by Vox Day
“I am here concerning a case of murder,” she continued. “To be specific, three hundred and ninety-five counts of it. At the moment, the murderer is sitting among us, or to be more precise, I should say the murderers. Mr. Chun, you look rather surprised.”
“I don't know.” Chun looked bewildered. “I thought it was an accident.”
“How about you, Shumway?”
“How should I know?” he growled without meeting her eyes.
“Wooten?”
“It's plausible, ma'am.”
“Chief Barngate?”
“Yes, I can see it now,” Barngate agreed reluctantly. “I hadn't thought so before, but I can see it.”
“See what?”
“That it must have been murder, murder and sabotage.”
“I have to agree with you on that.” She could feel the tension in the room. Everyone was on edge, waiting, scarcely breathing. She was waiting too, but for something else entirely. “It's just a matter of naming the killers.”
“Name them, Miss York,” Hull directed. She smiled to herself. The captain had run out of patience. She couldn't blame him. But she was less concerned about the killers than she was about their accomplices. Had she frightened them sufficiently yet? Would they lunge for the bait?
“Albert Barngate and Jarrett Shumway are your killers, Captain.”
“You're crazy,” snarled Shumway. Barngate said nothing but stared at her with barely concealed enmity. His jaw muscles tightened. The others appeared stunned, shocked by the enormity of the charge.
“I assure you, I am entirely sane, Mr. Shumway. Directorate operatives undergo regular tests of our mental stability due to the unique stresses of our job. But do allow me to applaud you, or more truthfully, you, Chief Barngate. It was rather clever to select two men from House Dai Zhan as your second watch. Your foresight was impressive. You genuinely had me doubting the evidence that pointed to you.”
Barngate straightened his back and seemed to regain his composure. “You're making a terrible mistake,” he said calmly.
“Am I?”
“Without question, Miss York,” a voice came from the doorway.
It was Jona Norden, Draco's maintenance chief, who walked confidently into the room, a blaster cradled in his hand and a pair of masks dangling from his belt. He pointed it in Tregaski's direction, who at first sight of the weapon had begun to draw his stunner.
“Raise your hands and sit down, Lieutenant,” Norden hissed softly. He wore his customary smile upon his slender face, but his eyes were as cold as space. “You too, Lieutenant Wexby.”
As Tregaski hesitated, Hull ordered him to stand down. “Comply with Mr. Norden's request, Lieutenant.”
“Aye aye, Captain,” Tregaski answered grimly. Holding his hands up near his ears, he found a seat and sat down, his eyes riveted on Norden all the while.
“Ah, that's better.” As Norden moved to the side, David Apgar, the big deckhand, came through the doorway. He was carrying a weapon similar to Norden's.
“I suggest you may wish to reconsider Captain Barngate's assertion concerning who made the mistake, Miss York of the Ascendancy Intelligence Directorate.” Norden said with a smile.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“It has been a damn nice thing—the nearest run thing you ever saw.”
—Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
“VERY GOOD, Commander.” Albert Barngate rose from the mess table and nodded approvingly as he moved to join Norden. Shumway pushed himself up from his seat as well, after shooting a triumphant sneer in York's direction.
“Commander?” Hull stepped forward, his face flushed with anger. “What lunacy is that?”
“Do show some respect, Captain,” Norden answered easily. He reached inside his jacket and removed forth a small charged-particle beamer, before handing it to Barngate. “I happen to be a commander in the Imperial Navy of Prince Li-Hu.”
“You're crazy,” Tregaski bellowed. “Li-Hu's got no empire and he don't got much of a navy either!”
“What he has is a very fine fleet of interstellar liners, each designed for immediate conversion into a cruiser of the line.” Norden responded. “I might also add that they will be very well armed. Shiva-class cruisers, as a matter of fact. The empire, I expect, will follow in time.”
“Shiva-class!” Hull exclaimed.
York waved him to silence as she locked eyes with Norden. “If you have the secret of the sunbuster, you'll never carry it back to your prince.”
