by David Weber
“I’ll do my best, Sir,” she promised dryly.
Eigen swivelled around. “Comments?” he invited.
“Asking us to play lap dog to the Havenites is an odd request,” Metzger said. “I’m wondering if we can get Flanders to tell us who forced the issue.”
“We’ll look for an opportunity to ask him,” Eigen said. “TO? You look intrigued by something.”
“I was thinking about that Havenite heavy cruiser out there,” Calkin said. “It seems to me that’s way too much warship for someone who’s looking to simply defend his system. For that, he’d do better to buy some corvettes or a pair of destroyers.”
Metzger pursed her lips. Calkin had a point. Heavy cruisers, like battlecruisers, were designed mainly for force projection outside a system’s home territory, with significantly less use as system defenders. The only reason the RMN had so many of the larger hulls was because the fleet had been thrown together in a hurry when the colony had expected to face the Free Brotherhood’s own massive fleet.
“And yet the Havenites brought one,” she pointed out. “That could mean they already have a buyer.”
“My thoughts exactly,” Eigen said. “Another good reason to attend the dinner tonight. Maybe we can find out who that buyer is.” He looked at Metzger and raised his eyebrows. “Since we don’t have an official government delegate, Commander, I guess it’ll be you and me.”
“I’d be honored, Sir,” Metzger said. Earlier, she’d hoped the cruiser was for sale so she could get a look inside. Sometimes, on rare occasions, wishes were granted ahead of anticipated schedule. “Is this considered a perk of rank, or an obligation?”
“I don’t know yet,” Eigen said. “Let’s see what kind of table the Havenites are setting.”
“Petty officer in Laser One!” Ensign Joji Yanagi’s smooth baritone called out over the hum of the computers and ventilation fans.
Lieutenant Lisa Donnelly rolled her eyes. Yanagi had begun this nonsense a month ago, about the time serious boredom had started to settle in around Guardian’s crew. It was allegedly a loving homage to the classic announcement given when a senior officer entered the bridge, but Donnelly had no illusions as to what the bosun’s or tactical officer’s response would be if one of them ever caught him at it.
She’d toyed with the idea of giving him a small slapdown in hopes of preempting a more serious verbal flaying farther down the line. But his antics helped defuse the boredom-driven tension in Guardian’s Weapons Department, and there really weren’t any regs against sarcasm unless it edged into insubordination or was fired directly into a superior’s face. Besides, it was no worse than some of the stunts Donnelly herself had pulled back at the Academy.
Still, it was nice when she could occasionally give him a figurative elbow in the ribs. “Yanagi, you thickhead, this isn’t just a petty officer,” she admonished, pulling herself into his view from behind one of the techs working on the half-disassembled missile tracking module strapped to the central work bench. “This is Gravitics Tech Third Travis Long.”
“Really,” Yanagi said, bending backwards at the waist as if to get a better look at the young man floating stiffly in the open hatchway. “Sorry, Ma’am.”
“As well you should be,” Donnelly said as she floated toward them. “Before we came aboard Guardian, Long and I served together on Vanguard.”
She had the satisfaction of seeing the subtle change in Yanagi’s face as he finally made the connection. “Oh,” he said, the faint sarcasm in his voice morphing into equally faint but genuine respect. “Honored to meet you, Long.”
“And you, Sir,” Long said, eyeing the other cautiously.
“Will you take over for me, Mr. Yanagi?” Donnelly continued, nodding back over her shoulder at the gutted tracking module. “Long and I have some business.”
For the briefest fraction of a second she could see in Yanagi’s eyes the question of what kind of business a weapons officer and a gravitics petty officer could possibly have together. But whatever his conclusions or suspicions, he was smart enough not to voice them.
“Yes, Ma’am,” he said. Nodding at Long, he kicked off the bulkhead and flew past Donnelly, threading his way deftly between a pair of diagnostic consoles.
“Ignore him,” she advised the still tense-looking Long as she came to a halt beside him. “His heart’s in the right place, even if you can’t say the same about his brains. What can I do for you?”
