The Thirteenth Man

by J. L. Doty

  “I think I’ve got a good signature,” Seth said. “High probability she’s Syndonese, and a warship. A big one, probably battleship class . . . and . . .” A gravity wave rolled through Turmoil’s bridge as the bogie’s bow wave slammed into her. “ . . . here she comes.”

  “Roger,” Charlie said, fighting nausea as his stomach somersaulted. “Remember, let her stern wake pull us into up-­transition. Don’t force it.”

  “We’ve got gravitational instability all over the ship, sir. Some pretty sick ­people.”

  Charlie should have thought of that, but too late now. The bogie passed within a million klicks, almost a collision course, then Roger shouted, “Up-­transition, sir.”

  “Go, go, go,” Charlie shouted. “We’ve got to keep up with her. Any reaction from her?”

  “No reaction, sir.”

  More waiting.

  “We’re stabilizing at two thousand lights, and a little over two AUs behind her.”

  Turmoil’s bridge was silent for several seconds. It took them all that long to realize they’d done it. Then Seth and Roger both let out a whoop, and everyone cheered.

  “He’s braking strongly, sir, approaching down-­transition.”

  “Helm?” Charlie demanded.

  “Three hundred lights, sir, and decelerating.”

  “Remember, match his deceleration curve down to fifty lights. Then decelerate as hard as you can. I want us down to two lights before we down-­transit.”

  “Two hundred and fifty lights, sir.”

  It was almost impossible for two ships in transition to detect one another, as long as they both held a straight, steady course and made only small adjustments: long, slow turns, decelerating or accelerating incrementally. But the captain of the bogie had become peacetime careless, had driven straight for Istanna and was now decelerating hard. And with Turmoil’s augmented instrumentation, he was handing them an easy targeting signature. She was definitely a big Syndonese warship.

  “Two hundred lights, sir.”

  They’d ridden inside the stern wake of the big ship for a little under a day. That had been hard on the crew, so early on they’d backed off to a distance of five AUs. But now, approaching Istannan nearspace, they needed to correct that.

  “One hundred and fifty lights, sir.”

  Charlie said, “Now hold on to a little extra velocity and start closing the gap. I want to be inside one AU when she down-­transits.”

  “One hundred lights, sir.”

  “Fire control—­status?”

  Roacka was at fire control. “As you instructed, lad, a one-­megaton transition torpedo armed and targeted for detonation two hundred meters off their bow. Forward and rear transition launchers charged and green-­lighted.”

  Turmoil’s hull groaned as a big gravity wave rolled through her, and no one needed to hear Roger say, “We’re just under one AU behind her, sir.”

  “Fifty lights, sir.”

  Charlie said, “Stay on his tail. Match him exactly.”

  “Forty lights . . .”

  “Hold us at forty, let him decelerate. If he stays in character he’ll down-­transit at thirty.”

  With the bogie continuing to decelerate, and Turmoil holding steady, they quickly closed with the Syndonese and passed him. This was the critical moment. To keep their transition flare small enough to remain undetected they had to get Turmoil down to four or five lights before down-­transiting. But if they started decelerating too soon, the bogie would retake them, and for this maneuver that wouldn’t work.

  “He’s at thirty-­five lights . . .”

  “Start dumping lights,” Charlie said. On his screens he watched the readings for Turmoil’s power plant approach redline. Now well out in front of the bogie, they began to decelerate, and with Turmoil’s drive-­to-­weight ratio they decelerated much faster than the bogie, which meant the Syndonese were rapidly overtaking them.

  “We’re at thirty lights, sir . . . twenty . . . ten. He’s just approaching thirty.”

  “Remember, hold on to as much sublight velocity as you can. And fire control, launch without my command as soon as you have a targeting solution.”

  “Five lights, sir, and she’s getting unstable. And here comes that bogie.”

  Charlie’s stomach churned as a gravity wave washed through Turmoil. Then the bogie roared past them, and as her transition wake flooded the ship it slammed them into down-­transition.

