by J. N. Chaney
“One step at a time,” Kira told herself, thankful that the ice had broken, or at minimum, cracked. She would shower, then eat, and then think, but in the end, she knew that the inevitable would be waiting. Just like the Nyctus.
8
Thorn waited as the Mystic’s shuttle clunked and bumped into place, latched to the Hecate’s docking port, and the airlock began to cycle. The frigate had finally caught up to them shortly before the destroyer started its journey to intercept the distress transmission from the Pool of Stars. Thorn had wanted to do that first, but Fleet insisted that the Hecate pick up the mission specialists assigned to the op first. It had left Tanner spending almost three days in a holding pattern, orbiting a binary pair of white-dwarf stars to save fuel.
“Do you know these people?” Tanner asked Thorn. He glanced at a data slate. “Specialists Bridmante and—Justice.” He slipped the data slate back into his belt pouch. “Specialist Justice missed his calling. Name like that, he belongs in the JAG’s corps.”
“I’ll bet he’s heard that before, sir,” Thorn agreed. “But no, sir, I don’t know them, except by name. Believe it or not, sir, Starcasters don’t all know one another.”
“What the hell do I know, Stellers?” Tanner snapped. “You could tell me you Starcasters are all a hive mind, and I’d probably believe it.”
“I can guarantee you, sir, there’s not another Starcaster out there I’d want to share a mind with.”
A rare glimmer of mischief flickered across Tanner’s face. “Not even Lieutenant Wixcombe?”
“Especially not her, sir.”
Tanner actually grinned. “Been through two marriages, Stellers. I hear you.”
“Between that and the extra bone in—”
“Wait, what?” Tanner asked, stunned. “Extra bones? You have physical changes? Why wasn’t I—”
Thorn’s sly grin caught Tanner unaware, and he snorted with laughter. “While my official position is to be a humorless martinet, that was . . . well played.”
“It never happened, sir.”
“Even better. Let’s greet our guests.”
The airlock unsealed and began to open, and the good humor vanished from Tanner’s face like someone had thrown a switch. Two people emerged, stopping and saluting smartly. One of them, a formidable woman who seemed made entirely of planes and angles, spoke.
“Sir, Specialists Bridmante and Justice reporting for duty aboard your fine ship. Request permission to come aboard.”
While she rattled off the customary verbiage of someone coming aboard an ON ship for the first time, Thorn watched both her and her companion. They were both Starcasters, but both had also been trained in secondary duties, according to their files—Gela Bridmante in linguistics and cryptography; Justice, whose first name was D’Artegal, in xeno-engineering. Their secondary skills reflected the work they’d been doing since graduating from Code Nebula, neither having, according to their files, served as Starcaster aboard an ON ship.
This was, Thorn knew, a serious point of contention in the Fleet. Some in Fleet Command thought that priority should be given to putting Starcasters in ships, many of which had none; others believed it was essential to reserve some Starcasters for high-level intel and staff work. Thorn’s sympathies tended to the former group, because a ship without a Starcaster was, in any confrontation with the Nyctus, much less capable than one with a Starcaster.
Of course, Thorn had developed a healthy suspicion, bordering on contempt, of anyone who worked in the shadowy world of intel. That was, he knew, probably a result of his even deeper suspicions about Alys Densmore, who had come to symbolize the whole compartmentalized, distrustful, twilight realm inhabited by the spooks. It tended to spill over, though, coloring his view of anyone from that sinister place.
Including these two.
“Permission granted,” Tanner said, returning their salutes. “This is Lieutenant Thorn Stellers,” he went on, gesturing at Thorn. “He’s the leader of this particular op. You’ll be working for him. We, of the good ship Hecate, are just his ride.”
Thorn turned to Tanner to object to that, but the Captain just turned away. As he did, though, Thorn caught a twinkle in Tanner’s eye. As he withdrew, leaving Thorn alone with the two new arrivals, it struck him how inordinately satisfying it was to have apparently earned Tanner’s trust and respect. He was, in almost every way, the exact opposite of Densmore— Tanner was honest, forthright, and had no patience for shady plots and schemes. Scheming was Densmore’s lifeblood.
