“So tell me, Captain, should I be considering relieving you? The Defender Yards could use someone who’s held command of a Hunter as they design the Valiant-class for Phase Three. It would be a role that does not require interaction with me, which seems to be a problem for you.”
He broke away from her gaze, staring down at the desk of his office, and then took a deep breath and looked back up.
“I take your point, Commodore,” he said slowly, granting her the title in private for the first time in a while. “You will not need to relieve me. I will do my job.”
“Good,” she said gently. “But realize, Captain, that this is the final warning I can offer. Those complaints will go in your record, and if you try to presume on our friendship or allow yourself to be emotionally compromised by your ‘feelings’, you will be riding a desk so fast you’ll be looking for the plate of the freight truck that ran you over.
“You follow me, Captain?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter 18
It was very quiet in Damien’s office as he watched Sherwood Prime. The rings rotated fast enough that even if he’d been close enough he wouldn’t have been able to see the hole in Ring One, but he knew it was there.
“You know, my job would be a lot easier if people tried to attack you directly,” Amiri observed behind him. The ex-bounty hunter still moved quietly enough to sneak up on him, to the point he was almost used to it.
Almost wasn’t enough to prevent him from jumping as she spoke, and he turned to face her.
“Instead of freely engaging in collateral damage?” he asked softly. “Yesterday could easily have killed dozens – if the SAR shuttle that had found those missiles had been unarmed, what would have happened?”
“The door to the Commodore’s office had a properly working emergency seal,” Amiri pointed out. “No one outside that office was at risk. You’re right about the missiles, though,” she winced. “I commandeered a Security vehicle – we’d probably have been fine without your intervention. A civilian ship… would have died.”
“I’m getting very, very tired of people dying around me while I do this job,” he told her. “Feels like my showing up paints a target on everyone.”
“Yes, because the assassination device that has apparently been in place for over a month is somehow your fault,” Amiri pointed out. They’d been briefed on that tidbit earlier. “And the pirates, obviously, have somehow stepped up their attacks because you’re here. Goddamnit Damien, you are not responsible for everything.”
He gave her half a smile. She wasn’t wrong, though it didn’t feel like it every day.
“Almost five thousand people dead, Julia,” he half-whispered. “Dozens of freighters destroyed, at least three warships – two of which we killed ourselves. This whole region is going to hell in a handbasket, and I feel like the straws I’m grasping at are lighting themselves on fire as I touch them.”
He needed to get back to Míngliàng – but he also needed to know what Renzetti had found out from Tau Ceti. Without that data, he could be walking into a nest of vipers.
Of course, he wasn’t sure he wasn’t already in a nest of vipers in Sherwood. He was reasonably sure he could trust Grace and probably even her grandfather, but that raised the possibility that they were not as in control as they thought they were.
“My job is just to keep you alive,” Amiri pointed out. She grabbed a chair and pulled it up next to him, looking out the window. “Of course, that’s easier if you don’t have a death wish.”
“I do not have a death wish,” Damien argued. “The death rate around me, though…”
“Is a function of your job,” she interrupted. “His Majesty doesn’t send Hands into minor conflicts or personal arguments. He sends Hands when entire worlds are at risk. So the odds of you being somewhere where people aren’t dying, sick, or desperately in need are pretty damn low unless you’re on vacation.”
He started to object, but she drove right over him.
“You can’t save everyone Damien,” she reminded him. “But you can stop the violence. Which means you need to stop beating yourself up over what has happened and start looking at what you can make happen.”
Damien raised one hand in the ancient touché symbol.
“I’m keeping my eyes open,” he promised her. “For now, I’m waiting on Renzetti. He should be here inside of two days, hopefully that will give me a crack I can wedge open.”
“What will you do if Wong really has bought warships?”
“It depends on what he’s doing with them,” he replied. Further discussion was interrupted by an alarm triggering on his wrist computer. “This is Montgomery,” he answered crisply.