Long’s eyes were still on the spot where Yanagi had disappeared. “What did you tell him, Ma’am?” he asked, his voice tight. “Commander Bertinelli instructed me—”
“Relax,” Donnelly said quickly. She’d received the same heavy-handed warning from Vanguard’s XO about contradicting Captain Davison’s official record of the Phobos incident. “I’ve just told them about your courage and quick-thinking in jumping off the hull to help rescue Esterle after the gravitics array fried her suit.”
“Oh.” Long’s eyes started to come back, then narrowed again as the plural apparently made it through to his brain. “You told them?”
“I use it as a cautionary tale,” she said. “Rules and regs are there for a reason, but sometimes you have to bend them a little.”
Once again, his eyes changed, and she belatedly remembered his rather rigid view on such matters. “So what brings you here?” she asked, trying to change the subject before she found another pile of awkwardness to step into.
It took Long another half second to regather his thoughts. “P-409-R control modules, Ma’am,” he said. “That freighter we talked to on the way in—Wanderer—said they needed a 9-R for some node problems.”
“Do we even have any 9-Rs aboard?” Donnelly asked, frowning as she ran a mental inventory.
“There aren’t any in the ship’s stores listing,” Long said. “The highest version I could find were 9-Bs.”
“Then they’re out of luck,” Donnelly said with a shrug. “Unless the Havenites have some. So where do I come in?”
Long’s face screwed up. “Here’s my problem, Ma’am. The instability Wanderer said they were having—” He hesitated. “I’m probably wrong, but—”
“None of that,” Donnelly said sternly, her thoughts flicking back to Captain Davison’s brusque dismissal of Long’s missile idea. “Remember what I said about ideas? Spit it out—I’ve got work to do.”
“Yes, Ma’am.” Long braced himself. “The problem is that I just don’t see the instability Wanderer’s captain was talking about. There’s the correct sort of flicker, but the timing isn’t right. Or at least, I don’t think it is. A Klarian instability is supposed to be random but cyclical, hitting only when the bad node is at rein peak. I did an analysis of the flickers, and they just don’t seem to be hitting at the right times.”
“Let me get this straight,” Donnelly said. “It’s random, but still has a pattern?”
“Right,” Long said. “I know that sounds weird, but that’s the way Klarians work. Only this one doesn’t. It’s almost like someone just hits a switch marked flicker whenever he feels like it.” His lip twitched. “Of course, the captain did say two of the nodes were affected. That could be screwing up my analysis.”
“Let’s assume it’s not,” Donnelly suggested. With one of Guardian’s tracking modules lying guts-out on the table, the last thing she had time for was a detailed lecture on impeller node operation. “What’s your theory?”
“It’s not a theory, exactly,” Long hedged. “It just occurred to me . . . would someone use 9-Rs in weapons systems?”
A chill ran up Donnelly’s back. “Oh, that’s a pleasant thought,” she muttered. “You thinking we might have a Q-ship on our hands?”
“It wouldn’t have to be a full Q-ship,” Long said hastily. “I mean, that would be an act of war, wouldn’t it?”
“Not unless they fired on someone,” Donnelly said, her brain kicking in on boosters. RMN missiles didn’t use 9-Rs, but more advanced League or Havenite missiles might use somethin
g that advanced. Unfortunately, she was hardly up-to-date on other star nations’ weaponry.
But with a little luck, maybe she could rectify that shortcoming.
“Come on,” she said, kicking off toward the monitor station. “Commander Calkin has a wish-list of missiles he’d like Parliament to buy the Navy someday. Let’s find out just how detailed his specs are.”
The Havenites’ table turned out to be excellent.
Or maybe it was only very good. Metzger didn’t have much experience in elegant dining to compare it to.
But it was really, really good. The appetizers were some kind of crisped vegetable, with a sweet yet tangy citrus-based dipping sauce she couldn’t quite identify. The soup was thick and steamy, with generous chunks of vegetable and mini-dumplings, plus its own interesting set of spices. The main course consisted of leaf-wrapped rolls containing layers of meat, vegetables, and rice, laid across a bed of tomato pasta.
