#
Once Wayne was out of the way and Harrison was on-side, it took less than ten minutes to have Julia in a shuttle with a pilot, Gibbons and Williams in tow. The big Patrol bodyguard had attached himself to her without a word, and had tagged along without allowing any discussion.
He’d done anything she asked instantly, but Julia suspected that not bringing the Sergeant along would require violence. In his place, well… she had just ripped one of the Patrol’s Captains a new one for trying to put her in a similar place.
“We’ve got the beacon signal being relayed from Sherwood Prime and your cruiser,” the pilot reported. “They are well away and gone, I don’t know how they’re still alive.”
“Because people always underestimate Hands,” Julia told him softly. “Take us out after them.”
The pilot threw the beacon up on the screen as a flashing gold icon. The shuttle’s computers happily filled in data – the beacon was moving at a little under a hundred meters per second, and after almost twenty minutes was over a hundred kilometers away from Sherwood Prime and heading for deep space.
“Captain Wayne’s comments are making me twitchy, Agent,” the pilot, a graying older man with red-flushed cheeks, admitted. “Are you rated on this weapon suite?”
The copilot’s seat Julia had claimed also controlled the weapons. Julia tapped a few commands, bringing up the weapons listing. A single fifty millimeter high velocity railgun and a quartet of short-ranged chemical rockets. Not much of a suite, but she could make it work.
“I’ve used similar before,” she replied.
“I requalified on our Mark Four six weeks ago,” Gibbons rumbled. “You didn’t even bring up the RFLAM. Let me do it.”
A side-click revealed that, yes, the shuttle did have a Rapid Firing Laser Anti-Missile system. A sad little six barrelled hundred-megawatt system, but still a more potent defense than anything else the shuttle possessed.
Julia carefully pulled herself out of the seat against the shuttle’s very gentle acceleration, gesturing for the big Patrol Sergeant to take her place.
“I know when I’m beat, Sergeant. Keep us alive.”
“Wilco,” he said crisply and belted himself in.
“All right,” the pilot announced, “since we’re on an unknown time limit, I’m going to close the gap as fast as I can and then slow down. Any idea what I’m looking for visually?”
“Not a clue,” Julia replied cheerfully. “What I can tell you? The beacon hasn’t changed, so he’s still breathing.”
“A living Dutchman without a suit,” the pilot muttered. “That’s just creepy, ma’am.”
She let that go without comment, watching the distance and speed measures shift as the pilot swept them in towards the tiny radio beacon. Somehow, some way, her charge was still alive. She didn’t know how long he would stay that way.
“Something on radar,” Gibbons rumbled. “Looks like the hull came off in one big chunk.”
“I see it,” the pilot replied. “We’re within five kays, slowing us down to take a look around.”
“Don’t stop!” the Patrol Sergeant snapped. “I have missiles on the scope!” He hit a command on the com channel as Julia desperately looked around. “Duke of Magnificence, this is Sherwood Prime Shuttle Seven. Vampire, vampire, vampire – we have incoming!”
#
The conversation had eventually died off. Even four years of missed history was hard to catch up on when you were floating in space, surrounded only by empty void. Damien could see Sherwood Prime – the station was a dozen kilometers long, it was hard to miss even at this distance – but that wasn’t helping much.
Closer to them, Damien was watching the floating chunk of metal that had been the floor. It had been blasted clear of them by the explosives, but the added momentum from the blast was minimal compared to the angular velocity of a ring that provided a full gravity of centrifugal acceleration on a seven hundred meter radius.
The chunk of metal was large enough and close enough to be visible. It had been a piece of the outer hull as well, which meant it could well have useful supplies on the exterior of the fragment. He was studying it, trying to judge if he could safely bring it over to them, when the missiles launched.
The fragment of outer hull had apparently been booby-trapped with six single shot missile launchers. Damien had no way to judge what they were shooting at, or even what kind of missile they were, but he could guess why they were firing.
Someone was coming for him.
Splitting his attention was hard. He could feel the splitting headache he would have later start as he concentrated on holding the air bubble keeping them alive together – and reached out with his magic.
Lightning flashed in space as he struck out. Missile after missile exploded as electricity arced from one to the next. Circuits fired, explosives detonated, and five deadly weapons were rendered fragments and debris in seconds.
The sixth flew just far enough, just fast enough, to elude his attack. He could reach further than most Mages, but even relatively slow missiles were fast.
He watched it fly, praying… and then cheered aloud when it intersected a laser beam and exploded.
Moments later, cutting through the debris cloud, a shuttle emerged.
“Here they come,” he told Grace. She’d been silent from the moment of the missile launch, and now was looking at him strangely. “What is it?” he asked.
“I’m still getting used to my college boyfriend being kind of scary,” she admitted. “You saved my life. Thank you.”
“Part of the job now,” he told her. “Save everyone I can.”
“Now that sounds like my Damien,” Grace told him with a smile. With a tiny burst of magic, she was suddenly very close to him.
He kissed her before she could. For a moment, they hung in space and clung to each other, shocked just to have survived.
As the shuttle came closer, they slowly separated, and he returned her smile.
“Back to work,” he murmured.
