by Daniel Gibbs
Vitorino sipped at his port again, enjoying the rich taste. "Oh? What?"
"The Shadow Wolf launched from Gamavilla nearly two hours ago."
"What do you mean?" Vitorino asked in shock, his eyes narrowing. "They tried to leave, and we're just now being told? Under what circumstances were they shot down?"
"They weren't."
His aide might as well have said the ship faded from sight upon launching. Vitorino's customary demeanor fell away, replaced by anger. "What?"
"They transmitted a Ministry of Defense passcode to System Traffic Control. The code authenticated."
Vitorino slammed the glass down so hard, he was surprised it didn't shatter in his hand. "What code? How could they have breached our security? And why did it take so long for us to find out?"
"An investigation is being launched immediately. As for the time taken, the code was attached to an absolute silence order to the traffic controllers. We're only finding out because security was moving in to begin surveillance."
Vitorino paced across the room. "Have the military intercept the Shadow Wolf, now. Before it can leave the system!"
"Transmitting the order now, sir."
Paperwork has its advantages. Henry found himself grinning at the thought, even as he continued to work away at it. Most of the paperwork was confirming the purchases of materials on Lusitania. The only thing they hadn't done was fuel up, since the lockdown meant no fuel purchases, but that posed no problem. The Shadow Wolf had sufficient fuel reserves to get them back to Trinidad Station.
The advantage he felt in doing paperwork at this time was that it gave him a chance to think by himself. Henry was bringing his crew into the most dangerous situation they'd ever been in, period. If they wanted to get out of this, they had to do everything right.
Which brought him to the rest of the paperwork. With the help of a GalNet search, he'd compiled all the missing ships over the past several months. While missing ships was a sad fact of life in space, especially in neutral regions without major interstellar navies to stop piracy, it was easy to see the League was after larger vessels. The disappearances of small ships had barely changed, but medium haulers and up, there was a distinct difference. From what he could see, at least forty to forty-five additional ships had gone missing since the start of the year. With those electromagnetic pulse guns, they’d face a formidable force of Q-ships. With League warships supporting them, they could conceivably seize even a moderately-large system.
Or Lusitania itself, if their fleet was led into a trap, Henry realized. While the Lusitanians had a dreadnought and four cruisers in their fleet, those were much older models from the Terran Coalition-Saurian War period, and they only had about thirty destroyers and corvettes. If the EM weapons could be brought to bear against a portion of that fleet… It doesn’t make sense. Vitorino would never let the League destroy his fleet. Something bigger was at work—but what?
Either way, they'd need a lot of help. At best, Henry figured that he might get about ten of the ships at Trinidad to follow him, if he had a target. Maybe more, if he was lucky and persuasive. The chance to salvage whatever the League had would sweeten the deal for the pirates who helped provide for the station. Individual spacers would consider joining in for similar spoils, be it salvaged League equipment or claiming reward money from the many shipping companies that had taken losses. In fact, splitting the spoils was going to be the tricky part if they won.
If they won. The haunting thought came to him that he’d get them all killed, and they were in over their heads. He forced it away because it was his job to show faith in their ability to deal with this.
A knock at the door brought Henry out of his thoughts. "Come in," he called out, glancing up just as Tia entered.
She said nothing and took a seat across the desk, setting her elbows onto the desk surface.
"So, come to yell at me?" Henry asked, a small grin on his face.
"I wanted to," she said. "To… to just vent and yell at you until I couldn't speak." Tia drew in a breath and lowered her head into her hands. "I can't get the thought out of my head that we’re all going to die. That this is going to be no better than the Uprising."
"I know you lost a lot of good friends in it.”
"I knew I would. We all went in knowing that, but ready to fight to save our people. To free them. Whatever the odds."
"And without knowing it was a trap made possible by the League."
"Yeah." Tia lifted her head to face him directly. "Jim, I don't want this crew to die or get captured by the League. I've seen enough of my friends suffer humiliation and death."
"So you said." Henry set his hands on the desk and leaned forward. "Makes me think of our conversation the other day," he said, referring to their last visit to Trinidad Station. "About the ways anyone can die."
