by David Weber
“How?”
“I’d prefer not to go into the details, Sir.”
And unless Travis was willing to call for an official enquiry, he was at a dead end. “Very well, Chief,” he said. “Return to your duties.”
“Aye, aye, Sir,” Chomps said. To Travis, he looked like a man who’d just lost his best friend.
Maybe he had.
Later, as Travis sat in his cabin, the stillness of the midwatch broken only by the sound of gentle snoring from Fornier’s rack, he spent an hour trying to find the least damning way to write up Chomps. Finally, he settled on unauthorized access to ship’s computer records. If he—and Chomps—were lucky, it would just be passed over as something small and ridiculous from Rule-Stickler Long and no one would bother to follow up on it.
Still, it would remain in Chomps’s record. At any point from now until the heat-death of the universe someone could call Travis in front of a board somewhere and ask why he hadn’t provided any details, and what exactly those details were. When they did, he would have to tell them.
And at that point, he and Chomps would both accept the consequences.
With a touch of his finger, he sent the report into the depths of Phoenix’s computer. Sometime tomorrow, Commander Vance Sladek, Phoenix’s XO, would pull up the various reports and read or skim through them.
Until then, Travis would hit his rack, try to put this out of his mind, and get whatever sleep he could. Sufficient unto the day, he quoted tiredly to himself, are the troubles therein.
* * *
There was no summons to the XO’s office the next day. Nor was there one on the second day, nor the day after that. By the fourth day, Travis was finally beginning to breathe a little easier. Surely by now the press of other business had safely buried Travis’s report until such time as everything was transferred en masse to Manticore and BuPers’ even more massive computer system.
On the fifth day, Travis was abruptly called to Commander Sladek’s office.
The meeting was short and about as unpleasant an encounter as Travis had had in the seven T-years since Secour. He was warned about burying reports that should have been promptly brought to the XO’s attention, told to stay away from idle gossip and wild theories, and told in no uncertain terms that the next time something like that happened it would go on his record. When Travis dared to ask about Chomps, he was told that it was none of his business.
But a later check of ship’s records showed that his old friend had been dropped a rank to Missile Tech First.
From that time on, Chomps never again spoke to Travis aboard Phoenix except when absolutely necessary, and then in full formal speech.
Perhaps Chomps had indeed lost his best friend.
Perhaps Travis had, too.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Manticore had come and gone, and was no more than a faint dot in the Izbica’s aft viewer.
And Captain Shresthra, in the quaint old vernacular, was not a Happy Camper.
“You said there would be bales and bales of cargo to be had at Manticore,” he grumbled yet again to Grimm, punctuating his rant with an accusing finger. “You remember? That was exactly what you said: bales and bales.”
“I know,” Grimm said in as apologetic a voice as he could muster. It wasn’t easy, when what he really wanted to do was take hold of that jabbing finger and break it off. Patience, he reminded himself firmly. “But that really was how things worked eight years ago, when I last passed through this region. There was no way I could have known that freighter traffic had picked up so much since then.”
Shresthra gave a contemptuous sniff. “A dozen or so ships a year hardly qualifies as traffic, Mr. Grimm. At the very least you should have asked the Havenite freighter at Casca whether he and the other freighters had this route sewn up. If I’d known, we could have gone directly to Minorca instead of wasting three weeks with this side trip.”
“I know,” Grimm said again, doing his best verbal grovel in front of the annoying little man. In fact, he had talked to the Havenites, learned that Manticoran trade was indeed well covered, and had been careful to leave them with the impression that he would pass on any relevant information to the Izbica’s captain and crew. But the visit to Manticore was the whole reason Grimm and his partners were aboard; the last thing he’d wanted was for Shresthra to bypass the system.
Just as the last thing he wanted right now was for Shresthra to make a stink that would force him to kill the little man and his crew. They were still close enough to the planet—and more than close enough to the ships plying the route between Manticore and Sphinx—that there might still be some need for communication. There was nothing like an abrupt switch to a new and unfamiliar voice to make people curious.
