Izza got a thrill out of pushing Fitz to his limits and beyond, of watching what he might do. And he reveled in letting go of restraints, trusting Izza to pull him back when he went too far.
It was a unique partnership.
In which no one else in the galaxy could play Izza’s part.
No one… except, she feared, Kanha Wei.
That was the reason Fitz was fascinated by the human woman. He didn’t realize that yet, but he would.
And Izza would soon step aside and give Fitz all the room in the universe to deepen his fascination with the woman.
She realized Fitz was watching her.
“Is there a problem?” he asked cautiously.
She gave him the full glare of her distrust, and made sure Sybutu had seen it too, before replying. “Emerging from jump… now.”
The jump tunnel closed behind them, squeezing them into real-space on the outer rim of the asteroid belt, jumping about a quarter of the way into the local star from Tej Prime’s orbit.
The rear monitor view showed the gas giant as a tiny banded ball in the pin-studded black.
“Jump engines at 23%,” Catkins reported. “Recharge rate good. We’ll be able to jump again in about two hours.”
“We’re clear,” Izza added after building a sensor picture of their surroundings. “Nothing but a few scattered rocks in the void.”
“And a mission objective,” countered Sybutu, “which is to retrieve the rest of the team from Eiylah-Bremah. Apparently with some of us being more vital than others.”
“Relax,” said Fitz, taking his own advice by unstrapping, settling back in his chair, and resting his heels on the scuffed area of the flight console. “We’re on it. Diamond-7 has this fantasy of a dashing space pilot leading a team of hardy yet misfit adventurers to set right galactic wrongs, and to provide the holo-drama producers with rich source material for eons. Leave that to her. As far as I’m concerned, it’s just another job.”
“Is it?” Izza snapped, but Sybutu showed no sign of noticing her rancor, instead picking up on a more pressing matter to him.
“Don’t dismiss me as just a dumb sapper of the Legion, Captain. Same goes for you, Lieutenant. You explained how the jump drives work by pinching two gravity wells together.” Sybutu stood in front of the cockpit window and spread his arms wide at the view outside. “So where is the gravity well out there?”
“Very impressive,” said Fitz. “Damned fine point, kid. In the holo-dramas the view out the window would be a sea of tumbling rocks, but the reality is disappointingly empty.”
He probably sounded utterly patronizing to Sybutu, but Izza could hear in his voice that he was impressed by the jack.
“My lady, please explain Phantom’s jump status to our budding navigator.” Fitz flicked on a shipboard channel. “Catkins, we have more trackers planted on board. Lead a team to find them.”
“Captain, we’ve already swept the ship. We found two beacons that looked to be recent additions. Nothing to do with Lord Khallini’s eavesdropping. I’m confident we eliminated his devices before we docked at JSHC.”
“Very good. Now do it again. Better this time, because you’re missing a parting gift from Department 9. Check again that we’re fully free of Khallini while you’re at it. Pressgang our new marines into doing something useful. Talking of which, Mr. Bronze, respond.”
“Here, Captain.”
“What the hell is Department 9 and what does it want with my ship?”
Fitz tensed, his question met by faint static over the intercom.
Was Bronze figuring out his loyalties first? wondered Izza. There was a lot of that going about.
Bronze took several seconds and then offered his answer. “I’ve heard the name mentioned by the deepest levels of SpecMish. To even read the name requires an extremely unhealthy level of curiosity. But you have to understand with SpecMish that it’s wrapped inside a web of false information trails. Until you mentioned them, I assumed Department 9 was one more poisoned lie. Why? What are they to us?”
Fitz sighed. “I don’t know. There’s far too much I don’t understand here. But there’s someone who’s going to extreme lengths to keep us alive who says Department 9 is out to kill us. Catkins, use Bronze as your advisor. He doesn’t have your science and engineering knowledge, but I expect he has a wealth of practical experience in how to track people in sneaky ways so that he can murder them at his convenience.”