Thorn turned back to the two mission specialists. Both held the rank of Senior Petty Officers, which meant he outranked them. He didn’t want to let the formality of rank codify too much of his relationship with them, though. Not only was it not his style, but he also needed to learn as much as he could about these two, since he was going to be trusting them—well, a lot. Stiff adherence to the niceties of the chain of command created artificial barriers that were just going to get in the way.
So Thorn stuck out his hand. “Thorn Stellers. Aboard the Hecate, it’s expected that you’ll call me sir, of course. But when we deploy away from the ship and face possible confrontation with the squids, it’s Thorn.”
“Looks like you’ve worked with spec ops before—sir,” Bridmante said, shaking his hand. “All first names on ops and such.”
Thorn just smiled.
So did Bridmante. Thorn wasn’t sure if she was testing his commitment to OPSEC—operational security—by fishing for previous involvement with special ops. But knew she would have expected him to remain coy about it, so he did.
“Anyway, sir,” Bridmante went on. “You can call me Brid. As for D’Artegal here—”
“Dart,” the man said, taking his turn to shake Thorn’s hand. “Nice to meet you, sir. You’re pretty well known throughout the Starcaster Corps.”
“Hell, the whole fleet,” Brid added.
Thorn gave Dart a once-over. Unlike the angularity of Brid, Dart had a softer, sleeker look to him, a smooth leanness that reminded Thorn of a swimmer, or a long-distance runner. “Just a guy doing his job,” Thorn replied, offering a self-effacing smile. “Anyway, let me show you to your quarters. You’re bunking in together—if that’s okay.”
They both fell in with Thorn as he started to walk. Behind them, the Mystic’s shuttle undocked with a soft clatter.
“Racking us together? Isn’t that a little . . . edgy, for the ON?” Brid asked.
“Why, because you’re male and female?”
“That would be why, yes, sir,” Dart said, smiling. “Any other ON ship I’ve been aboard has been pretty sticky about mixed-sex accommodations.”
Thorn shrugged. “Captain Tanner is a very—” He paused. “Best way to describe it is a very results-oriented guy. He generally doesn’t care much what you do, both in your job and your downtime, as long as you deliver what he needs from you, when he needs it.”
“That’s an enlightened attitude,” Brid said. “Even for now.”
“Probably why he’s still commanding a destroyer and hasn’t been posted up to a cruiser, or a battleship,” Dart said. That brought Thorn to a sudden stop.
“He has been offered postings-up at least twice. He’s turned both offers down. Captain Tanner believes he can accomplish more for the ON as skipper of a destroyer, constantly out here in the black, hunting for the squids, than master of a big capital ship that only comes out to play for major fleet actions. I happen to agree with him.”
Thorn realized he came across as a dedicated booster for Captain Tanner with his stern words—and, to some extent, he was. But this was also a chance to test the reaction of these two to overt military authority. There was a place for Thorn to be laid-back and chummy with Brid and Dart, but not at the expense of Specialists Bridmante and Justice knowing their place relative to Lieutenant Stellers.
To their credit, they both stiffened and nodded. “My apologies, sir,” Dart replied. “Didn’t mean to sound disrespectful.”
; Thorn nodded, as neutral as he could be. “Good. Now, let’s get you two settled in.”
Thorn sprawled across his rack and scrolled through the report he’d been sent by Brid, a summary of background work she and Dart had done on the Pool of Stars. It was, he had to admit, one of the best-written and most comprehensive reports he’d ever read. Somehow, it managed the dry, dispassionate tone of a typical staff report, while also managing to be an entertaining read.
More to the point, though, he hadn’t even asked her for it. Brid had just sent it to him, shortly after she and Dart had settled into their quarters. He’d planned to give them a low-ops day, to acquaint themselves with the Hecate, and here she’d already done a good day’s work.