“But there is also the planet Gryphon,” he continued, gesturing outward. “Not to mention all the Manticore-B mining operations. We could make a quick microjump over there, send out a query to the mining factories, and see if they’ve got some product they want to sell.”
“No,” Shresthra said firmly. “The Star Kingdom had their chance. We hit the hyper limit, we’re heading straight to Minorca.”
Damn. “Certainly, if that’s what you want,” Grimm said. “I was just trying to salvage something useful from this trip.”
“You want to salvage something, salvage your breath next time you have a bright idea,” Shresthra growled. Grabbing a handhold, he spun himself around in midair and gave himself a pull toward the bridge.
Grimm waited until he’d floated out of sight. Then, glowering, he headed back to the hold.
Bettor was floating in front of the analyzer, watching as it ran the latest batch of data though its electronic hoops. “Well?” he asked.
“We’re going to Minorca,” Grimm told him. “Do we care?”
“Afraid we do,” Bettor said. “Rough estimate is that we’ll need ten to twelve more hours than we’re going to get if we leave on the Izbica’s current schedule.”
“Twelve?” Grimm echoed, frowning. “I thought it was only six at the most.”
“That was before Shresthra had Pickers goose a few more gravs out of the impellers,” Bettor said. “The man’s serious about trying to get back on schedule.” He raised his eyebrows. “Time to let loose the Merripens of war?”
Grimm pursed his lips, seriously tempted. But his earlier concern about changing personnel in possible future communications was still valid. “Not yet,” he said. “I’ve already gimmicked the interface with the hyperdrive. That should buy us the rest of the time you need. Once you’re finished, I’ll find the magic fix, and Shresthra can make course for wherever he wants.”
“Sounds like a plan,” Bettor agreed. “Let’s just hope he doesn’t figure it out.”
“He won’t,” Grimm said. “We’ve introduced enough glitches on this trip for him to put it down to yet another bit of balky equipment.”
“If you say so,” Bettor said. “Just be ready if he isn’t as naïve as you expect.”
“Don’t worry,” Grimm said. “I’ll be as ready as Merripen is.”
“And Merripen’s always ready?”
Grimm smiled grimly. “Yes. Always.”
* * *
“This is a drill,” Captain Castillo’s voice boomed across Phoenix’s intercom system. “General Quarters, General Quarters. Set Condition Two throughout the ship. Repeat: set Condition Two throughout the ship. This is a drill.”
Travis was the second of his crew to reach their station in Forward Weapons, right after Spacer Second Skorsky. The rest of them were no more than two minutes behind him. Luckily for them.
Two minutes and twelve seconds after that, the missiles, beam weapon, and all of the functional support equipment showed green.
“Nice,” Fornier commented, checking his chrono. “I make that as a hair under an eight percent improvement. Excellent work, Lieutenant Long. At this rate, you’ll be dropping that awkward jay-gee from your rank within a couple of months.”
“Thank
you, Sir,” Travis said, scowling a little to himself. That eight percent might look good on paper, but the bottom-line fact was that the improvement was mainly due to Phoenix now being down to a single forward tracking sensor, several major components of the second system having been cannibalized to fix the balky EW assembler.
And it took zero time to bring up, check, and confirm a system that wasn’t working in the first place.
All of which Fornier knew, of course. But like everyone else in the Navy, he’d learned how to put good spin on anything capable of being spun.
“Sounds like the aft autocannon’s still coming up,” Fornier continued, cocking his ear toward the commentary stream coming from the intercom. “Let’s try giving the tracker something to track.”
“Yes, Sir,” Travis said. Grabbing a handhold, he gave himself a pull and floated over to the main display.
As usual, there wasn’t much out there. There were three contacts showing in the inner Manticore-A system—a couple of local transports, plus HMS Salamander, out on some kind of training cruise.
And between Salamander and the transports was a single contact: the Solarian freighter Izbica, heading out from her cargo-hunt on Manticore.