“Fair point,” said Bronze. “Come to think of it, why don’t you join us, Captain? Share the wealth of your experience as a spy. Or were you more of an assassin than an intelligence gatherer?”
Fitz took in a loud breath.
And didn’t appear to release it.
“Oh, for the Empress’s shame!” shouted Sybutu. “We haven’t time for this. Bronze, we are on a temporary posting to Chimera Company. It’s not a game. This is where we need to be right now to best serve the Federation and fulfil our oaths. Captain Fitzwilliam is our CO.”
“Understood, Sarge.”
“A CO who is currently slouching in his seat with cheeks puffed out like a toddler having a tantrum. He’s a preening, risk-taking, egotistical rogue.” With Fitz sitting there in sullen silence, the legionary turned to Izza and gave her a nod of respect. “From what I’ve seen so far, he relies upon his XO to keep him on the straight and narrow. Sound familiar?”
“I might have encountered a few officers like that,” Bronze admitted.
“Good. So you know that if you have a problem you keep it to yourself. If you can’t do that, you bring it to me.”
“Yes, Sergeant. My apologies, Captain. I will assist the chief mechanic. Out.”
Izza was starting to like Sybutu. Even so, she itched to tear him apart for insulting her captain, despite speaking truth with his every word.
It cut her, but she had a new part to play.
So she said nothing.
“Are my words being picked up by the intercom now?” Sybutu checked with Izza.
“No.”
“Good.” He spun Fitz around in his chair so they faced each other, almost toppling him out in the process.
No one did that to Fitz.
Not even her.
“As for you, Captain” – Sybutu stood at attention, but his tone was admonishing – “It’s my role as commander of your marines to tell you that–”
“What makes you think you’re my marine commander?”
“I… I assumed. Wait… you just said I was.”
Strangely, seeing Sybutu stumble made Izza’s heart jump. Only a few moments ago she’d been worrying about Kanha Wei taking her place. Maybe that wasn’t the strange little woman’s role after all. Perhaps Sybutu would grow into the counterbalance to Fitz’s wilder moments.
“Sybutu’s our senior NCO,” Izza told Fitz. “Hear him out.”
The little growls of disgust in Fitz’s throat threw daggers of guilt at Izza. Normally, she backed him up in public and then reamed him with the unvarnished truth in private.
“Chimera Company is not yet reassembled. You don’t outrank the Viking,” Fitz told the legionary standing at attention in front of the pilot’s seat. “And the tattooed trooper was a platoon commander in an earlier existence.”
“Maybe,” Sybutu acknowledged through gritted teeth, making it clear that Legion ranks would always be senior to Militia equivalents in his universe. “But, as you say, those individuals aren’t here. So it falls to me to inform you, sir, that your marines will operate more effectively when they respect their CO, and don’t have to spend their energy second guessing his decisions. Insulting your marines because of their past affiliations is a fast track to losing our respect.”
Fitz refused to answer. Was that an act or was he genuinely that angry? It took a helluva lot to make him go quiet.
“Your point is noted, Sybutu,” said Izza. “By both of us. And on that other matter, I confirm that you are our marine commander. When we gather up the rest of our team, we will reconsider. I gu
ess that appointment would make you a major on a Navy vessel, but the Navy are idiots in my experience. To indicate your seniority aboard Phantom, you will be referred to as ‘sergeant’.”
“I decide the Phantom’s roster.” Fitz’s voice was icy cold. “She’s my ship.”
“She’s our ship,” Izza snapped back. “Remember? You only take the commander’s seat because your crew think you’ve earned the right, and Sybutu’s part of that crew now. Let us down and… Let’s just say that I’ve put in more hours piloting Phantom than you. A lot more. None of us is essential to the running of this ship.”
“You wouldn’t dare.”
As wife and husband glared at each other across the flight console, Sybutu edged behind them, ready to break them up if it came to a fight.
Yes, he was shaping up well.