“We have it,” Barngate declared. “And we will most certainly carry it back to our prince!”
In the momentary silence that followed, York carefully studied both Norden and Apgar. The latter wore a foolish, victorious smile that told her the big man was little more than a pawn in the power game being played. But not Norden. What an asset he would have made! She almost regretted that he would have to die.
“So you're the traitor,” she told him.
“Traitor?” Norden reflected upon her accusation without flinching or taking offense. “A man must be true to his House, and my loyalties have always been to House Dai Zhan. I was born on Yenchi, fourth of the noble sun Kang.”
“I see,” she said. “Tell me one thing. You showed your hand rather early in the two attempts on me.”
“We made you on the first day,” Norden admitted. “The attack on your room was planned, although the timer misfunctioned. You were supposed to be asleep. As for the other incident, well, Dave saw an opportunity and he took the shot.”
The deckhand grinned ruefully. “Damned snubnose has no range!”
“I thought both attempts were rather amateurish, actually. A consequence of the shortcomings in your training, no doubt. You know you're not going to get away with this, Mr. Norden.”
“She's right, you won't,” Captain Hull broke in. Disregarding York's urgent gesture to remain silent, he continued. “Myranda Flare has been captured! You didn't expect that, did you?”
Barngate and Norden exchanged a mystified glance. “No,” Norden admitted slowly. “That is something we didn't expect.”
“She's captured,” Hull repeated. “Terentulus is sealed off. You're trapped, all of you. The best thing you can do is surrender and hope for clemency.”
“He's crazy,” Shumway snarled. “What does he mean about this Flare. I never heard of her.”
“Shut up, Jarrett. You haven't heard of a lot of things,” Barngate shot back.
“Furthermore, every Dai Zhani world is under blockade,” Hull added.
“So?” Barngate shrugged indifferently. “Do you really think the prince didn't anticipate that?”
“Let me handle this, Captain,” York put her hand on the angry captain's shoulder. “Mr. Norden, how do you expect to pilot Draco through hypertime when your men couldn't do so with the Rigel?”
Norden chuckled. “My dear Miss York, I'm a little disappointed in you. The reason is simple. Draco is supplying the navigator, a graduate of the Wansu school. We won't have any difficulty on that score.”
“Another traitor,” Hull groaned disbelievingly.
“Another Dai Zhani loyal to his prince,” Norden corrected.
“It is true that my navigation skills are very modest,” Barngate admitted. “Although sufficient to locate a planet and put a ship into orbit. Essentially, you see, I'm an intelligence officer.”
“Intelligence officer?” York arched his brows. “I think you flatter yourself, Mr. Barngate.”
“And I think you considerably overestimate your abilities, Miss York. Small wonder we won so easily. Can't August Karsh do better than you?”
“You're not off Draco yet, traitor,” she replied, sneering in a manner calculated to irritate him. She shot a glance at Benbow, praying that he had fulfilled his role. The doctor's face, cold and stiff, told her nothing. If he had failed….
“Enough of this,” Norden snapped. “Jarrett, Dave, bind everyone's hands.”
Apgar produced a handful of pla
stic zip-binders from a pocket and handed half of them to Shumway. They began with the two Marines, then relieved the two lieutenant's of their stunners and bound their hands before moving on to Benbow and Wooten.
“Are you sure you don't want to try anything, Miss Ascendancy Intelligence?” Barngate leveled his blaster at her, close enough for her to see 'Xishan Arsenal' embossed on the side of the barrel, and whispered a sadistic temptation. “I will make it quick for you if you beg me. No burning pain in your lungs, no choking, no coughing up blood. I watched Captain Kennedy die on the bridge. It looked like a hard way to go.”
York held his mocking gaze and shook her head. “I'll take my chances on a short reprieve, if it's all the same to you.”
“May I put in a word?” someone called out.
Barngate stepped back to locate the speaker. It was Hing Poy.