  “All stop,” Charlie shouted. “Rig for silent running.”

  “There she goes, sir.”

  The bogie down-­transited, and almost simultaneously Roacka growled, “Targeted. Torpedo away.”

  Turmoil’s hull thrummed with the characteristic sound of a transition launch. Then only a second later Charlie’s navigational screens went blank as the warhead detonated, the power plant readings dropped off scale, lights dimmed, and shipboard gravity disappeared as all noncritical systems shut down.

  “Seth,” Charlie said. “What have you got?”

  “Detonation was exactly on target, sir, two hundred meters off their bow. They’ve cut drive and are coasting, don’t appear to be taking any action, don’t appear to have noticed us. We’re coasting at point-­nine lights. They’re coasting at point-­two. I think it worked, sir.”

  The entire crew breathed a collective sigh of relief. Then someone let out a whoop, and a contagious round of backslapping and cheering followed. It had worked, at least so far. They’d gotten their transition velocity as close to one light as they could before down-­transiting, and they’d retained almost one light of sublight velocity, all of which helped minimize their transition flare. They’d also down-­transited close to the bogie, and at almost the same moment, so the bogie’s much greater flare masked their own. It also masked the launch of the torpedo. Any ships in the vicinity, or any station or planet based monitoring systems, might spot what appeared to be a faint echo of the larger ship’s flare. But that wasn’t uncommon, and would in all probability raise no concerns. Now, Charlie would have to wait to see if the second part of his plan worked.

  Turmoil was coasting at point-­nine lights into the gravitational well of the Istannan system, and since Turmoil wasn’t supposed to exist, they were going to coast right through the system and out the other side before powering back up. During such routine hours Charlie spent a lot of time thinking about Starfall and the overlord key. He’d even visited Finalsa recently, to speak to his bankers there, in hopes that they might have a package for him from Cesare. Sague, Aziz, and Ethallan all regularly funneled funds into the same numbered investment account on Finalsa, though none of them had access to those funds or even information on the state of the account. Charlie learned that the money had been carefully invested. There was enough there for him to build a few more hunter-­killers, but that was it. Perhaps, now that Andyne-­Borregga was coming online, he could expand the shipyard there to something more than repair-­and-­supply. But that would take months, and in any case, he still had to come up with a way of funding larger hulls if he wanted to oppose Goutain and Lucius with any kind of effectiveness.

  The bankers on Finalsa did have a package for him: actually just a sealed envelope, with a chromosome lock keyed to his DNA. And it held the strangest gift of all, a signed document granting Cesare the right to select the husband of Lucius’s firstborn daughter, another document willing those rights to the de Lunis, and another certifying registry of both with the church. From the dates on the documents, Cesare had purchased those rights long before Delilah had even been conceived. And with canonical registry, the granting of such rights was a matter of public record. Anyone could dig them up, but only if one knew to look for them buried in the church archives more than thirty years ago. Winston told Charlie it was one of those times, shortly after Martino was born, when Lucius had squandered his personal assets and needed the money. And sinc
e he had a male heir, he had little concern for a girl not yet conceived and who might never be born. Charlie would bet that even Lucius, being Lucius, had forgotten this transaction.

  To Charlie it was a useless document. He’d never exercise such an option. Nadama and Dieter would probably have him assassinated if he did. And even if that weren’t an issue, he would never force Del to be his, and that’s what it would amount to.

  “Sir, we’ve just received a coded message from Mr. Sague, for your eyes only.”

  “Send it down to my cabin.”

  With no gravity, Charlie unstrapped and pulled his way down to the tiny captain’s cabin. Oddly enough, he was more comfortable there than in the big suite of rooms at Starfall. The message was waiting on his personal console. He decoded it, then watched Sague’s image report.

  Apparently the warship they’d fired on was a Syndonese battleship christened the Kiralov. “They believe they triggered a mine, Your Grace. When their captain told me that, I decided to improvise. I told them this system was rather extensively mined during the Kealth incursion about a hundred years ago, and that while we’ve cleaned out most of the old mines, one does turn up every now and then. He seemed satisfied with that explanation.