Tucked away to one side, looking a bit out of place beside the more elegant dishes, was a platter of chicken wings cooked in BBQ sauce. Metzger puzzled over that one for a while until she overheard one of the stewards comment to another guest that it was one of Commodore Flanders’s favorite foods.
Still, the rest of the spread was obviously not standard ship’s fare, but had been laid on specially by the Havenites for their distinguished and hopefully cash-laden guests. The underlying message was clear: Haven was the big shining beacon on the hill in this part of the galaxy, and they knew how to treat their friends.
And judging by the smiling faces and empty plates around the U-shaped table, the message had been duly noted. By the time they reached the coffee and small but delicious honey-flavored dessert cakes, Metzger guessed half the guests were probably ready to renounce their home systems and defect.
Certainly such a move would be a giant step up for most of them. Micah and Zuckerman, for example, were both relatively small systems with modest economies and no more than half a dozen small system defense craft between them. Ramon had also sent a delegation, undoubtedly here courtesy of Haven’s courier-ship offer, and Metzger could see in their faces the low-level strain that was probably characteristic of everyone living on that ravaged world.
Or maybe the strain Metzger thought she saw was merely a product of her own imagination, generated by the memory of that earlier CIC conversation and with Ramon’s history fresh in her mind. Still, if the strain was only her own projection, the grim determination in the Ramonians’ faces definitely wasn’t her imagination. Their world was climbing back from the abyss, and the delegates were clearly determined to make the kind of connections and alliances with their neighbors that would hopefully assure that such a catastrophe never happened again. Which, when it came right down to it, was pretty much the situation for all of them.
All except Manticore, Haven itself, and possibly Casca. The Cascans had a genuine if somewhat rudimentary navy, she knew, with at least one hyper-capable ship and a few smaller system defense craft. The Cascan delegates to the dinner had dressed the part, as well, both of them resplendent in full military uniforms. The older of the two, seated prominently at Commodore Flanders’s left, wore captain’s insignia.
If and when Breakwater succeeded in destroying the Royal Manticore Navy, a small corner of Metzger’s mind mused, the uniforms and glitter would probably be the last to go.
Fortunately, even ingrained cynicism could fight only an uphill battle against good food, and as the evening progressed Metzger found herself relaxing and enjoying both the meal and the company. Still, she couldn’t help remembering one of her father’s favorite quotes: the tastiest bait hides the biggest hook. Most of the time, in Metzger’s experience, the adage wasn’t true.
Sometimes, though, it was.
“Thank you all for coming here this evening,” Commodore Flanders said as the stewards worked their way around the outside of the table, removing the dessert plates and refilling the coffee cups. “I know you’re all anxious to return to your ships so as to be ready for tomorrow’s set of ship tours, so I’ll keep this short. But some of you have asked why the Republic of Haven has decided to sell off some of our surplus warships at what we all agree are ridiculously low prices.”
“And those who haven’t asked are certainly wondering about it,” the short, balding man seated at his right added quietly.
“Indeed,” Flanders said, inclining his head to the man. “That’s Ambassador Boulanger’s diplomatic way of reminding me that I’m not the featured speaker here. Allow me to yield the floor to Captain Gordon Henderson of the Cascan Defense Force.”
He sat down and the uniformed man to his left rose to his feet. “Thank you, Commodore,” he said gravely. “As Commodore Flanders suggests, and Ambassador Boulanger confirms, our time here at Secour is limited. Allow me therefore to come right to the point.
“Ladies and gentlemen, I believe this region of space has developed a pirate problem.”
A small murmur rippled around the table. Metzger looked sideways at Eigen, noting the emotionless set to his face. Either he was quick on the uptake, or Henderson’s news wasn’t exactly unexpected.