"I stand by what I said. If I'm going to go out, I'd like to go out the right way," Tia stated, her jaw set. "And I think that's how everyone feels. It's just—"
"You don't have to say it." Henry tried to reassure with his tone. "On that subject, I've told Samina I'm leaving her at Trinidad."
"Good. She's young. She shouldn't be dragged off to this fight with the rest of us."
"I think she's a bit torn over it. She's scared, but she—"
The ship's intercom let out a tone. "Jim, you'd better get up here," Felix said. "We've got military ships burning hot for us."
"Damn," Tia muttered. She and Henry stood at nearly the same time and went for the door. "Vitorino must've figured out we launched."
"We knew he would."
They left the office and went straight for the bridge. Felix vacated the command chair and went over to Piper's usual post. Cera was at the helm. "We've got a cutter, two frigates, and a destroyer burning in," Felix said. He checked the console. "They’re hailing us."
"Audio."
A moment later, a woman's voice accented with Arabic came over the radio. "This is Commander al-Rashid of the Oliveira e Carmo to vessel Shadow Wolf. You have violated the system lockdown and will now be brought into military custody. You are hereby ordered to decelerate and await our arrival. Failure to comply will result in the use of lethal force."
Henry considered bringing Caetano up and having her take over, but there was no guarantee that would work. If anything, it might backfire. He looked to the holotank to notice the approaching ships and judge the situation.
The system cutter was both the most likely intercept, being closer and burning in-system. It was the least threat. The Shadow Wolf's plasma cannons and pulse guns were sufficient to deal with a vessel that size. The military ships burning outward from in-system were going to take longer to intercept, and each was a significant threat to them.
"What do you think, Felix? Can they catch us?"
"I'm crunching the numbers to make sure, but given they're burning hard and we're still on plasma…" Felix shook his head. "They'll get us just at the Lawrence limit."
"Status on deflectors?"
"We've got some, but Pieter needs to finish work on them," Tia replied. "If we get into a fight, we'll lose."
Henry nodded in acceptance of her point. He rubbed at his forehead in frustration, trying to calm the small ache he felt there. He'd hoped to be too far out to intercept when the alarm was given. That wasn't happening. "Then we've got no choice," he murmured. "Bring the fusion drives online."
Felix and Tia both gave him an uncomfortable glance. "Jim, are you sure?" Felix asked. "We use it here, the entire galaxy will know we've got it."
"Yeah, I know, but if we don't, we're not getting out of here."
Tia tapped the key on her station for the ship intercom. "All hands, prepare for high-G burn."
Henry waited about ten seconds before he nodded to Cera. "Punch it."
Seconds passed before the acceleration of the ship pushed them into their chairs. Henry kept his focus on the holotank while Felix read off the increasing G-forces they were facing through the strained, overw
orked inertial compensators. The other vessels started burning harder, but their plasma drives were older models and lacked the thrust potential of a fusion drive.
The G-forces were becoming unbearable when Henry ordered, "Cut power to fusion drives. Bring the plasma drives back online." He watched as Cera gratefully did this. The G-forces pushing against them relented, a relief to everyone.
"Looks like that did it," Felix said. "They're burning as hard as they can, but they won't get into weapons range before we hit the limit."
"Good," said Henry. He settled into his chair. "As soon as we're at the limit, make the first jump. I don't want to stay in this system any longer than we already have."
Vitorino watched Carvalho's face as the report came in. His new aide liked to think he was good at hiding his feelings, but Vitorino prided himself on reading people. He could see the news wasn't good. "They're going to escape," he said, pre-empting the report from Carvalho.
"Yes, Prime Minister," Carvalho said in a subdued tone. "The report from Commander al-Rashid of the Oliveira e Carmo is that Captain Henry's vessel is equipped with a boost to its drive systems. After being challenged, the Shadow Wolf accelerated to such an extent that they will reach the Lawrence limit before interception is possible."
Vitorino folded his hands together. "Captain Henry's ship has been extensively modified indeed."
"We could order them to pursue," suggested Carvalho. "To jump to other systems in hot pursuit."
