by Vox Day
Hull glanced at Wexby. “Lieutenant, please escort these men to the launcher. Take Osborn with you.
“Aye aye, sir.” As Wexby sprang to obey, Hull gave Barngate a piercing lookover as the petty officer walked past him. York glanced at the quartermaster chief and his two companions as they dutifully trudged after the Draco's lieutenant. They looked as if they had come straight from the fires of hell, she thought. Lines of strain and fatigue marked their faces. Whatever their roles had been, their lot hadn't been easy. And strangely enough, none of the three men struck her as being Dai Zhani operatives, not even Lee Chun.
Of course, the better the agent, the better he was able to conceal himself in plain sight. Or herself.
“Captain, you know where the others are located?”
The Marine officer nodded. “We'll go find them and bring them back to the launcher, Captain. You should have a clear path to the designated hatch; my men are already there. I assume you don't want an escort.”
“It appears we'll be fine.
Hull paused several times, closely scrutinizing the air ducts in particular as they walked through the corriders and ascended to the top level. There were still no signs of a struggle, or any conflict at all.
Benbow, who had been studying a meter on his device, said, “No sign of any radiation leaks.”
“What about anomalies in the atmosphere?” asked York.
“It's been thoroughly scrubbed, Miss York. The ECS for a ship this size will recycle its entire atmosphere in about four kiloseconds. A single scrub wouldn't remove it all from the air, but it's been weeks. There have been hundreds of cycles, which, of course, is why it's perfectly safe for us to breathe it now.”
“Won't the air quality records be logged?”
“Certainly. And even if the computer records were scrubbed as well, there is the physical evidence that would be detectable in the filters.”
York grimaced and shook her head. “Do you really think anyone capable of planning and successfully executing a mission this lethal would fail to replace the filters? They're almost certainly floating out in space with the corpses.”
“Mm, yes, I suppose that's true,” Benbow admitted ruefully.
Hull led them around a corner, then halted as a pair of plasma burners were leveled at them from the end of the passage. The two Marines looked more than intimidating in their powered battle armor, more like a pair of oversized and heavily armed robots than mere technologically enhanced men.
“Identify yourselves!” one of their voices projected over his helmet speaker.
Hull simply held up his hand and waited as a blue light briefly streamed out from above the Marine's visor to scan it. The captain waited for a moment, then nodded as the two Marines put up their weapons and saluted him with the crash of metal on metal.
“As you were, Marines.” Hull held up his hand to the door switch and the iris valve popped open in immediate response. “Doc, I think you'd best wait here. Miss York, with me, if you please.”
The doctor nodded obediently. She followed Hull through the valve, then jumped, startled, as it slammed shut behind her. “We'll make our way up to the bridge first, I think. Then the compartment in question.”
Hull walked with a light, quick step, picking his way unerringly through the corridors to the central passageway, where he waited for York to catch up.
“You're too fast for me,” she said when she reached his side.
“I've lived in such ships for thirty years,” Hull explained. He flicked his light along the passageway to illuminate the empty walls. “This is a hellish thing, York. A ship was not meant to die like this.”
“Murdered,” she corrected.
“Murdered,” he agreed. “I couldn't even begin to conceive of such a thing when you first came on board the ship. Even now, that I see it, I still can't believe it to be real.”
She nodded. It was one thing to see it through the eyes of logic. It was altogether something else to stand in the empty metal sarcophagus where so many men had died.
Hull came to a ladder and moved up agilely. “This will take us to the bridge,” he called back to her. When York reached the top, he was still there, waiting for her. “The number two lander was launched,” he said noncommittally. He flicked the beam into the empty lander bubble.
“What does that indicate?” York asked.
“Perhaps nothing.” He hesitated. “Short of a sudden, violent explosion, the bridge personnel could certainly have reached it.”
“But there wasn't an explosion,” she said.
“No.” Hull gestured around him. “There is no damage at all.”
“Do you believe that the Rigel was in the Gelhart system when the emergency occurred, Captain?”
Hull worked his lips thoughtfully. “I haven't been able to understand why the Rigel was in this system at all, York. It was not on the path of their sweep through the subsector.”
“Could the emergency have occurred when the ship was in hypertransit? Is that possible?”
“It's unlikely,” Hull replied.
“Why is that?”
“It's too dangerous to come out of transit this deep within a solar system. That's why we spent so much time getting here.”
“Whoever made this 'accident' happen was not afraid to take risks.”
“There is that. What is the point of your question?”
“What are the chances that the attack—or if you insist, the accident—took place when the ship was in orbit here?”
“Good God!” Hull exclaimed.
York nodded. “They've got a navigator. Or, perhaps they kept the navigator alive long enough to get them here, then threw him out an airlock. They might not have dared hypertransit, but an in-system burn is safe enough.”
“Just be sure to cut the engines before you hit the planet,” Hull said, nodding.
The bridge was devoid of life. The great star window looked out over the golden hellscape of Bonoplane, which looked beautiful from orbit. The computers continued their mindless routines, blithely unaware of the changes that had taken place around them. York didn't know if she found the sight more depressing or amusing. Perhaps the Terrans had the cyborgs wrong. Perhaps what was evil about the marriage of Man and Machine was not the replacement of Man, but rather the corruption of Machine innocence.