She would do nicely.
“Give me a track on bogey bearing one-four-six by two-two-nine,” he called toward his crew.
“A track, Sir?” Skorsky asked, sounding confused. “Sir, she’s way out of range for that.”
“She’s out of range for radar and lidar, yes,” Fornier said with an edge of deliberate patience. “They’re also blocked by the aft quarter of the dorsal wedge. So what else have you got?”
“Gravitics, Sir,” Skorsky said, belatedly catching up. “Yes, Sir. Tracking via gravitics.”
“And don’t think this is just make-work,” Fornier added, raising his voice so the whole compartment could hear. “Yes, tracking is usually CIC’s or the bridge’s job. But there might be a time down the road when communications get cut off, and you’re on your own.”
“Understood, Sir,” Skorsky said briskly. “Track plotted and on the board.”
Travis craned his neck to look at the display. Izbica’s position and a rough estimate of her vector were now displayed, within the limits of the gravitic data for something that far away. He ran his eye down the numbers…
And frowned.
“Confirm position,” he ordered.
“Confirm position, aye.”
“Trouble?” Fornier asked quietly from behind him.
“I don’t know,” Travis said. “Look where she is.”
“Outside the hyper limit,” Fornier murmured.
“Considerably outside the hyper limit,” Travis agreed. “A good three hundred thousand kilometers, and she hasn’t made her alpha translation yet. She’s not accelerating, either.”
“She does seem to be just coasting,” Fornier agreed. “You think she’s in trouble?”
“Could be,” Travis said. In the back of his mind, he could hear the echo of Chomps’s voice as he laid out his theory about the Cascan mass-murderer being aboard the freighter. Could he have been right?
No. The theory had been ridiculous. And even if it hadn’t been, that could hardly have anything to do with this current situation. The last thing a killer on the lam would want was to draw attention to himself by fiddling with his ship’s operation. Especially not this close to an inhabited system.
But while Travis might not know much about freighters, he did know that they lived by their schedules. No captain would waste time doodling along past the hyper limit unless he didn’t have a choice.
“You think we should signal Salamander?” Travis suggested. “She’s in range to head over and see what’s going on.”
“She’s also got the same sensor suite we do,” Fornier reminded him. “Don’t worry—if there’s anything worth investigating, Fairburn’s already on it.”
“I hope so.”
In the background, the XO’s voice came on the intercom: Phoenix was now at full Readiness One.
“Meanwhile, we have a drill to run,” Fornier said. “Let’s get to it.”
* * *
“I assure you, Captain Lord Baron Fairburn, we have no need of assistance,” the voice of Izbica’s captain came over Salamander’s bridge speaker.
Captain Fairburn, Fairburn corrected him silently. Or Baron Fairburn. Or Lord Fairburn. Pick one and stick with it.
Maybe the man assumed Baron was Fairburn’s given name. Maybe he was just an idiot who didn’t bother to read up on the proper protocol for the places he was going to visit.
Fairburn was betting on the second option.
“One of our passengers has seen this before,” Shresthra continued. “He says it’s just a matter of taking the interface apart, cleaning it and checking all the connections, and reassembling it. A few hours, and we’ll be on our way again.”
“Very well, Captain Shresthra,” Fairburn said. “Again, we’re only a couple of hours away from you. Don’t hesitate to call if you decide you’d like us to look over your equipment.”
It would be another minute and a half before there was any response. But Fairburn wasn’t expecting anything except a polite farewell from the freighter. Shresthra apparently had everything under control, and the matter was closed.
And yet…
“Com, were you able to find that report?” he asked.
“Yes, Sir, I think so,” Chief Marulich replied from the com station, touching a key on her console. “Is this it?”
Fairburn peered at the report. It was a couple of weeks old, filed with System Command by Phoenix’s XO, Commander Vance Sladek. Someone aboard had come up with some scatterbrained idea about the Cascan mass-murderer being aboard Izbica. For some reason Sladek had thought it plausible enough to kick an enquiry back to Manticore. “That’s the one,” he confirmed. “Did you find any follow-up?”
