“Brazo-Portuguese, technically,” she pointed out. “I can muddle through Spanish; why?”
“I do speak Spanish, and I happen to have come into possession of a copy of the original version of Estrellas del Destino,” he told her. Maria blinked. That was a famous, almost century-old now, galactic love story movie about war-torn lovers and family on Earth and Mars during the Eugenicist Wars.
It was beyond a classic. It was a legend—and she’d only ever seen it in English, and critics claimed it lost something in the translation.
“Since you’re the only other person on the ship who’d understand it…I wondered if you wanted to join me?”
Maria woke up with a start, realizing she’d fallen asleep at most halfway through the movie. She’d been enjoying it, but she’d apparently been much more tired than she thought. There was a warm weight on her lap, and she looked down to see the ship’s big black cat curled up in her lap, on top of a blanket she didn’t remember pulling over herself.
The movie was still on the wallscreen of the officer’s lounge, but it was paused. She wasn’t sure how long after she’d fallen asleep it had been paused, but…
“You’re awake,” Kellers said gently as he stepped around the couch. “I figured Joey was doing his furry best to keep you sleeping. How are you feeling?”
“Like I passed out in the middle of a damn good movie,” she replied. “Didn’t think I was that tired.”
“I wasn’t entirely surprised,” the engineer admitted. “Thankfully, there were a couple of blankets in the closet when I realized you’d fallen asleep.” He smiled down at the cat. “Joey showed up all on his own. I’m pretty sure he’s supposed to be hunting mice somewhere, but I guess he smelled an available lap.”
“So I see,” she murmured, stretching carefully so she didn’t disturb the cat. “And you, Mr. Kellers?”
He chuckled.
“I figured I’d keep an eye on you,” he told her. “The ship’s not busy and neither am I, but I figured it didn’t cost me anything to have a quiet bite to eat while making sure you slept.”
Maria snorted. She’d known more than a few men who would have taken at least some advantage of the situation, even if they had been watching the movie together as friends. That wasn’t a trick that tended to end well, but that didn’t seem to get through to the male brain sometimes.
“Want to finish watching the movie?” she asked. “I don’t think Joey is going to let me move, but there’s room under this blanket for one more.”
The blanket wasn’t that large. Two people could fit under it, but only by getting very friendly.
Maria gave Kellers a warm smile just in case he didn’t get what she was suggesting…and was rewarded with what was most definitely a blush.
“My dear James, I’m not entirely familiar with your coloring, but are you blushing?” she teased him.
“You, Maria, are trouble,” he pointed out.
“I’m not threatening you,” Maria replied. “Just offering to cuddle and watch a movie. Think you can manage that?”
The engineer shook his head but slipped under the blanket. His leg was warm against hers as he scratched Joey’s ears—and Maria leant against his shoulder with a soft exhalation.
It might not lead to more, but it was nice to just cuddle and watch a movie.
15
“Twelve hours to jump,” Maria told Rice as she studied the screens in the simulacrum chamber. “Are we expecting any trouble on the way to the back end of nowhere?”
He chuckled.
“I have learned to always expect trouble, Maria,” the Captain replied. “We seem to be a magnet for it, even if things have been quieter of late.”
“Don’t jinx us, David,” she said with a shake of her head. “Everything at least looks quiet. I can hold down the watch while you go sleep.”
Rice yawned, then flushed.
“I didn’t get much sleep while we were on Amber,” he admitted ruefully. “Wake me up if anything happens.”
“Can do,” she promised. “I have the watch.”
Rice closed down his system, transferring command authority to the simulacrum chamber. Maria took a moment to skim over the sensors, flagging the larger ships in the system. The ADC’s pair of destroyers hung in their orbits, the pyramid-shaped starships seemingly quiet as they kept an eye on the entire star system.
Three more ships flagged her interest as she went over the data and she pinged Jeeves.
“Alex, when did the Navy show up?” she asked. “I don’t remember them being in-system.”
“They made orbit as we were leaving, on the opposite side of Amber,” the gunnery officer told her. “Regional patrol. They’re probably checking in on the Amber shipyards to see if anyone is building pirate ships.”
From what Rice had said, that was unlikely. It took a lot to get the Cooperatives to crack down on something, but the number of pirate ships that had come from Amber had finally crossed that difficult-to-assess line.
“Let’s keep an eye on them,” she ordered. “We’re all on the same side…but we’re currently hauling a lot of guns, and while the customer is a planetary government…”
“Somehow, I’m sure Ms. Alabaster didn’t worry about getting the paperwork fully filed,” Jeeves agreed. “I can buy access to the ADC’s sensors for a closer watch on them. Should I?”
Maria hesitated. That access was available here but still wasn’t cheap—not least because the ADC sold it in weeklong chunks and they were only going to be in-system for half a day.
“No,” she decided. “Our sensors are damn good. We’ll keep our own eye on them and try not to cause trouble.”
“Wilco,” he said. “Keep an eye on our big brothers and make a nice, quiet run for the outer system.”