Hull had gone directly to the officer of the deck's post and was rapidly scanning the ship's log. York waited patiently, wondering if her suspicions were correct.
Finally Hull looked up, his eyes vaguely puzzled. “There's no mention of any trouble,” he said.
“Were they in hypertime?”
“On the last entry, yes.”
“That tends to indicate that whatever happened, must have happened suddenly,” York observed.
“Very suddenly.” Hull's face was grim. “What's your read, Miss York?”
“I'm not at all certain,” she answered honestly, “but I think I may know. This crime is fairly stark in its broad details, Captain, but there are still little odds and ends that need to be sorted out. Fortunately, the tracks the guilty parties left are too big to be covered entirely.”
“I still don't know what you think.”
“I think Benbow is right. The ECS was poisoned. It's the only explanation. But at a bare minimum, to pull off what we're seeing here required a system-capable navigator, a skilled computer technician, and probably two or three to crack heads at the right time.”
“Well, whatever happened here won't go unpunished, Miss York. I can promise you that.”
“No, it won't go unpunished. For good or ill, few things do.” She glanced around the empty bridge. “Shall we unveil the pet?”
“Pet?”
“Shiva, the Destroyer,” she explained. “ The sunbuster. That's what we came for, isn't it?”
Hull nodded reluctantly, letting his gaze wander around the bridge. She recalled that it was exactly the sort of bridge on which he would never be permitted to hold command. She wonder
ed if he was reflecting on the irony; whatever his failures as a naval officer might be, at least he had never lost a ship. Yet. Finally Hull reached out and pressed a button, then moved toward the spot located immediately behind the captain's chair where the floor was opening up to reveal a ladder.
York looked down into a black well, which suddenly flared into shape with an audible snap as Hull found the light. They looked at each other.
“After you,” she said. Hull nodded and descended slowly, waiting at the bottom until York reached him before switching on his suit's chestlight. Together they stood there, speechless, their eyes riveted on the great steel door which hung twisted and awry, half open to reveal a dark cylindrical compartment beyond. For a moment they stared silently at it. Someone had blown it open with explosive charges.
While Hull stood riveted to the spot, she walked to the door and examined it closely. It was blown off almost cleanly; the explosive had been some sort of paste applied to the locking mechanisms rather than a anti-missile torpedo or powerpack adapted to the purpose. That told her this was the work of Li-Hu's operatives, of men who were prepared for the task. It was no ad hoc operation.
She turned around to face the captain. “I think you've earned the right to see for yourself.”
Hull hesitated before he stepped forward to flash the beam of light through the opening. Then he froze.
“Empty!” The word sprang savagely to his lips.
York approached his side and was able to confirm that the compartment contained nothing. There was no missile, no launch system, there was nothing at all. The chamber was little more than a tube with a port at the opposite end, which, when opened, would look out into space. It was obvious to anyone with a trained eye that the compartment not only didn't contain a missile launcher now, it was entirely apparent that it never had.
“It's empty,” Hull repeated. He stared perplexedly into the empty chamber. “There's nothing there. I mean, there was nothing there before they broke in.”
York found his confusion mildly amusing. She watched as he looked back and forth across the vacant room, open-mouthed with astonishment. Finally, she took pity on him. “They wouldn't steal the entire launch system, Captain. It would make no sense. There aren't even any power connections here. And even if the thieves were so perverse as to remove everything, they wouldn't have been able to do it without leaving some sign that they had been there.”
She gestured towards the floor. There were no wires, no pieces of broken metal except for some that clearly belonged to the shattered door, and no sign that any weapon, much less a Shiva sunbuster, had ever been there.
Hull pursed his lips. “No, of course not.” Relief suddenly flooded his face as he broke into a smile. Then he laughed out loud. “Dammit, York! By whatever gods favored us, Rigel was traveling unarmed! It wasn't carrying the Shiva! They chose an unarmed ship to sabotage!”
York looked around the small compartment, contemplating the captain's assertion. Sailors knew when a ship was armed or unarmed. Despite the secrecy shrouding the Shiva, it could not have been removed without sparking rumors among the crew, not from the putative size of the weapon if one were to judge by the cylindrical compartment which supposedly housed it. By the same token, it couldn't have been removed since the emergency. So, where did that leave them?
She looked back at Hull. “The Rigel's mission was operational, wasn't it?”
“Be that as it may, she wasn't carrying the sunbuster,” Hull answered. He gestured toward the compartment. “The evidence is right there. Or, rather, the lack of evidence.”
“Would she be on an operational mission without the sunbuster?”
“I couldn't possibly say. I'm a mere destroyer captain, I don't sit on the Admiralty Board.”
“How about the ship's log? Would it clarify whether the mission was a conventional one? Whether it was operational?”
“Certainly.”
“Then we'd better check that out,” she said abruptly. Feeling a surge of impatience, she returned to the ladder and climbed up without waiting for him to precede her.