“Let me assure you this isn’t some random thought the Cascan government pulled out of a hat,” Henderson continued when the buzz had died down. “Ten years ago, one of the freighters on a circuit between Micah, Zuckerman, Ramon, Manticore, and ourselves disappeared. At the time we assumed she’d been lost due to navigational error or equipment failure. But there were just enough questions to raise our suspicions, so we began to keep closer watch on all such traffic. We also began comparing notes with freighter captains and the occasional courier who came by, as well as sifting carefully through the regional data brought by all such ships.
“Our diligence was rewarded. During the next three years, we noted the disappearance of two more freighters, under equally mysterious circumstances.”
“What makes you think they were victims of anything more than simple accidents?” a thin man with dark skin asked. Metzger hadn’t caught his name earlier, but she was pretty sure he was one of the group from Suchien.
“I agree,” Kanth Padua, the chief Yaltan delegate, said. “Less than one ship per year seems rather thin pickings for a serious pirate gang.”
“It’s not quite as thin as you might think,” Henderson said. “The more important point is that those are only the ones we know about. If a League company, say, was starting a new run into this region and the pirates snatched the first freighter before it even arrived, we’d never hear about it.”
“Indeed, it could be that their primary interest up to this point has been systems closer to Sol,” Ambassador Boulanger said. “They certainly have more commercial traffic ripe for the picking. It’s possible that what the Cascans have tumbled onto is someone’s first tentative efforts to expand their operation into our region.”
“I’m not sure we have enough shipping to make that worthwhile,” the Ueshiba delegate, Guzarwan, pointed out. “But on the other hand, any loss hits us harder than it would a League member system.”
“Excuse me?” Jalla asked, lifting his hand slightly. “A question, if I may?”
Metzger looked across the table at Eigen, caught the captain’s eye, and lifted her eyebrows in silent question. Eigen gave her a small shrug in return, and an equally small shake of his head.
Metzger nodded and returned her attention to Jalla. All the other delegates, as far as she’d been able to discern, had brought a fellow diplomat or at least a fellow countryman along as their dinner companion. Guzarwan, in contrast, had left the other Ueshibans in Wanderer and instead brought the freighter’s captain.
It seemed a strange choice, maybe even an insulting one. But whatever Guzarwan’s rationale for his decision, apparently Eigen didn’t know what it was, either.
“Certainly, Captain,” Flanders invited, without any hint of offense or question that Metzger could hear. Maybe the commodore already knew why Jalla was aboard.
Or ma
ybe he was just better at taking such cultural quirks in stride. Given Haven’s prominence and position among its neighbors, it was likely their senior naval officers received more diplomatic training than those in the RMN.
“Let’s assume you’re right,” Jalla said. “How do you propose we proceed?”
“The Cascan government has come up with a set of three tiered responses,” Henderson told him. “Ideally, all the systems in the area will be willing and able to adopt all three, but we understand there are political and economic realities. At any rate, here they are, in increasing order of cost and difficulty.
“First: we gather data. What I mean by that is that we not only make sure to analyze the downloads from each ship that visits our systems, but that we speak directly to the ships’ personnel about any problems they might have had and ask for their routine computer status dumps to track down and quantify those problems. If there are pirates poking around someone’s hyper limit, there may be clues buried in routine data that will help us nail down which systems have been targeted. Conversely, if we’re wrong and the disappearances are indeed accidents, that same data may help us pinpoint rogue grav waves or other anomalies that future ships can then avoid.”
“A suggestion?” Jalla spoke up. “If this analysis can be done quickly enough, you may be able to send a copy with the same freighter on the next leg of its trip. That way, the systems farther down the line would have both the raw data and a preliminary analysis to build on.”
“Excellent idea,” Henderson said, nodding.
“You’re talking about a lot of data and analysis,” Ramon’s chief delegate, Petrov Nahnawa, said doubtfully. “I’m pretty sure we don’t have the manpower to spare. I doubt some of the rest of you do, either.”
“We’re not asking you to overstrain your resources,” Henderson assured him. “Especially you on Ramon—God knows the length of the road still ahead of you. If you can’t do much, just send the raw data and the next system down the line can do more of the crunch work. But anything you can do will be helpful.”