“Not much of one,” Marulich said, peering at her display. “It looks like Customs checked Izbica’s backtrack and then compared her crew and one of her passengers to the image of the Haven murderer. No matches, so it was marked concluded.”
Which was all Customs could reasonably be expected to do, Fairburn knew, especially given the source of the suspicion. He’d heard his share of ship’s scuttlebutt over the years, and was surprised that the theory hadn’t included the Flying Dutchman among Izbica’s secret passengers. And without anything more solid, Customs certainly wouldn’t have called in their big brothers in MPARS to board the vessel.
On the other hand…
“How many passengers are there?” he asked.
“The personnel file lists three.”
“And Customs only checked one of them?”
“The other two never came down to the planet, so they were never scanned.”
Fairburn frowned. Izbica had been a full week in orbit, and he’d never seen a freighter crew yet where everyone wasn’t off the ship and on the ground as fast as they could physically get there.
Yet two of Izbica’s passengers had never left? “She came from Casca, right? Do we know if those two passengers left ship while she was there?”
“I can check, Sir,” Marulich said doubtfully. “But I doubt we have that information.”
“And Shresthra said it was one of the passengers who was working on the hyperdrive interface,” Commander Todd murmured from behind Fairburn.
“Meaning?” Fairburn asked.
“No idea, Sir,” the XO admitted. “It just seems odd that Shresthra would be letting a passenger into the guts of his ship.”
Fairburn ran a finger over his lower lip. Odd. Not threatening or suspicious, just odd. Certainly nothing Salamander had reason to look into.
Then again, there was also no reason why she couldn’t look into it.
“Helm, plot me a zero-zero intercept course to Izbica,” he ordered. “Make acceleration one point two KPS squared.”
He swiveled around and eyed his XO. “Let’s go be neighborly.”
> * * *
“How much longer?” Shresthra asked, his hands opening and closing with barely controlled impatience.
“Two minutes less than when you asked two minutes ago,” Grimm said as soothingly as he felt like being right now.
Which wasn’t very much. He understood Bettor’s need to continue compiling data and was fully prepared to drag out this interface project as long he needed to. But that didn’t mean he wasn’t starting to wish Shresthra wouldn’t keel over from a heart attack or something.
“You said it would take three hours,” Shresthra bit out. “It’s already taken four, and you’ve barely started.”
“You did say it would only take three,” the engineer, Pickers, added.
“That was before I realized how filthy everything in here was,” Grimm countered, waving the board he was working on for emphasis. “I don’t think either of you appreciates just how much this amount of caked grime can affect the current flow. These things are extremely delicate—”
“Captain?” the voice of the helmsman, Nguema, boomed from the crawlspace intercom. “That Navy ship—the Salamander?—it’s heading our way.”
Grimm felt his stomach tighten. What the hell?
“What for?” Shresthra asked. “Damn it all—I told them we don’t need any help.”
“They know,” Nguema said. “They say they’re just running crew drills and might as well run them this direction.”
“Very convenient,” Grimm said, his mind racing. At all costs he had to keep that Navy ship out of here. If they came aboard, for any reason, they might take it into their pointy little heads to look into the cargo holds.
And with Bettor’s sampling equipment unpacked, assembled and sucking in data, that would be a disaster. The very fact that someone was running a secret experiment would be enough of an excuse for Captain Fairburn to commandeer the freighter and haul it back to Manticore for further study.
“Also potentially very pricey,” he added. “Some systems charge a fee for rescues, you know.”
“We don’t need a rescue,” Shresthra insisted.
“Of course we don’t,” Grimm said. “We’ll have this back together in no time.” But not before the Salamander arrived, he knew. Not unless the Izbica got off her rear and opened up a little more distance. “Best way to show them that would be to throw a few gravs on the fire and get moving. Sooner or later, they’ll get tired of chasing us.”
