Sikander finds himself imagining the scene: water rushing in, flames and smoke above, a horrible choice of how to meet death. Five men had been sentenced to a terrible fate because they had the misfortune of serving on the container ship that the Seastar United transport line—owned by Aquilans, but operated by Kashmiri employees—sent into Bathinda in defiance of the port workers’ strike. Does Devindar know the people who did this? he wonders. Does he support it?
If Nawab Dayan is thinking the same things, he gives no sign of it. Instead he paces toward the seaward end of the pier, gazing out over the waters of Diamond Bay. At least fifteen more sea transports ride at anchor in the heat and the haze, waiting for the weeks-long strike to end so that they can unload their cargoes. Sikander follows him, while Colonel Nayyar leaves the two Norths to a moment of privacy.
“What are you going to do, Father?” Sikander asks after a moment.
“I am not sure,” Nawab Dayan replies without looking at him—one of the very few times Sikander has ever heard anything less than certainty from the ruler of Ishar. “I had hoped to restrain both the governor-general’s office and the KLP long enough to simply outwait the strikers. But this—” He glances back at the wrecked ship by the pier. “—this means we are out of time. The Chandigarh Lancers are certain to be ordered into action against the strikers now. They will not be gentle … but the strikers brought it on themselves by sinking that ship.”
“Seastar United provoked them by attempting to open the port without negotiating in good faith,” Sikander points out. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they sent that ship into port for exactly that purpose—to force the strikers to do something that would then justify action by the King family troops. For that matter, the governor-general’s office might have told Seastar to send Blue Horizon into port.”
The nawab gives Sikander a sharp look. “You’ve been talking to your brother.”
“I don’t agree with everything Devindar says, Father, but that doesn’t mean he is always wrong.”
Nawab Dayan smiles a small, wry smile then. “No, not always,” he agrees. “It makes one wonder, though, who sank that ship and why, doesn’t it?”
“You don’t really think—?”
“What I think is not as important as what people think I might think. Right now it might be useful if I expressed some doubts about responsibility for this attack. And for that suggestion, I suppose I owe Devindar my gratitude.” Nawab Dayan sets a hand on Sikander’s shoulder, and turns him back toward Colonel Nayyar and the waiting guards. “Let us hope that cooler heads prevail.”
“Captain?” Amelia Fraser asked.
“Sorry, XO. I was just trying to figure out where we should start.” Sikander pulled his gaze away from the imagery of the devastation, realizing that he’d been staring at the display while thinking about that long-ago day in Jaipur. He gave himself a small shake. “Let’s find out who’s in charge over there and ask them how we can help. It’s going to take a few hours to decelerate and make orbit, so we might as well put that time to good use. Assemble the officers and chiefs in the wardroom in ninety minutes to go over our rescue and assistance plans.”
* * *
At first, Sikander was not entirely sure what Decisive could do—as Jaime Herrera had predicted when the news reached Dahar, the Aquilan destroyer arrived on the scene almost a week after the attack. The Meliyan authorities had already evacuated almost two thousand civilians from the damaged station, and those who had been injured were being treated in various hospitals around the planet. But as Decisive assumed an orbit close by the station, a few needs became apparent. Portions of the station remained inaccessible due to collapsed passageways, hull breaches, loss of power, and bent or jammed hatches and lifts. Those were all problems a warship’s damage-control teams knew how to address, and since the Electorate naval depot had been virtually destroyed by the bomb, Decisive’s engineers represented a very welcome pool of trained personnel and equipment. Sikander put Amar Shah in charge of the ship’s rescue and assistance team, since damage control was principally an Engineering Department function.
Several small craft that had been docked at Meliya Station remained adrift in various dangerous orbits; Zoe Worth and the Flight Department took on the job of using Decisive’s boats to corral them and help with clearing navigational hazards. Grant Edwards had his mess specialists set up field kitchens to support the salvage teams working on the evacuated station. And Sikander directed the Operations Department to investigate the bomb attack itself, collecting sensor records from ships that had been in the area and performing detailed battle-damage assessments to reconstruct exactly where the device had been situated and whether anything could be learned about its characteristics. Many of the station’s records in the damaged areas were in no condition to be reviewed, since the explosion had naturally erased quite a good deal of the evidence. But Sikander trusted Michael Girard to figure out something—after all, in their first tour together aboard CSS Hector, Girard had displayed a knack for solving mysteries.