He finished the report, went back to the beginning, and started a second, more careful read. The report had triggered more than a few questions, some to clarify the points she’d raised, others the basis for further investigation. As he did, the door chime sounded. He sat up.
“Come in.”
The door opened, revealing—
Brid.
“Sir,” she said. “I was just wondering if you had any questions about the report I sent you.”
Thorn blinked. “Uh . . . I do. Or at least I will. I just finished reading it and was going to make some notes—”
He stopped, staring at her. “You’re a Hammer, right?”
“That’s right, sir.”
“Not a Joiner.”
Brid laughed. “Didn’t have to read your mind to figure you’d have questions, sir.”
“No, I suppose you didn’t,” Thorn replied. “Well, like I said, I’ll make some notes, including some questions, and we can discuss them—let’s say tomorrow, at oh-nine-hundred. Until then—”
“Sir,” she interrupted. “I wonder if I could have a moment of your time.”
“Of course. Come in and close the door.”
She did. “Sir, I just wanted you to know that Specialist Justice and I—” She searched for the right words, found them, and smiled with warmth. “We’re thankful that we got to share a cabin.”
Thorn gave a slow nod. “Ah. Well, I think it’s safe to say, that’s not the reason. We only had one room left available for Petty Officers, so—”
“No, I get that, sir. And don’t worry, it’s not like Dart and I will be, ah, broadcasting our status. I just wanted to make sure, in case you caught wind of anything, even from our postings prior to coming here—”
“I said Captain Tanner was results-oriented. So am I. Just don’t let it become a problem.”
“Don’t worry, sir. You’re in the ON long enough, you get the knack of keeping things under the sensors,” Brid said.
“Fair enough,” Thorn said.
It was something he and Kira had always been very careful about, confining their more energetic social activities to periods of mutual leave, and even then, generally away from ON installations. Not that they hadn’t considered it; the thought had even flickered through his mind recently, since Kira had come aboard the Hecate—
Of course, they should probably work on just talking to one another, actually communicating, first. It was something they’d never been good at.
He yanked himself out of his reverie. “Is there anything else, Specialist?”
“No, sir.”
“Carry on, then.”
After she was gone, Thorn turned back to her report. He reached the first bit he’d highlighted, and started to assemble a question—
She’d shown up at his door, right at the very moment he’d been thinking he needed to talk to her.
Coincidence, of course. And yet, something tickled Thorn, like a minor itch whose location he couldn’t quite pinpoint.
He finally gave up and dove back into the report. Fleet confirmed that Brid and Dart had been screened, to confirm they weren’t Skins, before being deployed. They’d been aboard the Mystic, and now the Hecate, ever since. Still, Thorn resolved to do a little digging of his own, just in case—
He sat back. No. The perfect person to do it was right here, aboard the Hecate—the most powerful and capable Joiner he knew.
He tapped the intercom. “Kira, Thorn here.”
“I was just going to call you, ask you to go to dinner.”
“Dinner? Yeah.” Thorn replied. “Dinner would be good.”
“You want me to look into their minds?” Kira asked, her food momentarily forgotten. “Do you think Skins could actually have slipped through all the screening Fleet would have done?”
Thorn sucked air through his teeth, lips pulled back, but he said nothing. He and Kira had brought dinner to his quarters, which didn’t make for the most comfortable dining. She sat at his desk, while he sat on his bunk, his plate on the fold-away tray-desk combo that he could swing out of the wall. The only thing resembling private dining aboard the Hecate would be Tanner’s exclusive privilege, his cabin actually big enough to have a table with two chairs.
Dinner with the Captain had one of two connotations—either the invitee was about to be praised for something well done, or even informed of an award or promotion; or they were in shit for some reason, but not in a way that warranted formal punishment under the Orbital Navy Code of Discipline and Conduct.
“I’ve got no idea how good a job Fleet did,” Thorn replied. “I’d just like to satisfy myself that these two are on the level. I’m the one who has to work with them, potentially even travel, go on ops alone with them—not Ephraim or anyone else.”