Vitorino shook his head. "Do not be foolish. We don't know where they're going, and there are dozens of systems they could have jumped into."
"Trinidad Station seems the most logical destination," Carvalho said. "If we sent the da Gama and her squadron, we could easily…"
"We are not sending our cruisers to Trinidad," Vitorino insisted. "Nor any other ship. Things are too advanced now to change anything. I need the fleet here. And on that matter, what is the status of the Beja?"
At the reference to Lusitania's lone dreadnought, Carvalho checked a file. "Still in dock, as expected."
"Do they suspect our people yet?"
"No. The military still believes it to be a glitch."
"Good." Given his frustration, Vitorino poured himself another glass of wine. "Anything on that code yet? Do we have a leak in the Defense Ministry?"
"No, sir. It was something worse." Carvalho's face was blood red, and his eyes looked as if they would explode from their sockets.. "From the files we've cross-referenced it to… the code appears to have been placed in the system by Caetano."
Vitorino pulled the glass from his lips just as the fluid started to touch his tongue. "What?"
"I have other codes being checked. From what we can determine, Caetano had a number of authorization and override codes planted inside Defense and Home Ministries' systems, including Traffic Control authorizations."
"And you knew nothing about this?"
"No, sir." Carvalho swallowed. "Nothing."
Vitorino set the glass down. He did not often lose his temper, but at this moment, he felt like he wanted to as he never had before. "How did Henry find these codes to use? Who else knew?" She can't be alive. The bombs left no one alive!
"I'm not sure. I will investigate, of course—"
"Do so, and arrest anyone who impedes you!" Vitorino motioned to the door. "Now get out. I need to think."
The holotank beside Henry showed that the Lusitanian ships were still out of weapons range as the Shadow Wolf crossed the limit. "Are we ready for the jump?" he asked.
"Everything ready," Felix said. "Jumping in ten seconds."
At the ten-second mark, the Shadow Wolf's drive punched a hole through space and time to another star system. The ship flew into the wormhole a few seconds later.
The post-jump blindness obscured the instruments for about five seconds before showing the system. Which, it turned out, was not quite as empty as Henry had hoped. A single vessel was present, a hundred thousand kilometers away. Henry watched its course shift. "We've got someone on an intercept course," he said.
"Turnin' away from them," Cera said. "Fusion drives at your command."
"Hit 'em," Henry said. He'd rather burn the drives a bit more than risk jumping too early, given the state of the Shadow Wolf's power systems.
The lack of increased G-forces immediately told Henry something was wrong.
"I'm gettin' a safety fault from th' drives, Captain,” Cara said with a glance backward.
Henry triggered the intercom. "Pieter, fusion drive's down."
"It's probably one of the electromagnetic vanes; we've been pushing the system awfully hard lately. I'm heading to check on it."
"We're at full burn on th' plasma, Captain," Cera said.
"And they're still closing," Tia pointed out.
Henry noted the same. This was a fast ship they were facing. Military-grade plasma drives, he was betting. Or a particularly low-capacity fusion drive. Either way, the intercept would come before they could jump out safely.
"Incoming communication," said Felix.
"Put them on," Henry said as he considered whether to try and jump out anyway.
The voice that responded was familiar, and more to the point, brimming with anger. "This is the Morozova, and I am Piotr Sergeevich Tokarev! Shadow Wolf, come to and prepare for boarding!"
8
The demand of the Old Believer pirates drew a sigh of disbelief from Henry. "Of all the…"
"They mean business, Jim," Felix said. "They’ve already acquired us. I'm betting they're going to start slinging missiles our way any moment."
"We could jump," Tia suggested. "They won't know where to follow."
"Yeah, but given the state of our power systems, I don't want to push the drive," Henry said. "Besides…"
"What?"
"Given what we're planning, we can use these guys. They hate the League as much as anyone." He glanced at Felix. "Put me on."
Felix pursed his lips together with a smirk, skepticism evident on his face. ”We’re live.”