For his own part, Sikander spent most of his time dealing with the Velaran authorities, who proved difficult to work with. The person in charge of the situation was the senior surviving officer of Vashaoth Teh, a Paom’ii who called himself Meritor Pokk Skirriseh. Only one of the cruiser’s duty sections had actually been on the ship when the bomb went off. While very few of those on board had survived the bomb, their shipmates on liberty elsewhere in the station or down on the planet’s surface—including the meritor—had escaped injury. Sikander introduced himself with a vid call, conveyed the Aquilan Commonwealth’s sincere condolences for the loss of life, and explained the ways in which his engineers and deckhands were ready to help.
“Your concern is noted,” Meritor Pokk replied when he finished. The Paom’ii blinked rapidly; Sikander wasn’t sure how to read his expression, but he thought he detected irritation in the alien’s tone of voice. “We must of course approve all actions your damage-control teams undertake on the station. You may submit them in writing to the Meliyan System Defense Command for our review.”
Sikander clamped his mouth shut. We’re trying to help! he silently shouted at the alien on his comm display. “As you wish, Meritor,” he grated. “We will be in touch.”
“That’s not very friendly,” Amelia Fraser observed when Sikander cut the connection. “It makes you wonder how the human half of the Electorate puts up with it day in and day out.”
“Perhaps they grow on you with a little time,” Sikander said. “You’d better put the ship’s office on the job of documenting and submitting everything we’re trying to do. It’s their station and I suppose we have to do it their way.”
Decisive soon fell into a round-the-clock routine of emergency operations. Half a day after they arrived in Meliya, a Velaran navy salvage ship turned up. Naturally, Meritor Pokk issued an updated set of priorities when the new Velaran crew joined the effort. The day after that, the Montréalais assault ship Dixmude arrived in-system and likewise contributed damage-control teams to the job of restoring access to the station. Sikander directed his sailors to make room for the newcomers and do their best to respect the Velaran process, such as it was.
On the third day of their rescue operations, Amelia Fraser stopped by his cabin while he was reviewing the latest Velaran micromanagement of Decisive’s damage-control teams and wondering exactly how much more assistance the Commonwealth Navy was expected to provide. “Got a moment, Captain?” she asked, knocking at the side of his door.
“Come on in. What’s on your mind, Amelia?”
“I’ve been keeping an eye on the rescue and assistance details, and I’m worried about the way our people are pushing themselves—specifically, Reed Hollister. He’s been over on the station for sixty-four of the last seventy-two hours. He’s returned to Decisive a couple of times to sleep an hour or two, and then he goes right back over.” Amelia took her customary seat across the desk from Sikander. “Dr. Ruiz just told me he man
aged to slam his hand in a hatch this morning and damn near broke it. She thinks it’s fatigue, pure and simple.”
“Everybody in engineering’s working port and starboard shifts at the moment, aren’t they?” Twelve hours on and twelve hours off was not as easy as it sounded, but at least everyone should have been getting a few hours of sleep every day.
“They are,” Amelia confirmed. “But it seems that Reed’s stretching his shifts by six or seven hours a day.”
“Have you talked to Mr. Hollister about this? Or Mr. Shah?”
“No, not yet. I just got the report from Dr. Ruiz.”
Sikander leaned back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the desk as he thought over the situation. “Do you think Mr. Shah is punishing Mr. Hollister by assigning him extra work?” he asked.
Amelia shook her head. “No, I don’t think that’s it. I think Reed is punishing himself. He’s trying to win his way back into Mr. Shah’s good graces by working himself to the point of exhaustion.”
“That seems plausible,” Sikander said, and sighed. “All right, this has gone on long enough. It’s time to address the situation.”
“Should I call in Mr. Hollister or Mr. Shah?”
“Call them both in.” Sikander tapped through the open documents on his dataslate until he found the one he wanted, while Amelia summoned the chief engineer and the power plant officer to his cabin. The final report on the failure of generator two was not as conclusive as he would have liked—there was just no way to say for certain whether the faulty weld for the magnetic flux sensor in the generator chamber should have been caught by Hollister. In Sikander’s eyes, that sounded like a mistake, not malfeasance. He pulled up the draft of the letter he’d just about finished, and satisfied himself about the wording.