“My lord, we need you on the bridge immediately.”
#
Damien emerged onto the bridge of the Duke of Magnificence with Julia a few steps behind him. The often hectic beating heart of the ship was quiet… anticipatory. There was no chaos, but he could see and feel every eye in the room on him as he crossed to the center platform where the Simulacrum hung and Captain Jakab waited for him.
“Mage-Captain,” he greeted Jakab. “What’s so urgent?”
“Not urgent, perhaps, my lord,” he said calmly, “but important.” He gestured and one of the many icons on the screens showing the star system outside the Duke’s hull highlighted and zoomed in. It turned out to be a container ship, a three-megaton four-rotator-type – a Venice-class identical to the one Damien had left the system in.
“This is the jump freighter Tsunami Dawn,” Jakab explained. “She just arrived from the Antonius system. Like a lot of bulk ships, she’s only got one Mage aboard so the trip took her almost three days.”
“I’m not seeing the urgency, Captain,” Damien noted, studying the ship.
“The issue, my lord, is that the jump freighter Mistletoe Solstice left Antonius twenty-four hours before she did, with two Mages aboard,” the Mage-Captain explained. “She has not arrived, and the Tsunami Dawn saw no sign of her in transit.”
Damien studied the ship, remembering the level of sensors the Blue Jay had years before. It was unlikely Tsunami Dawn had a better suite, which meant she could miss quite a bit… but not an operating freighter or an emergency beacon.
“Overdue, missing, presumed lost,” he murmured.
“Exactly, my lord. What do you want us to do?”
“What is the Patrol’s normal response?” he asked.
“They’d sent a frigate back along the route looking for the lost ship,” Jakab explained. “We’d do the same, with a destroyer to be fair, if we were running system security. Of course, with the restrictions we’ve imposed…”
“They can’t finish the route,” Damien agreed. “How long would it take us to sweep to Antonius and back?”
“Sixteen hours there, sixteen hours back,” the Duke’s Captain replied instantly. Damien did the math in his head himself and nodded. Eight hours between jumps per Mage and four Mages allowed them to move twelve light years a day, compared to the Patrol ships that only carried two Mages and could only travel six.
“Get me Commodore McLaughlin,” he ordered. A com tech leapt to obey, and he waited calmly until the channel opened.
“Montgomery,” she greeted him crisply, no trace of the kiss they’d shared in deep space marring her voice or expression. A part of him – a silly part of him – resented that. But… that was how it had to be.
“Commodore,” he replied. “My crew just updated me on the Mistletoe Solstice’s status.”
“We will need to send a ship to investigate,” she told him. “I formally request permission for one vessel to exceed the three light year limit.”
“I understand.” Damien said as he considered the time. Renzetti wasn’t due for at least forty hours, which meant the Duke could make the run to Antonius and back well before the courier returned – presuming their far more powerful sensors couldn’t find the missing ship.
“Given the tensions, and the cont
inued issues, I have to deny your request,” he told Grace. Her eyes flashed, and he raised his hand to cut off her speech before it began. “I will, however, take the Duke of Magnificence out myself. Someone has to investigate, and we’re in the best position to do so.”
He saw Grace swallow her words and consider the situation.
“I suppose that makes sense,” she said slowly. Tapping a command, she brought up some sort of screen that she studied for a long moment, then turned back to Damien.
“I would request that you take one of our frigates with you out to the three light year line,” she finally asked. “I’m aware that will slow you down, but I would be abdicating my responsibility were I to leave this entirely to you.”
“Very well,” Damien allowed after a quick glance at Mage-Captain Jakab. “We will be leaving shortly. Will your vessel be prepared in time?”
“I will confer with Captain Wayne immediately,” she promised. “Both the Maid Marian and the Robin Hood are permanently assigned to Sherwood orbit. The Alan-a-dale should be replenished and ready to go.”
“Have Captain Wayne talk to Captain Jakab once he knows how long he’ll need,” Damien told her. “We’ll find your people, Commodore McLaughlin – one way or another.”