  “As we hoped, they sustained minor damage and he’s demanded immediate ser­vice from our shipyard. All is going as planned. Also, we were watching closely and were unable to detect your transition flare. It was wholly masked by that of the larger ship.”

  Charlie and Sague had hatched their little plot together. Without an atmosphere to carry the shock wave, and with fully operational shielding, a warship should easily survive a small, one-­megaton detonation at two hundred meters. But even with only minor damage, the commander of a warship would want to have her systems checked out thoroughly after such a near miss. And with a major shipyard conveniently close at hand, why not have her checked out immediately? As soon as the Kiralov docked at Istanna Prime, Sague’s ­people would be all over her, but a special team would be assigned to her core computer system. They’d have to work under the watchful eyes of Kiralov’s crew, but Charlie hoped they could learn something useful, though even if they learned nothing, the experiment had been a success.

  Once Turmoil and her sister ship Chaos were completed, Charlie decided to reoccupy Starfall. With his new personal ship The Thirteenth Man, the two hunter-­killers, the converted Syndonese warship The Headsman, and the converted freighter, which he had named Retribution, he could always keep two of the ships in close orbit around Luna, providing the estate with a reasonably effective defense. He’d also decided to maintain the image of being near destitute, and so The Thirteenth Man, which appeared on the surface to be little better than a poor man’s scow, was the only ship he allowed anyone outside his ser­vice to know about. Any of the other ships, when in orbit about Luna, would run silent, maintaining the secret of their existence and ready to deliver a nasty surprise should they receive another visit from a marauding bully like Santieff, or a pirate looking for easy pickings. And as a matter of security, the crews of Turmoil, Chaos, Retribution, and The Headsman were aware of only their own ship’s existence, and not that of the others. Furthermore, none of the staff of Starfall were privy to the existence of any of Charlie’s “shadow fleet,” as Roacka had dubbed it.

  Every time Charlie returned to Starfall he found more of the Two Thousand waiting for him, and they were often accompanied by a few of Cesare’s staff. This time it was Major Pelletier and about a dozen of Cesare’s personal guard.

  Charlie greeted Pelletier stiffly. “Why now, Major? After all this time why do you suddenly find Theode’s ser­vice so distasteful?”

  A man like Pelletier had resources, and nothing compelled him to remain on Traxis. But after so many months, ser­vice to Theode had become implicitly voluntary, and Charlie wondered if he could trust the man.

  Charlie had decided to receive Pelletier “under the eyes of the ducal seat,” a saying that meant he’d receive Pelletier seated upon the ducal throne, though no one called it a throne since there was only one throne in the Realm. “Why did you remain?” Charlie asked.

  Pelletier lowered his eyes. “I had hoped to do something for Lord Arthur. He was a virtual prisoner in Farlight, constantly under guard by men not under my command. I do believe Duke Theode didn’t trust me.”

  “And what did you hope to do for Arthur?”

  “I don’t know, Your Grace. I confess I’d never thought through such a situation. One of the men I brought with me wanted to try to kidnap him, steal a ship, and bring him to you. But we wouldn’t have gotten far, and in any case I know your resources are limited. Theode would merely have come here in force and taken him back.”

  “Why did you finally leave?”

  “Once they decided to remove Arthur from Traxis, it became clear we could do nothing for him. Though, looking back, it should have been clear from the beginning.”

  Charlie had allowed only his closest advisors and friends to be present: Winston, Paul, Roacka, Add, Ell, Roger, Seth, and Darmczek. He didn’t really know Pelletier, who had joined Cesare’s ser­vice while Charlie was in the hands of the Syndonese. “You served Theode, who betrayed Cesare and Arthur.” Pelletier cringed. “Theode didn’t trust you, and clearly he had reason not to. Tell me why I should trust you, Major.”