“When this is over, you are coming back to Sherwood,” Grace ordered. “For now,” she sighed. “You’re right. Game faces on, my lord.”
#
“No one saw that,” Gibbons rumbled.
“No one else is close enough to have our level of mag,” the pilot agreed swiftly. “Nobody else saw anything.”
“You didn’t follow the Sergeant,” Julia said calmly, watching the couple on the cameras separate – shortly followed by the big Patrol non-com erasing the footage from the missile explosions to now. “No one saw that. Understand?”
The pilot’s cheeks flushed even redder, but he smiled and nodded.
“Saw what, ma’am?” he asked, returning to his controls. “I’ve never made rendezvous with a force bubble in space before. What, exactly, should I do?”
“We’re close enough for me to link to Damien directly now,” Julia replied. Thousands of kilometers outside the satellite network that normally supplied the planetary data-net, and dozens away from the station with its repeaters, she’d had no way to do anything except track the emergency beacon for a while.
Tapping her wrist comp, she trained the shuttle’s transmitters on the beacon and turned them on.
“Hand Montgomery, this is Agent Amiri, do you copy?”
A moment of silence, and she was afraid they still weren’t close enough, and then the speakers crackled.
“This is Montgomery,” her boss’ voice announced. He sounded younger than usual, which could probably be chalked up to near-death and a missile attack followed up with what looked like a very thorough kiss. “I have Commodore McLaughlin with me. We are alive and unharmed. I’m guessing you’re in the shuttle that ticked off those missiles?”
“We are. Thanks for the assist,” she told him. “My pilot is wondering how the hell we’re getting you out of that bubble.”
“All he has to do is get close,” Montgomery replied. “If he’s within a hundred meters or so and near a ve
locity match we can jump right onboard.”
“You got that?” she asked the pilot.
“Can do,” he replied. “Sixty seconds, give or take.” The older man shook his head. “This is going to be a story for the kids. Not that they’ll believe me! Bubbles in space?”
Julia watched the distance to the beacon shrink. Five hundred meters. Three hundred meters. One hundred. Eighty.
Suddenly, the distance disappeared. The shuttle was insisting that Montgomery was aboard… and the bubble had just vanished, its contained atmosphere rapidly dissipating into the surrounding vacuum.
Gibbons and the pilot both gaped at the measure, wondering just what had happened.
Julia turned in her chair, glancing back into the main cargo compartment behind them. The Hand and the Commodore were floating in the middle of the compartment, already grabbing for straps.
“Take us back in, pilot,” she ordered.
“But what?” the man turned and saw Montgomery flash him a thumbs up as the man grabbed a headset for the internal network. “How?”
“It amazes me,” the Hand noted on the network, “how many people forget that Jump Mages are trained in personal teleportation long before we ever touch a ship. Jumping even a few kilometers back onto Sherwood Prime while moving would be a problem. Jumping a hundred meters into a shuttle with no relative velocity? Easy.”
“Good to see you, my lord,” Julia told him, shaking her head. “And you Commodore.”
“Details will have to wait until we’re back on the station,” McLaughlin said, “but I formally offer the apologies of the Patrol for this. This attack should not have happened.”
“A lot fewer people died than the last time someone tried to assassinate me,” Montgomery noted, his voice grim. “I’d rather you caught the bastards than apologized.”
“Believe me, my lord Hand, I intend to.”
Chapter 17
A good night’s sleep aboard her flagship had restored Grace’s energy, if not necessarily her calm or equanimity. Montgomery appeared to have taken someone trying to kill him and most of an hour floating in deep space with enough calm to make her wonder about his new job, but both of those were new and unpleasant for her.
“What do we have on the bomb?” she demanded, looking around the meeting room. Captain Wayne and Section Chief Harrison were attending by viewscreen, as was her grandfather and the Sherwood System Security investigator who’d been co-opted and shoved on a shuttle to orbit late last night.
“Not much yet,” Inspector Javier Accord responded. “We are reviewing all access and exits through the station’s airlocks over the last week, but while it is possible someone snuck the explosives through the station, there are only a handful of airlocks large enough to accommodate the missile pod used to trap the debris. The security records show no such device, so I suspect our search of the lock footage will be fruitless.”
“Do we have anything helpful?” Grace demanded.
“I can’t say yet,” Accord replied. “We’re investigating all maintenance flights, but…” he shrugged, and the screen showing him in his borrowed hotel conference room office split, a second image filling the other half.
Grace leaned in, studying the image. She recognized the exterior hull of one of Sherwood Prime’s rings and looking closer she saw a strange box. A missile pod – of a type usually mounted to armored vehicles as an anti-aircraft weapon.
“Study of the image I’m showing you also shows the foam explosive to be in place,” Accord noted. “This image is from an SSS cutter that happened to be sweeping the area with their optics. It’s the most recent detailed image of that section of the hull we have.” The Inspector shook his head grimly.
“It’s forty-three days old,” he finished simply. “The next most recent image we have is from the annual exterior maintenance review – three months ago. Since Sherwood Prime’s maintenance staff aren’t idiots, I’m unsurprised that image is clean.”