While Hull went to the logbook, York sat in the captain's chair and rested her head in her hands, an enormous suspicion growing in her mind. It seemed so unbelievable that she wanted to reject it, and yet, the more she thought about it, the less incredible it appeared. There was nothing that was beyond belief, not in this universe, or the next, or the one after that. She let the thought grow and flower, turning it around methodically in her mind, examining every aspect of it.
Hull's voice came over from the log desk. “The mission was fully operational. That's settled.”
“I thought as much,” she said.
“I don't understand what you're driving at,” Hull persisted. “As far as I'm concerned, the sunbusting technology is safe. They murdered the entire crew for nothing, York! They didn't get what they were after!”
“Would the admiral have rushed you here if Rigel were unarmed?” she asked him quietly.
Hull's eyes narrowed. He started to say something, then stopped himself.
“Would they divert the Cetus to the Terentulus system and send half the Navy to blockade the Dai Zhani worlds for fear of losing a single unarmed cruiser?”
“I don't know. I don't understand.” Hull shook his head, bewildered. “Stop beating around the bush and tell me what you think for once, York! What are you getting at?”
“I'm not sure, but if it means what I think it means, you've just made rear admiral.”
“What sort of damned nonsense is that?” Hull's face flushed red and he threw his hands up in the air. “You bloody coverts can't give a straight answer to anything!”
“Nonsense?” She gazed thoughtfully at the frustrated man. “Oh, it's anything but that, Captain.”
By the time they returned to the launcher, the Marines had already rounded up the other six survivors and were keeping them under casual, but watchful guard in the rearmost compartment with the first three men. Hull decided that Lieutenant Wexby, Doctor Benbow, Captain Pedrattus, and three of the Marines would remain on board Rigel, sweep the ship to search for any undetected bodies or survivors, and gather any clues that might offer a hint as to which, if any, of the nine survivors were responsible for the fate of the missing crew members. And both Pedrattus and Wexby had been given orders, separately, to ensure that no one attempted to pass the lock towards the fore of the cruiser.
York was pleased to note that it didn't escape Hull's mind that the saboteurs might have escaped the ship on one of Rigel's launchers, and Draco had already sent out drones as well as her second, smaller launch to investigate the planet below. But she was skeptical that anyone would be found alive. It was safer, so much safer, to remain on board the warship in orbit than to chance a landing in an inhospitable environment such as was available on the surface of Bonoplane, and if there was one thing she was certain about the Dai Zhani operatives, it was that they would tend to err on the brazen side.
Hull still didn't grasp the truth, she reflected, except perhaps deep in his subconscious. And that was what now made the Draco's captain dangerous to the Ascendancy, and what would no doubt result in his immediate promotion. A promotion that would puzzle the man as much as it would delight him.
Well, good for him. He was a good officer, a decent man, and as far as Daniela York was concerned, he merited an admiralship as much as any ship's captain she'd ever met.
However, her own position was as precarious as ever. She had scant doubt that the case of the Rigel was very nearly closed as far as the saboteurs were concerned. From her perspective, they weren't much more than amateurs who had been courteous enough to do everything but hang themselves for her. It was just a matter of clarification, clearing up a few small mysteries, and then separating the sheep from the goats aboard Draco. Soon, they would pay the price for their crimes.
But none of that had any bearing on her, on her fate. The thought was a sobering one. She had come so far, but she still needed ti
me. She needed time, luck, and a tailwind, three things she couldn't possibly control. Terentulus. The name was seared in her mind like a foreshadowing of doom. Terentulus, fifth planet of the green-white sun Geddes. Success or failure, in the end, everything depended on what happened on Terentulus.
Her fate hung in the balance. But that was hardly important. Humanity's fate, and posthumanity's too, rested on little more than a desperate roll of the dice by the cyborg's spymaster and his greatest creation.
The comm unit broke in on her reflections. It was Tregaski.
“Captain, Lieutenant Skilling reports that a drone found what looks like the wreckage of Rigel's launch on the surface. Positive ID.”
“Do we have visual?” Hull responded.
In answer, a screen came to life above their heads. They looked up and saw the remains of a ship's boat not dissimilar to the one in which they were sitting spread out over what looked like hundreds of meters of broken terrain. Hull grunted and shook his head in grim realization of the undeniable. There was absolutely no chance that anyone could have survived what looked like a catastrophic entry into the atmosphere. York consoled herself with the thought that any passengers had been dead prior to boarding the doomed craft.
“Where is it?”
“Halfway on the other side of the planet. Do you want to go there now?”
“No.” Captain Hull looked at York, his jaw set with anger. “Let's make sure we've got the survivors safely secured on Draco before we do anything.”
Night came swiftly on Bonoplane. It came as the light of the pale yellow sun deepened, dusk stole over the plain, and then the sudden rush of darkness, all in the space of less than half an hour. And the night was strange. The thin, hot atmosphere did little to interfere with the light from the distant stars, which shone almost as brightly as they did in space itself. They twinkled and danced as their rays passed through the turbulence of high, fast-moving jet streams that Galton had described to her as some sort of nitrogen rivers.