“Densmore,” Kira said.
“Yeah, Densmore, too. So I was hoping—”
“No,” Kira said. “Densmore is calling me.”
Thorn heard a faint, repeating hum from Kira’s comm. He waved at it, telling Kira to go ahead and take the call. She nodded, unclipped an earbud from the comm, lifted it into place and activated it.
“Wixcombe here, ma’am.”
Thorn waited, resigned to hearing one end of a conversation while dinner got cold.
Kira made a face, pointed at the earbud, then gestured to the door. “Yes, ma’am, I can be alone. Just hang on a moment, please.”
She stood and muted the comm. “Be right back.”
“Uh-huh.”
Kira left Thorn’s cabin, closing the door behind her. He rolled his eyes up in disgust. Densmore seemed awfully determined to keep in pretty much constant touch with Kira. Unfortunately, the Hecate was just close enough to be in real-time comms range to the Stiletto, which was up to some spooky business or other in an adjacent sector of the Zone. That would change tomorrow, when the Hecate made her next Alcubierre hop, closing half of the remaining distance to their intercept point for the distress message from the Pool of Stars. Until then, though—
The door opened and Kira came back in, clipping the earbud back to her comm. “Sorry about that. I did leave the Stiletto kind of abruptly, and had some things going on.”
“Not a problem,” Thorn said, waving a hand. “Honestly, I’d rather you stay as close as you can to Densmore.”
Kira sighed as she sat down. “Thorn, it’s been three years. I’ve been with Densmore virtually all that time—oh, and by the way, talk about taking one for the team.” She curled her lip. “Alys Densmore isn’t the easiest person to work for. And she’s not a spy for the squids.”
“If that’s true, then we have no explanation for how your op got compromised and you got captured, or how the Fleet was lured into that Nyctus trap in the first place.”
“Thorn, there are lots of places that could have leaked along the chain.”
“With no evidence any of them ever did,” Thorn replied. “Tanner has friends in various high places and discreetly had them check records of comms, audit logs, signals intel data—” He grunted, once. “Actually, Tanner is really well connected, now that I think about it. No wonder he manages to keep getting away with turning down an up-posting to a bigger ship. That’d be a career killer for most Captains.”
“Thorn, if Densmore is compromised, then it�
��s in a way that—”
A hum from her comm cut her off. She glanced down at the preview display and sighed.
“Really?” Thorn said flatly. “Again?”
Kira spoke as she stood. “She had a question. I gave her a reference to look up—I guess she did that and, well, has more questions.”
“Is the outcome of the war going to turn on you resolving all of this stuff before dessert?”
Kira shot him a look of apology and left the cabin again.
Thorn crossed his arms. This is bullshit.
Could Densmore be aware of the fact he and Kira were meeting and was deliberately trying to sabotage their conversation? Kira still insisted she had things to talk about with Thorn; it had something to do with the Vision, he was sure, but now Kira seemed the one reluctant to open up. She’d apparently experienced the Vision differently than any other Starcaster, the little girl appending a message intended only for her before—before it ended. Kira seemed to think it was a warning, intended for him, because he was the one who’d be seeking the Star Pool.
If that was the case, though, why hadn’t she sent the warning to Thorn directly. She was obviously a latent Starcaster, and a powerful one, so she had the means. Why send it to Kira? Could it be meant for her?
The door opened and Kira came back in, but she didn’t sit down. She opened her mouth, but Thorn cut her off.
“You have to go and do something for Densmore. It’s urgent and can’t wait.”
“I’m sorry, Thorn.”
He put his fork down with care. “Doesn’t surprise me, really.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t help feeling she knows you’re trying to spend time with me, and she doesn’t want that to happen.”
Kira stopped and stared at Thorn. “What the hell are you talking about? How would she even know?”
“She’s a Starcaster, Kira. And a damned good one. She’s one of only a few that can Join over interstellar distances, remember?”
“She’s not in my mind, Thorn. I’d know if she was.”