“As a Kangan, I disown you,” Hing Poy said. “Your ancestors must shudder in their graves.”
“I disown you, also,” Chun said steadily.
Norden stared at them, then smiled sardonically. “You'll have a chance to talk it over with your own ancestors very soon,” he promised.
Barngate laughed, then nodded toward Apgar. The deckhand handed him a mask, as Norden handed one to Shumway.
“They're going to gas the ship!” someone said.
“It does betray a certain lack of imagination,” York commented to the captain. He didn't see fit to respond.
“We're just going to sit here and die?” Tregaski protested. He lowered his head, hunching his shoulders as if to charge. Norden heard the desperation in the lieutenant's voice, spun around, and his finger tightened on the trigger of the Xishan.
“Stand down!” York barked as firmly as she could manage. “That's an order, Lieutenant!” Tregaski stiffened, staring at the weapon pointing at his chest, then slowly exhaled, the last remnants of hope dying in his eyes. “All of you, stand down!”
“That's better, Lieutenant,” Norden said. “Listen to the agent. Die with dignity, not like an animal raging against the dark.”
Disgusted, Captain Hull shook his head and glared at York. “Director Karsh will have to take the credit for this debacle,” he said icily.
“I imagine so,” she admitted.
Norden kept one eye on York as he raised his wrist to his mouth. “This is Commander Norden speaking. Proceed as directed in one decasecond from my count. Ten!”
“So, that's it?” one of the Rigel crewmen exclaimed incredulously. York thought she recognized Jack Ival's voice. “We just die?”
“I'm afraid so, my young friend,” answered Norden. “Console yourself in the knowledge that your lives were sacrificed in a noble and historic cause.” He nodded to his companions as he pulled his mask down over his face.
“Masks on, men” Barngate ordered.
York felt the tension swelling through the room. “Everyone stand down! Do not move! Do not move!”
“You heard her,” Captain Hull barked. “Don't move!”
“Don't move!” Tregaski snarled sarcastically. But the men's naval discipline held, even in the face of incipient death.
“Don't move,” York repeated. She scarcely dared to breathe herself as the three other saboteurs followed their commander's lead and donned their protective masks. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the fear on Tregaski's face, the bitter resignation on Hull's.
Then, for no apparent reason, Norden's weapon wavered, and he took a faltering step to one side. At that moment, York exploded from her seat and leaped towards Barngate, who was reaching up desperately for his mask with his free hand. She kicked him squarely in the chest, sending him reeling backward, then threw a precision-aimed sidekick at his shoulder that dislocated it and sent the Xishan flying. As she whirled around to find Norden, she saw that he and the other two Dai Zhani were clawing at their masks.
Tregaski came to life with a roar. Lunging up and forward, he smashed the top of his head into Norden's chin, knocking the smaller man instantly unconscious, then bull-rushed Apgar, knocking the big half-Kangan to the deck with a shoulder charge. He followed that up with a brutal kick to Apgar's head. Seeing both Draco men accounted for, she turned around and saw Hull standing over the prone man from the Rigel, his well-polished boot resting on Shumway's throat.
Hull raised a quizzical eyebrow. “So that was your play?”
“The oxygen canisters had a fast-acting soporific added to the usual mix,” York explained.
“Soporific?”
“A turbo-charged thienodiazepine the doc drummed up.” She nodded toward Benbow. “It's always a pleasure to see a true professional in operation. Your concoction worked like a charm.”
The doctor smiled and mock-bowed. “The pleasure was all mine, Miss York.”
“But how—?” Hull glanced uncertainly from Benbow to York.
“I was certain they would try it this way,” York explained. “They were amateurs. They didn't know the same trick seldom works twice, let alone three times. As soon as I saw they tried the same approach in my cabin that they utilized on the Rigel, I knew what their plan would be.”
“How did you know which masks to prepare?” Hull asked Benbow.