They were already burning at three gravities, the maximum for most merchant ships. Red Falcon could go up to ten, the same safe acceleration as the destroyers, thanks to the artificial gravity runes Maria and her people maintained.
She could go faster, but it would almost certainly draw attention.
“Nice and quiet,” she agreed. “With a very sharp eye on the Navy.”
After about an hour, Maria was starting to think that she was being excessively paranoid…and then the sensors flashed to life with a nearby jump flare.
“Jeeves, what have we got?” she demanded as she started to collate numbers.
“Looks like…trouble,” he said grimly. “There was apparently a fourth destroyer in the outer system, and she just jumped in front of us. Her engines are live…yep, that’s an intercept course. She’ll match velocities and rendezvous with us in just over two hours.”
Nine hours before she’d been planning on jumping.
“Let the skipper sleep,” she ordered. “They’re still two hours away. Let me know the instant they make contact—I can’t see them shooting at us, but…”
“Understood,” Jeeves replied. “Do we accelerate?”
“Not yet,” Maria told him. With both LaMonte and Rice asleep during what was supposed to be a quiet trip out-system, she wasn’t even sure who was at the navigation console. There should be someone there, even with them flying a preprogrammed course, but they’d be pretty far down the list of people qualified to fly the multi-megaton freighter.
“Linking transmission to your screen,” a coms tech of a similar grade reported.
A tanned-looking young man in the black uniform of a Martian Mage-Commander appeared on Maria’s screen, looking levelly at the camera.
“Red Falcon, this is Mage-Commander Sans Abel of Fierce Tide of Glory,” he introduced himself politely. “There doesn’t appear to be a course plot on file for you. You are a rather large and heavily armed vessel; I’m afraid I must ask you to confirm your destination, please.”
Maria muttered a series of curses under her breath in Portuguese. Amber didn’t require a course filing, but the Navy had the authority to ask for it. Especially if they had any grounds for suspicion.
Mage-Commander Abel smiled sadly.
“The nature and presence of your ship tell me that you are well thought-of by the Protectorate, so this is an unfortunate accusation to be leveled against you. Since I am sure it is in error, the easiest way to make sure everyone gets through this with the minimum delay, I suggest you cease acceleration and allow my vessel to match course.
“A simple survey by my Marines should establish the truth of the matter. I look forward to your response.”
The recording stopped and Maria swore again.
“Mage Soprano?” Jeeves asked.
“Wake up the Captain.”
By the time Rice had returned to the bridge, Falcon’s continued progress toward the destroyer was clearly beginning to make the Navy nervous.
“They’ve begun adding small evasive maneuvers,” Jeeves reported. “They’re subtle, but they’re layering in some low-key ECM. Enough that we probably wouldn’t be able to hit them with lasers if we decided to be stupid.”
“Well, that’s not happening,” the Captain said. “Maria, what are you thinking?”
The Mage shrugged.
“A Section 36 interception like this is usually pretty sharp,” she told him. “Abel is playing softball so far because he figures anyone flying an ex-Navy ship like this is unlikely to be carrying illegal arms—but he’s following procedure perfectly. He has us boxed in.”
“Can we jump before he intercepts?” Rice asked.
“With our current courses? No,” Maria replied. “With our full acceleration, we should be able to break for the outer system on a course he can’t intercept before we jump, but evading a Section 36 intercept…well, it’ll get us flagged in every Navy database.”
“I’m relatively sure our MISS friends can stop that happening,” the Captain said. He was studying the screen with discontent eyes. “He’s in frigging missile range. What happens when he stops playing softball?”
“If we continue to ignore him, we’ll get one more summons to surrender with him not being nice,” the ex-Navy officer laid out. “Then he’ll launch boarding shuttles as he closes. If we do anything remotely threatening or change course, he’ll fire a warning shot.”
“And if we actually attempt to engage…”
“He’ll throw the kitchen sink at us,” Maria said flatly. “He’ll attempt to disable us with missiles and lasers as he closes to amplifier range. If we manage to make him feel threatened, he will blow us to hell instead of disabling.
“Section 36 interceptions go bad a lot.”
“What about our MISS identification codes?” Rice asked.
“Do you want to flash them to the entire star system?” she said. “We’d need to be closer to tag them with a tightbeam, and once they’re that close…”
“Them breaking off will flag to everyone in the system that something isn’t right,” Rice agreed.
“New incoming message,” the tech interrupted them again.
Abel appeared on the screen once more, and his sad smile had been replaced by a far grimmer countenance.
“Red Falcon, this is Mage-Commander Sans Abel of Fierce Tide of Glory,” he repeated. “We have been advised that you are carrying illegal armaments in violation of Section 36 of the Protectorate Charter. Under the authority granted to the Royal Martian Navy under that Section, I am ordering you to cease acceleration and prepared to be boarded.
“Any attempt to evade or target Fierce Tide of Glory will be regarded as a hostile act and responded to with all due force at my command. You are ordered to stand down.”
The recording stopped and David Rice smiled wryly.
“Maria?”
“We could always let them board and then give them the MISS codes?” she suggested.
“Except it seems half the system knows we’re carrying guns. What’s plan B?”