Henry wasn't sure it would go anywhere, but wanted to try. Truth is, we need them. "Morozova, this is Jim Henry, Captain of the Shadow Wolf. I'll repeat what I said last time. The woman you know as Karla Lupa isn't working for the League."
"Because of her, the Cornish government is threatening my world! They believe us responsible for the loss of Kensington Star!"
"That's not her fault. The League sent people after her," Henry protested. "Why else do you think they were attacking us in TR-778? They tried to snatch her on Lusitania too. Listen, they're our enemies—"
On the Morozova bridge, Pavel sat quietly while Piotr listened to Captain Henry. The pain in his brother's voice was clear to him. The death of their Harr'al convert, Vasily, wounded Piotr deeply. He'd directed Vasily to help Lupa, after all, and felt responsible for getting Vasily involved in a way that caused his death. He would not be satisfied until he knew Lupa’s allegiance for certain.
Pavel's worry was that Piotr's anger was clouding his judgment. He wanted someone to punish for Vasily. "The data we recovered from those godless bastards we spaced," he said softly so his voice wouldn't carry over into the channel. "It included a file with Lupa's face. She was a target."
"Or they were sent to extract her," Piotr said.
"If that is so, brother, then why did they disable the Shadow Wolf? Look at her. Even now her systems are compromised."
Piotr's eyes narrowed. He glanced toward their officer at the scanner displays, Semyon T. Kuybyshev. Without needing to be addressed, the younger man spoke up. "My scans show the ship's inertial compensators are not operating to full efficiency. Their power systems are functioning at less than sixty percent. The League weapon we were attacked with could have done something to them."
"It may be a trick of some sort," Piotr said. "Another League scheme."
Pavel shook his head. "Brother, I—"
Piotr's clenched his fists. "She caused Vasily's death, brother! Father Nikolai
is devastated, and the Church in Sektatsh mourns!"
"They do, brother. We all do," Pavel replied, soothing his brother's anger and pain with calm in his voice. "But consider the evidence we have seen. The League is behind these disappearances, and they seek the Lupa woman. They attacked this vessel to claim her. If she were working for the League, why would they need to do so?"
"To betray them and have them taken!"
At that moment, the channel to the Shadow Wolf re-opened. But it wasn't the voice of Henry this time, and it wasn't in English but accented Russian that they heard "Karla Lupa" speak. "Piotr Sergeevich, Pavel Sergeevich, I am Miriam bat Ariel Gaon, former Coalition Intelligence Service. Tell me… is Vasily dead?"
Piotr's face twisted with anger. "He is. Because of you."
"That accent." Pavel spoke up so he could be heard. "And your name. You are Jewish?"
"From New Israel, yes. Karla Lupa was my legend, to avoid League agents. I am known to them as the Traitor of Lowery."
Pavel's eyes widened, and he looked to Piotr. "Brother, if she speaks truly, the League would certainly hate her! Their defeat at New Arabia was because of a Coalition agent on Lowery!"
Piotr's face was still twisted into an angry scowl. "You lied to us about who you were. And that you speak Russian."
"I am a former spy, Piotr Sergeevich. Lying is something that comes easy to me, Adonai help me. Vasily… what happened?"
Piotr refused to answer, so Pavel did. "He was found dead. Shot in the head."
"Adonai rest his soul… I know you have little reason to trust me now, but this is bigger than us. Than this. The League is plotting with Duarte Vitorino, the new Prime Minister of Lusitania. To what end, I don't know, but it will certainly lead to increased League power in this region. Cyrilgrad will be in peril. We have to stop them."
"Why should I believe you?" Piotr asked harshly. "You've lied already."
"Because you've seen enough to know that I was telling the truth about the League. You saw their weapon in action, and the civilian ship they modified for their own purpose. Now the governing officers of Lusitania have been nearly wiped out by a bombing, with the only survivor being the Trade Minister known throughout the region for his dealings with the League. You know this can't be a coincidence." As the woman spoke those words, a dark, thoughtful look came over Piotr. "I understand your anger about Vasily. He was a good man, and he is dead because of his involvement with me. If I could change it so that I was the one who died, I would. I… I am tired of good people dying because of me."