#
The screen Grace was looking at was the replenishment status of the Alan-a-dale. She was currently orbiting just behind Sherwood Prime, being serviced by shuttles. She tapped a command, raising her dockmaster.
“Commander Law, I need you to accelerate the replenishment of the Alan-a-dale,” she ordered.
“Yes, ma’am. How long?”
“I want her to ready to fly in an hour,” she replied, watching the older man on her screen swallow, then nod.
“I can make it happen, sir,” he confirmed. “Add it to the list of my miracles for review when my performance evaluation comes up.”
“I suspect your eval will be fine, Commander,” she told him. “Thank you.”
With a textbook-perfect salute, the dockmaster signed off. With a sigh, she steeled herself for what was coming next and told her system to connect to Wayne.
“Grace!” he greeted her cheerfully, as if the earlier conversation hadn’t happened. Her flat look in response depressed his cheer. He swallowed, hard, then corrected himself. “Commodore McLaughlin. How can I assist?”
“I’m assuming you got the brief on the Mistletoe Solstice?”
“Yes, Commodore,” he said slowly. “I presume the Maid Marian will be checking it out?”
“No, Captain Wayne,” she told him. “The Duke of Magnificence will be. We are, in case you weren’t paying attention, restricted to a three light year operating radius.”
“That’s bullshit!” he snapped. “We have to do our jobs!”
“And our job technically doesn’t exist in the Charter, which means the Hand gets to write the rules however he wants,” Grace pointed out. “The Protectorate’s founders didn’t envision organizations like the Patrol, Captain. We weren’t supposed to be necessary.”
“Well, we are, and putting stupid restrictions on us won’t help!”
“I hope you can control your opinions better when dealing directly with Hand Montgomery, Captain,” the Commodore replied coldly. “I’m assigning the Alan-a-dale to accompany the Duke of Magnificence to the three light year limit. If you find something inside the three light year limit, you will assist Hand Montgomery’s people in their investigation, and have one of your officers return to Sherwood aboard the Duke to hand-deliver your assessment of the situation.”
“And what will I be doing while this courier is coming home?” Wayne asked.
“Regardless of whether you find the Mistletoe Solstice inside the three light year limit, you will then proceed to patrol all Sherwood Jump Three zones,” she ordered. “I want to be certain no other vessel is in danger.”
“That will take… days,” he replied.
“It seems to me, Captain Wayne, that you need some time away from Sherwood to cool down,” Grace told him sweetly. “Accompany Hand Montgomery on his investigation as long as he’ll let you, then sweep our outer perimeter. In all honesty, Captain, I am worried that our enemy seems to know our shipping patterns far too well. I want you looking for spy platforms and similar threats. We owe the people coming to Sherwood that much peace of mind.”
Wayne looked mutinous but slowly nodded.
“Very well, Commodore,” he accepted. “I’ll take my dose of medicine. I know I earned it. I’ll coordinate with Law and Jakab, and we should be on our way shortly.”
Chapter 19
Mage-Captain Kole Jakab watched the stars around the Duke of Magnificence in silence, waiting for the response he was expecting from his crew. After two hours in the void of Antonius-Sherwood Jump Seven, his practiced eye had caught none of the signs he would have expected from a destroyed ship, and his crews hadn’t said anything at all to suggest their scanners had found anything either.
“Jump Seven is clear,” Commander Rhine finally said from behind him. “There’s no engine trail or anything to suggest the Mistletoe Solstice even made it this far. The only signature in the last three days is consistent with the Tsunami Dawn.”
“Understood,” Kole replied. “And our Sherwood friend?”
“Alan-a-dale is sticking right with us, ten thousand kilometers off our starboard flank,” his tactical officer replied instantly. “Given everything going on, having a Patrol ship that close to us is making my shoulderblades itch.”