Grace stared at the image, a chill settling over her. Someone had set up an assassination attempt on her over a month ago. The trigger had almost certainly been pulled to try to take out Montgomery, but the weapon had been put in place to kill her.
“That gives us a fifty day window in which the device could have been placed. I will continue to review the flights and investigate any that appear suspicious. I do,” he stressed, “expect to find some answers with this route. However, some guesses or clarity as to motivation might help us narrow it down.”
The Commodore sighed.
“Arrington, everyone, if you could please drop off the channel,” she ordered. “I’ll bring you back in a moment, but I think I need to discuss this with just Governor McLaughlin and Inspector Accord.”
Her XO gave her a crisp salute and slipped silently out of the room. Section Chief Harrison looked… irritated, but cut the channel. Captain Wayne started to open his mouth but Grace cut him off with a hand gesture.
“We’ll talk later, Michael,” she promised him. “Be patient.”
With a noncommittal grunt, Wayne cut the channel, leaving her with just her grandfather and the Inspector.
“Understand, Inspector, that I am classifying what I am about to tell you and my grandfather as Top Secret,” she said grimly. “I am also, in effect, derailing your investigation. The matter is related, but you will tell no one of the new focus. Do you understand me, Inspector Accord?”
Both of the men on the viewscreen were staring at her, but Accord nodded firmly.
“Depending on what you need me to do, Commodore, I may need to inform my staff,” he noted.
“Only as absolutely necessary, Inspector,” she told him. “If this is leaked, we may lose the chance to stop an interstellar war.”
Now she had their complete attention.
“Grandfather, Inspector Accord, I have the data records from the Míngliàng Security Flotilla vessels that engaged what they believed to be one of our frigates,” she said calmly. “I’ve only taken the most precursor of looks for obvious reasons, but… so far, I have no basis to disagree with Hand Montgomery’s people’s analysis.
“It’s our ship,” she said bluntly. “I’ll forward you the footage and as much information on our vessels as I can, Inspector, but you can understand why I want an outside figure involved.”
“You want me to investigate the possibility that one of our ships has gone rogue?” the Inspector asked. His tone was clarifying, not incredulous.
“I’m afraid that it may not be merely a possibility,” she admitted. “It would explain a lot. Tying back to the assassination, I want you to focus on ships that,” she sighed, “have some connection to the Patrol.”
“Are you sure about this, Commodore?” her grandfather asked. “We both know you’ve attracted political opposition as well.”
“The timeline doesn’t work, Governor,” Grace told him. “I’ve only been dismissing the strongly connected officers – like Grayson – in the last month or so. That device was in place for two months.”
“I’d hoped we’d done better in selecting our commanders,” her grandfather admitted. “But… I place my faith in your judgment, Grace. As I have done since I gave you that oak leaf.”
“Thank you,” she replied. “Do you have any immediate questions, Inspector Accord?”
“Not yet,” he replied. “I will need to examine the data you’ve promised and fit this possibility into my mental matrices. I will be in touch,” he promised.
“Thank you, Inspector.”
#
“Captain Wayne,” Grace greeted her senior subordinate as she reopened the channel to his ship. Accord was now busily devouring the data she’d sent and her grandfather had been consumed by the many demands of his job. It was probably better she have this conversation without them, anyway.
“Grace. It’s good to see that you’re all right,” he replied, his eyes soft in a way that would normally make her uncomfortable. Today… today she was just pissed.
“
No thanks to you, as it turns out,” she told him bluntly. “So you’re aware, Section Chief Harrison will be filing a formal complaint about your behavior – not, to be clear, your refusal to assist Agent Amiri, but in your seizure of command aboard the station on specious grounds.”
“For all we knew, the entire station was at risk,” he replied. “I had to act quickly!”
“No. Section Chief Harrison had to act quickly,” Grace pointed out. “You interrupted their safety procedures and assumed command authority on a basis that Chief Harrison couldn’t validate or deny at the time – but that you bloody well knew was bullshit.”
“I thought you were dead,” he whispered, turning his face away from the camera. “There was no way you could have survived that. I… dammit, Grace, you know how I feel about you! I couldn’t leave finding your killers to anyone else!”
“So you let your emotions compromise your judgment – and the safety and search efforts of those responsible for securing the station?” she snapped. “Then you stonewalled a Protectorate Secret Service Agent until she had to pull rank because you wouldn’t cooperate?
“So far as I knew, you were dead,” Wayne repeated. “And it seemed likely that if it was an attack, there would be booby traps – like the one they did trigger. We needed to secure the station and cautiously go looking for you – so that we weren’t risking lives to find bodies.”
He looked up, meeting her gaze at last, and his eyes were red.
“I fucked up, Grace,” he admitted. “I’ll take the hammering for it – Chief Harrison and Agent Amiri are right to lodge complaints. I should have recognized that my emotions were in the way… but dammit, I’ve been burying them for months. You can’t keep doing this to me.”
“I am not doing anything, Captain Wayne,” she said shortly. “You’ve continued to push the boundaries of what is acceptable as a subordinate for months, and now your feelings are interfering with your ability to do your job.
Voice of Mars (Starship's Mage Book 3) Page 12