York grinned. “He didn't. He modified the canisters for every mask on the ship. If you're having any trouble sleeping tonight, take your pick and you'll be out in seconds.”
Hull started to answer, then jerked up his head sharply. “My God, what about the ECS system!”
“Seeing as how we're not already dead, I think we can be confident that we don't have a problem, Captain. Be patient and everything will presently become clear.”
As Benbow bent over Barngate to examine his pulse, they waited. Within moments they heard a heavy clumping noise in the corridor. Captain Pedrattus, helmeted and wearing full battle armor, marched through the door. He was followed by two similarly armored Marines, then Les Osborn, bent under the weight of a body.
“That's Char Wong!” exclaimed Hull.
York felt a mild stab of surprise herself. She'd known it had to be either Char Wong or Lu Singkai, but she'd figured the older man for the guilty party. Between the two of them, she'd thought Singkai made for the better candidate for the secret navigator, given his obvious intelligence and spatially-gifted mind.
Captain Pedrattus extended a blade from his right gauntlet and slashed through Captain Hull's bindings first, then York's own. She nodded her thanks at the armored giant, then rubbed at her newly freed wrists, wincing. David Apgar had pulled the zip-binder unnecessarily tight. The other two Marines went about freeing the other Navy men.
Osborn deposited his burden none too gently on the floor and straightened, looking at the agent. “It went just like you said it would, Miss York.”
“What went like she said it would?” the captain demanded.
Osborn rubbed at his lower back. “Miss York told me to hide in the air-cycling room, Captain. Told me to make damn bloody sure nobody put nothing in the air system.”
“Did Wong have the air watch?”
“No, Singkai did. While I was hiding, Wong here came in and stuck a stunner in the back of Singkai's neck. Singkai went down, and then he locked the door.”
“You just stood there and watched this?” Hull asked, incredulous. “Singkai could have been killed!”
“Yes, sir. Miss York warned me of that, but she ordered me not to show myself or interfere until someone tried to put something into the air system. So I didn't.”
The Captain looked down at the unconscious maintenance tech. “It seems he did.”
“He tried, sir. He took out a pair of 10-liter cylinders that were hidden behind the indicator panel and placed them near the air ducts, but he didn't unseal them. They was plain, they didn't have no marks on them. After maybe a half-kilosec, someone gave him an order over his comm. Wong put on a mask, I got ready to let him have it–”
“With what?”
Osborn dug into his pocket and brought out a very small stunner
, a Brown-Markham of the sort commonly favored by Directorate operatives. “Miss York gave it to me,” he explained.
“I see.” Hull eyed York. She batted her eyelashes at him in feigned innnocence.
Osborn looked puzzled. “But something happened. I don't know if something was wrong with the mask's breather or what, but Wong just keeled over before I even did anything. I shot him anyway, just to be safe.”
“Bravo Zulu, Osborn.” Hull nodded approvingly. Then he turned and glared at York. “It seems to me I could have been acquainted with some of this.”
York suppressed a smile. “I very much doubt it, Captain.”
“And why not?”
“Can you honestly tell me you would have gone along with it?” York answered coolly. “I very much doubt you would have let them go so far.”
“Perhaps you're right,” he admitted. “Was it really necessary? We could have lost the crew. We could have lost the ship!”
“You know what was at stake. It was the only way we could encourage the traitors aboard this ship to show themselves.”
Hull swung toward Tregaski. “Lock these men up, Lieutenant, and I don't want to see anyone talking with them. No one!”
York raised her hand. “I'm sorry, Captain, but I'll have to ask you to countermand that order. Need I remind you–”
“Belay that, Lieutenant,” Hull spat. “Dammit, Miss York. I know what you have in mind and it isn't right! These men may be traitors, but they are naval enlisted men and as such they have the right to military justice.”
“With all due respect, Captain Hull, your Navy has the luxury of fighting its clean wars because the Directorate fights the dirty ones.” She turned to the Marine captain. “As we discussed previously, Captain Pedrattus.”