“Sherwood or Míngliàng, I feel like both are measuring us for a target,” Kole admitted. “No update to their jump schedule?”
“Nothing,” Rhine confirmed. “We jump again in one hour, fifty-three minutes.”
“All right. Keep an eye on our friend over there,” he ordered. “If he does anything funny, I want to know about it before Captain Wayne does.”
“Yes, sir.”
#
The void of space looked much the same everywhere.
If Damien wanted, his computer could easily highlight specific stars and constellations and show him how Antonius-Sherwood Jump Seven differed from the hundreds of other jump zones he’d seen over the years, but that wouldn’t change what the human eye saw.
Or what the human mind knew.
He’d never visited this specific jump zone before, but his first ship, the Blue Jay, had entered Sherwood via Antonius. Here, one light year short of their destination, they’d been jumped by pirates and nearly killed.
Here, Governor Miles James McLaughlin had lost his youngest son saving that ship from those pirates – pirates one Damien Montgomery had later killed.
There was no way, looking at the void of space around him, to know exactly where the Blue Jay had been. Any energy signatures of that years-ago attack were, well, light years away. It seemed… oddly right that the man trying to stop the Sherwood Interstellar Patrol from going to war would visit the location of the events that had created the Patrol.
“Sir, the Alan-a-dale reports ready to jump,” Commander Rhine reported from the bridge. “Your orders?”
“There’s nothing for us here, Commander,” Damien replied. “You may jump when ready.”
#
“We’ve got something,” Commander Rhine reported.
Kole crossed to the tactical console. Jump Six had been as empty as Jump Seven, but he’d wondered if Jump Five would be more productive. It raised interesting questions, though, if the attack had taken place exactly as far away as Hand Montgomery’s orders had restricted the Patrol.
“What do you have?” he asked.
“Look here, and here,” the dark-haired tactical officer pointed out. He was highlighting curved sections of space, the outer segments of a dissipating sphere. “That’s titanium mist. Thousands of tiny droplets, in a pattern consistent with vaporized titanium solidifying in a vacuum.”
“So the Mistletoe Solstice was destroyed?” Kole said softly, eyeing the innocuous looking spectrometer results.
/>
“Possible, but I can’t be sure,” his subordinate admitted. “It’s hard to get a vector on a cloud like this, but the odds are we have a complete sphere or close to. My team is hunting for more sections of it, but after several days the zone could be huge.”
“Sir, we’ve got something,” Lieutenant Carver interrupted. “Two more mist clouds, one looks like the main debris plume.”
“Show me,” Kole ordered.
The young redhead flipped what he was looking onto the screen Rhine and Kole were looking at. Instantly, the Mage-Captain could see Carver’s point. One of the mist clouds was a little smaller than the first two – they’d been lucky to pick it up at all – and matched the curve set by those two.
The last was in the middle of the clouds and was larger than the other three by an order of magnitude. Studying the patterns, Kole could see that the other three clouds had spread away from the main plume.
“The main plume is also showing oxygen, hydrogen, carbon…” Carver shrugged. “I’d say we’re looking at a major, major, breach – possibly the destruction of the ship’s entire engine section – but not the destruction of the vessel.”
“The numbers agree with him,” Rhine confirmed his subordinate’s hunch immediately. “If what we’ve detected is as much of the mass as I would expect… we’re looking at a high energy laser straight into their engine section.”
“So the Solstice is probably still out there?”
“There’s no telling what happened to her after she lost her engines,” the tactical officer pointed out. “But we should be able to back track these clouds and get a zone for closer inspection.”
“Do it,” Kole ordered. “As soon as you’ve got a sweep zone, pass it on to the Alan-a-dale and get us underway.”
Rhine corralled his analysts with a gesture and starting setting to work, while Kole returned to the center podium, eyeing the empty void around his ship.
Somehow, knowing this nondescript section of space was where the Mistletoe Solstice had died made it feel that much more threatening.
Voice of Mars (Starship's Mage Book 3) Page 13