“Captain!” Fregg called from the passageway leading to the flight deck. “There’s a noise coming from your personal cabin. A buzzing like an alarm or something. Probably nothing but… Oh!” She shuddered to a halt just inside the flight deck. Fregg must have felt like she was slamming into a wall of tension. “Only, I’ve never heard that sound before.”
“How exciting!” Fitz declared, his infectious grin back in place. “My lady, you have control. I shall investigate this mystery.”
Izza watched him bounding off to their cabin, which was a short distance away along the central passageway. She gestured at Fregg to be someplace else, wanting this opportunity to learn more of Sybutu in private.
Each contemplated the other. He was a legionary ditch digger. Granted, he showed some initiative, but here was a man who needed the security of mission parameters and standard operating procedures before he could unass his mind.
While she… Izza laughed inwardly. She liked things looser.
“Forgive my forwardness, ma’am,” said Sybutu, “but your disagreement with the captain… is this situation normal?”
“No.” It was a fair question, she decided, and elaborated for him. “Fitz used to fly for the Navy.” She narrowed her eyes. “That was just one more layer of his rich history until you came along and whispered dangerous words in his ear. Now he is wondering whether he ever truly left.”
“Sounds to me like Captain Fitzwilliam needs to stop wondering and make a decision. Fast.”
“Indeed. For all our sakes.”
“Is there anything I can do to speed him up?”
“I shall inform you if I think of anything. And call him Captain Fitz. When you use his full name like that, it sounds like you’re the port authority or a bounty hunter. Makes me itch to go weapons free.”
“Roger that, ma’am.”
“And don’t ever call him sir. But do refer to me as ma’am. No one’s ever called me that before. I find I like it.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The human looked away, signaling this bout of sizing each other up was at an end.
“You asked a good question about the jump system,” she reminded him, gesturing to the window. “On a map of the Tej System, we are on the outer rim of the asteroid belt, which would probably be represented as a shaded disc on the ecliptic plane. All maps distort. I have far better eyesight than you, Sybutu, and I can see only three asteroids. You will see only that large rock fifty klicks off the port bow. Add all the mass in the belt, and you get the equivalent of a mid-sized rocky planet. Distribute that mass in a disc around the star and the result is so profoundly empty that if I threw you out the airlock in the densest region of the belt, the chances are that it would take over a million years before anything larger than a micrometeorite struck you.”
“Does that mean our jump drive is inoperable?”
“It does not. The planetoid we are nearby is tiny compared with a full planet, but it still possesses mass.”
Sybutu waited patiently for further explanation.
She saw the wave of realization pass over his face. She wasn’t explaining. She was guiding him to figure most of it out himself.
“So… we can jump,” he suggested hesitantly, “but not far. And… well, we don’t need to, do we? That big rock out there is tiny compared with a planet, but so is the distance between points in the same star system when you compare with the immense gulf between two stars. All we need to do is jump to a planet, recharge the engines, and then jump to Eiylah-Bremah.”
“By God, I think he has it,” Fitz exclaimed, storming back onto the flight deck brandishing a buzzing comms headset. “Phantom will need to rest her engines for a couple of hours before she can jump again. And the sooner Catkins can find the trackers, the sooner we’ll be on our way. But first…” He patched the headset through to the main comms array. “Let’s see if this little gift has been planted by who I think.”
He settled the device over his head. “You have reached the finest ship in the galaxy. Please state your name, business, and which member of Phantom’s all-star crew you most admire. And why.”
After a moment’s silence, a laugh came through the flight deck speakers. “Well that’s a simple question. Lieutenant Zan Fey has my ardent admiration, because she must boast extreme levels of self-control to be with you for so long without throttling you, Fitzwilliam. With such discipline, she would make a fine deep cover agent.”
“Kanha Wei,” said Fitz. “What a delightful surprise. I take it this channel is quantum-linked. I’m honored you went to such expense.”
