to the dock, and she's helped me find my way around."
Sassinak leaned back, after he'd gone, and let herself remember that crazy trip as prize crew on a captured illicit trader, something more than ten years before. She'd been exec on a patrol-class vessel, Lily of Serai, and they'd caught a trader carrying illegal and unmarked cargo. So her captain had put her and five others aboard, as a prize crew to bring the trader to Sector HQ; she'd had command, and Fordeliton, then a Jig, had been her exec. She'd hardly known him before, but it was the kind of trip that made solid relationships. For the trader crew had tried to take the ship back, and they'd killed two of the marines—and almost killed Ford, but she had led the other two in a desperate hand-to-hand fight through the main deck corridors. If Huron had seen that, she told herself, he'd never have doubted her will to fight. In the end they'd won—though they'd had to space most of the trader's original crew—and she had brought the ship in whole. When Ford recovered from his injuries, they'd become lovers—and in the years since, whenever they chanced to meet, they had enjoyed each other's company. Nothing intense, nothing painful—but she could count on his quiet, generous support.
Another incoming officer brought her much less content. Fleet Security, apparently impressed by her conviction that she had yet another agent on board, decided to assign a Security officer to the ship. Sassinak frowned over his dossier: a Lieutenant Commander (in Security, a very high rank) from Bretagne. All she'd wanted was a deeper scrutiny of her personnel records, and instead she got this . . . she looked at his holo. Slim, dark hair and eyes, somehow conveying even in that official pose a certain dapper quality.
In person, when he reported for duty, he lived up to his holo: suave, courteous, almost elegant. His voice had the little lilt she remembered from Bretagne natives, and he used it to compliment her on her ship, her office decor, her reputation. Sassinak considered biting his head off, but it was never wise to alienate Security. She gave him courtesy for courtesy, alluding to her first ship service under a Bretagnan captain, and he became even sleeker, if possible. When he'd gone to his quarters, Sassinak took a long breath and blew it out. Security! Why couldn't they do the job right in the first place, and prevent hostiles from getting into Fleet, instead of sending people like this to harass honest officers and interfere with their work?
But Dupaynil turned out better than his first impression. He got along well with the other officers, and had a strong technical background that made him useful in both Engineering and Weaponry. His witty conversation, which skirted but never quite slid into malicious gossip about the prominent and wealthy among whom he'd worked, livened their meals. And he was more than a quick wit, Sassinak found out, when they discussed the matter of planet piracy and slave trading.
"You haven't been at Headquarters for several years," he said. "I'm sure you remember that speculation about certain families had begun even ten years ago . . ."
"Yes, of course."
"Our problem has been not in finding out who, but in proving how—with persons of such rank, we cannot simply accuse them of complicity. And they've been very, very clever in covering their tracks, and making their accounts clean for inspection. That ship you captured, for instance—"
"I was thinking Paraden," said Sass.
"Precisely. But you noted, I'm sure, that although there were apparent links to Paraden family enterprises, there was no direct, traceable proof . . ."
"No. I'd hoped the traces on those transports coming into the pirate base would be helpful."
"Oh, they were. Commodore Verstan forwarded all available data—and we're now sure of some kind of complicity between the Paradens and at least one group of political activists from Diplo."
"That's what I don't understand," said Sass. "The Paradens I've met were all prejudiced against any of the human variants—I'd think they'd be the last people to consort with heavyworlders."
"The Paraden family stronghold maintains a body of heavyworlder troops. That's not widely known, but we have—had, I should say—an agent that had infiltrated them just so far. It would be within their philosophy to use the heavyworlders that way—and to gain exclusive access to chosen worlds."
"That young woman who went crazy and tried to poison us all was born on Diplo. But I thought she was too irrational to be anyone's agent—"
"You're undoubtedly right. No, if you have a saboteur on your ship, Commander, it's someone more subtle than that. And quite possibly not a heavyworlder. There's a growing sentiment that Fleet demands too much and delivers too little protection . . . that it's used to keep colony planets subdued, or to prevent the opening of suitable worlds for colonies. Exploration has shifted a lot of blame to Fleet, over the past decade or so—and that concerns us, too. Why are we blamed when Exploration chooses to classify a world as unsuited for colonization? Why is Fleet responsible when the alien vote in the FSP puts a system off-limits for humans? Because we enforce the edicts, apparently . . . but who is emphasizing that, and why?"
"And you have no idea if any of this crew is such an agent?"
Dupaynil shook his head. "No—the records all seem clear, and that's what you'd expect from a professional. They're not going to do anything stupid, like use a faked name or background. We can check too easily on that sort of thing these days—the Genetic Index gives us the references for each planet-of-orig
in. If I said I was from Grantly-IV, for instance, you could look it up in the Index and find out that I should be blue-eyed and a foot taller."
"But surely most planets have a variety of genomes—"
"A variety, yes, but not the entire range of human possibilities. Much of the time it doesn't tell us precisely where someone is from—although with tissue samples for analysis it does much better—but it certainly tells me what questions to ask, and what to look for. Anyone from Bretagne, my home world, has experienced double moonlight, and knows about the Imperial Rose Gardens. You're from Myriad—you lived in its one city—and so I know you experienced a seacoast with mountains inland, and you must have seen at least one gorbnari."
Sassinak had an instant memory of the gorbnari, the wide-winged flyers of Myriad, who preyed on its native sealife. Not birds, not fishes—exactly—but gorbnari swooping down for krissi.
"So if I asked you," Dupaynil went on, "whether gorbnari were gray or brown, you'd know—"
"That they were pale yellow on top and white underneath, with a red crest on the males . . . I see what you mean."
"Since the Myriad colony was wiped out, and not replanted, the references to native wildlife are pretty vague. In fact, the only comment on gorbnari gives their color as 'mid-to-light brown, lighter below' because it's taken from the first scoutship report—and that ship sampled on the other continent, where they are that color."
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