A thought hit Maria and she smiled wickedly.
“Well, now that you mention it…”
Red Falcon ran. They flipped in space and burned for a zone they could jump in at ten gravities.
A careful eye could run the math and realize they hadn’t picked the best course. That their new course wouldn’t fully evade the Navy destroyer—but there were no courses where they really could.
If the course they were on wasn’t quite intended to do that, well, that was between Maria Soprano and David Rice. And, shortly, Mage-Commander Sans Abel, whose response to their attempt to flee was exactly what Maria had predicted.
He hadn’t fired yet. Hadn’t launched missiles or assault shuttles—but Fierce Tide of Glory was now pushing twelve gravities and closing with Red Falcon at a blistering pace. That was enough on its own to make a statement.
“Time to five million kilometers?” Maria asked quietly.
“Just over ten minutes,” Jeeves replied instantly. “If I’m reading this data right, we won’t be able to jump for at least two hours after that.”
“Everybody knows that,” she agreed. Five million kilometers was generally regarded as the effective range of combat lasers. It was also, unfortunately, roughly the range at which laser or tightbeam communication could be carried out without anyone else knowing.
“What happens if he opens fire once he’s in laser range?” Rice asked.
“He won’t,” Maria assured him. “So long as we just try and run and he can bring us to amplifier range, he will hold off on engaging until he can use magic to hold us in place.”
Unspoken was that Mage-Commander Abel was overloading his ship’s engines. Presumably if he was comfortable running Fierce Tide at twenty percent over her designed maximum, he had faith in his engineers—but that kind of faith had a bad habit of being misplaced at the wrong time.
Minutes ticked away and Maria watched the targeting system for the laser coms.
“See if you can link us in,” she ordered. This was actually risky. They couldn’t risk transmitting their MISS authentication codes until they were certain no one else could receive the message—but the test pulse to confirm that could easily be read as a weapon targeting system.
“No joy,” Jeeves replied. “At least I don’t think we pinged her… Never mind.”
An array of red warning lights flickered across the screens as Fierce Tide of Glory locked Red Falcon up in her sensors. They’d clearly pinged the destroyer’s threat-detection systems—and Abel was returning the favor.
“Try again,” Maria said urgently, sharing a strained glance with Rice. Falcon could defeat a salvo of missiles from the destroyer at range, but she couldn’t survive a laser fusillade or the Mage-Commander unleashing his amplified magic.
“Hold on…hold on. Positive pulse!” Jeeves reported. “We have communications lock and… Huh?”
“Guns?” Rice demanded.
“Someone over there realized we were being clever buggers,” the gunnery officer replied. “I have a com system interrogation pulse from their laser system.”
“All right, put Maria on,” Rice ordered.
Maria swallowed hard and faced the camera.
“Mage-Commander Abel, I apologize for our maneuvers and deception,” she said quickly. “Red Falcon is an MISS covert operations ship, designation KEX-12. We are carrying illegal arms as part of a deep-cover operation and we need you to help maintain our cover.
“I am Ship’s Mage Maria Soprano, former Navy Mage-Commander, current MISS Agent level six. Authentication codes are attached.”
She paused, tapping a command to load a file onto the transmission, then hit Send.
“Captain, keep us at five million kilometers,” she asked. “Let’s see if we can make this look good.”
It took
almost twenty seconds for their message to reach Fierce Tide of Glory. Maria’s experience suggested it would take under thirty for the Navy crew to validate their codes, and another ten for their response to be decided.
Every second after about the first minute and a half was torture. Rice was playing the angles to keep the range open, twisting his vector in space to buy them seconds more as the destroyer continued to close.
There was no response…but the destroyer also hadn’t opened fire or launched shuttles. They were now close enough that Maria would have been doing one of those in such an odd intercept.
“Incoming transmission!”
“Agent Soprano,” Abel greeted her from the recording. He looked…unimpressed. “Your codes check out, but I must protest. Any violation of Section 36, even under the auspices of MISS operations, risks the security and stability of the Protectorate. I don’t know what game you are playing, but it puts lives and systems at risk.”
He inhaled sharply.
“Your authentication codes give me no option but to cooperate,” Abel admitted. “I won’t blow your cover, Agent, which means we’re already in an interesting position if we are to avoid suspicion. We should have been advised of your mission in advance.”
Maria snorted. She’d been Navy and she couldn’t agree with that idea. Everyone would have been better off if someone—probably one of Alabaster’s rivals, she figured—hadn’t tipped the Navy off to their cargo.
“I had to check with my engineer to confirm we could do this safely, but Fierce Tide is about to suffer a critical engine failure.” He raised a hand. “Do me a favor, Agent Soprano. For the service you shared with me…don’t screw this up, okay?”
The transmission ended.
“Captain?” she asked.
“Honestly? If he hadn’t told me they were faking it, we’d turn back at the first sign of a major engineering casualty,” Rice replied, his voice gentle. “We have the codes to get ourselves clear, and I’d take those problems over letting them drift in space.”
Agents of Mars (Starship's Mage: Red Falcon Book 3) Page 9