  Pelletier opened his mouth to speak and hesitated. The moment drew out, Pelletier standing there with his mouth open, but with no words to say in his own defense. It was Roacka who broke the silence, stepping forward and growling, “I’ll speak for the man, lad. He’s a good man, loyal. Maybe it was a mistake to stay with Theode so long, maybe not. Who can say? But I have no doubt of his motives.”

  Add stepped forward. “And I’ll speak for him too, little brother.”

  Ell joined her. “And I.” One by one they all stepped forward in a unanimous chorus of support for the major.

  Charlie considered Pelletier for a long moment. “Speak for yourself, Major.”

  Again Pelletier hesitated, then in a rush he said, “I loved your father. I did.”

  Of all the things Pelletier could have said, Charlie hadn’t expected that. “I’ll think on the matter,” he said, then stood, and without a word marched toward the doors. But in passing he overheard Pelletier whisper to Roacka, “He allows you to call him lad?”

  “Of course he does,” Roacka replied, unable to whisper even when trying to do so. “The day the boy expects me to pull out some Yer Graces and Yer Lordships is the day I turn him over my knee and spank him like I did twenty years ago.”

  “Little brother.”

  Charlie sat on the stone floor facing the featureless wall at the end of the blind corridor. He’d had another sleepless night, had awakened in the wee hours of the morning and trudged down here to stare at the wall obscured by the visual distortion field. At the sound of Ell’s voice he rose to his feet and turned to face her. Add, Roacka, and Pelletier stood behind her. “Major Pelletier may know how to rescue Arthur.”

  CHAPTER 19

  PIRATE’S BOUNTY

  Theode was having Arthur removed to the planet Kobiyan, an airless rock in an out-­of-­the-­way system that was a minor de Maris holding, and an ideal place to lock Arthur away forever. With a few modifications and upgrades, Kobiyan could be well-­enough defended to make it difficult to crack without a full assault by several warships.

  “Why now?” Charlie asked. “Why after all this time?”

  Pelletier said, “Apparently, someone made an offhand remark at a reception in Almsburg about reinstating Arthur, which infuriated him. He kept saying it was you, but Gaida disagreed with him on that. They’ve both grown quite paranoid about Arthur.”

  “It was Telka,” Charlie said. “And I think she did it on purpose to goad him.”

  Winston gave Charlie a look as Pelletier continued. “In any case, the location of Arthur’s new prison is
to be a closely held secret. Quite simply, he’ll never be seen or heard from again.”

  “How did you learn this closely held secret?” Charlie asked.

  Pelletier shrugged. “Servants. They hear everything. And a good security chief is wise to cultivate them as sources.” Charlie understood that well. His mother had been a servant, and before Cesare had taken an active role in his upbringing he’d been raised by servants, and had been treated as a servant. Servants were ignored until needed, and frequently forgotten even when present.

  “There are quite a few in the de Maris household who are loyal to Arthur. And of course Theode and his mother haven’t endeared themselves to anyone.”

  “And Arthur hasn’t been moved to Kobiyan yet?”

  “No. They’ve locked him in a hospital room under heavy guard on Traxis Prime to get him out of sight. But that’s only temporary while they make modifications to the facilities on Kobiyan to improve security. If we had some firepower we could extract him from there.” Pelletier wasn’t yet aware of the existence of Charlie’s shadow fleet, nor was he aware of the true nature of The Thirteenth Man.

  It didn’t matter, though, and Charlie shook his head adamantly. “If we had the firepower to extract him, as you pointed out earlier, Theode would just come here with more firepower than I can muster and take him back. In any case, it’ll be easier to take him from a ship. But how do we do that without them realizing it’s me?”

  Roacka suddenly threw his head back and laughed, then looked at each of them with an evil grin. Paul demanded angrily, “All right, you old reprobate. You’ve got some sort of idea, so out with it.”

  “Well now, churchman,” Roacka said, the grin broadening. “I’m reluctant to speak this idea in your hallowed presence because it might offend you.”

  “Out with it, damn it.”

  “Ah! A churchman who swears.” Roacka looked at Charlie. “I guess that means it won’t upset him to conspire with pirates.”