“Of course it’s quantum-linked. How else could we talk in real-time across half the star system? I want you to pick up the rest of Chimera Company at Eiylah-Bremah. When you’ve managed that, I’ll give you the co-ordinates of that jump tunnel you fell out of. But first you have a problem. I told you Department 9 left trackers. They’re quantum-linked too. You can’t detect their signal, but they do give off a signature when active. The comm set you’re using can also detect such signatures. Act fast, the pursuit craft have already launched after you.”
“Not a problem,” Fitz replied. “The combination of my lady and Phantom’s unique capabilities means no one can precision jump like us. Any pursuers would have to use main thrusters. Take them hours to reach us.”
“They’re using pre-stressed micro-jumps to get close first. They’ll be in firing range within minutes.”
“But… but that’s cheating! Are they allowed to do that?”
Fitz sounded flippant, and Izza knew that meant he was as shocked as her.
Pre-stressed jumps worked by creating your own gravity well in the form of black hole bombs. They had been theorized as long as the Indiyan jump drive, but she’d never even heard rumors of them being developed for practical use.
“Stop trying to wind me up,” said Wei, who clearly didn’t know Fitz as well as she thought. “It won’t work and the total transmission capacity on this q-link is limited. Use up your supply of q-bits and it’s just a useless lump of inert mass. You know all this, of course. I say it for the benefit of the others who I assume are listening in. Now stop wasting time and get to work.”
Wei cut the connection.
“Catkins,” called Fitz. “I think I know why you didn’t find the trackers.”
BRONZE
“Trust me, it’s where I’d put a tracker.” Bronze stretched out his hand. “Give me.”
The Gliesan’s lips colored – they did that when faced with uncertainty – but he didn’t tell Bronze to go to hell.
“Come on, you wingless wonder. Which one of us is the expert here?”
Catkins laughed. All the Gliesans Bronze had ever known loved to be verbally insulted, because it gave them license to return the favor and then some. He figured a little banter was the alien equivalent of tickling. And if Bronze had to tickle an alien to save all their skins, well… he’d done a lot worse.
The chief mechanic tapped the comm set in his collar. “Lieutenant, how long before our friends get here?”
“450 seconds,” Zan Fey replied. Effective firing range 40 seconds before that.”
“Give me the da
mned bug sweeper,” Bronze yelled. “You haven’t found it inside Phantom yet. A few more minutes won’t make much difference. Let me look outside the hull.”
“There isn’t time.”
“Just… Ahhh!… Trust me.”
Bronze bit down on silent screams as waves of pain spilled over the walls of his pain meds. He’d been shot up pretty bad at the jetty on Rho-Torkis. Crawling through the hidden parts of the ship and yelling at stubborn aliens was not part of the recovery plan.
Catkins handed over the device. “Don’t make me regret this, you metal-necked pink freak.”
Bronze hurried over to the secondary airlock, all of 20 feet away. “I wouldn’t worry about it,” he told the anxious Gliesan. “If you made the wrong choice, I expect we’ll all be far too dead for you to care.”
He contemplated the device lying on the deck while he opened the emergency stowage set into the bulkhead and pulled out a fast-fit emergency pressure suit.
The device was a headset. A basic design hadn’t changed for thousands of years.
He could grab a crate of 200 sets like these for just five credits at the polar docks on Dauranlys, and they’d only be slightly stolen.
And they were betting their lives on this being something special: a unique piece of sensor-sweep tech to find quantum-linked trackers that might not even exist. They only had one person’s word that they did.
There was a helluva lot depending on blind trust at the moment.
Some of it was ill earned. Of that he was sure. The fun was in guessing where the lies lay.
The pressure suit pinged to confirm a good seal. Bronze stood inside little more than a plastic bag in a vaguely humanoid shape with slow release compressed air discs on the inside, and radiation shielding as an outer coating. Survival rating about half an hour. Long enough to be rescued if you had to abandon ship, and a lot longer than the pursuit ships would take to get here.
He bent down to grab the headset, guessing that if it really did have sensors, they would work better from the outside of his suit.
“Wait for me!”
Bronze glanced behind and saw Captain Fitz pounding along the deck.
Chimera Company - Deep Cover 4 Page 2