A few minutes later, both Amar Shah and Reed Hollister stood before his desk. Both men looked tired; Hollister had dark circles under his eyes and a bandage wrapped around his left hand, while Shah’s customarily spotless uniform showed dark smears of soot and stains from hydraulic fluid. “You wished to see us, sir?” Shah asked.
“Have a seat, gentlemen.” Sikander allowed the engineering officers to get settled. “I know you’re both working very hard, so I’ll keep this brief. First things first—Mr. Hollister, you’re on medically restricted duty for that hand. You’re to remain on board Decisive and rest for the next twenty-four hours, or more if Dr. Ruiz tells you to.”
Hollister grimaced, but nodded. “Yes, sir.”
“Very good. I apologize for putting this off for the last couple of weeks, but our patrol has taken some unexpected turns and I’ve allowed some things to get pushed aside that should have been dealt with in a more timely fashion. Regarding the failure of generator two: Mr. Hollister, I am issuing you a letter of admonition in regards to your certification of the weld test inspection report. I don’t know if the shipyard worker performed the test incorrectly and you just missed it or if you didn’t realize one of the sensors had been overlooked, but if you sign off on a repair action, we must be absolutely confident that the repair was indeed performed correctly.”
Hollister’s shoulders, already slumping with his fatigue, slumped further. “Yes, sir.” Shah shifted in his seat, but said nothing.
“This is an admonition, not a reprimand,” Sikander continued. “As long as this remains an isolated incident, the letter will be removed from your personnel jacket on the completion of your tour.”
“It’s a warning, Mr. Hollister,” Amelia said. “But it’s a warning that remains between us for now.”
“As far as I am concerned, the incident has been addressed,” Sikander said. “I will say no more about it, and I expect you to carry out your Engineering Department responsibilities capably and competently going forward. You may return to your duties, Mr. Hollister.”
“After you rest that hand, that is,” Amelia added.
“Well, of course,” Sikander admitted. “Thank you, Mr. Hollister. You’re dismissed.”
“Thank you, sir,” Hollister said, and stood. He saluted with his good hand, his expression in some unsettled space between relief and embarrassment, and left.
Sikander waited for Hollister to close the door behind him before turning his attention to Amar Shah. “I consider Mr. Hollister’s part in the generator two failure closed, Mr. Shah. No retaliation, no unreasonable expectations. Are we in agreement about that?”
Shah frowned. “I have some misgivings, Captain, but it is your decision. I certainly will not attempt to undermine it.”
“Good. Mr. Hollister deserves the opportunity to regain your confidence, and he needs to know that you’re not holding that mistake over his head for the rest of his tour. Give him a clean slate, Amar. I think he’ll impress you, if you let him.”
“Yes, sir. Is that all?”
Sikander glanced at Amelia, who took her cue. “Almost,” she said. “Mr. Hollister is clearly exhausted, and from what I’ve seen in the last day or two, so are the rest of your junior officers. Exhausted people make mistakes or get hurt.”
“My whole department is working hard,” Shah said. “I don’t believe that I am asking anything of my junior officers that I’m not asking of anyone else—or myself, for that matter. I’ve been over on Meliya Station fifteen or sixteen hours a day since we arrived.”
“It speaks well of your whole department that they’re pushing themselves so hard to help strangers,” Sikander said. Especially strangers who are working so hard at being difficult about it, he added to himself. “But it’s time to start taking care of our people, and that means enforcing end-of-shift turnovers and reasonable amounts of rest.”
“I haven’t asked anyone to go without sleep, sir.”
“No, but they’re doing it because you’re signaling that you see the need, whether you mean to send that message or not.”
Shah started to protest, but checked himself. “All right, sir. I see what you mean. I will direct my officers and chiefs to make sure shift rotations are followed and that we’re not sending exhausted sailors back to work. And I will remind them that they’re included in those orders.”
“Good. In that case: Carry on, Mr. Shah.”
“Thank you, sir.” The Kashmiri engineer stood and saluted, then left.
Sikander allowed himself a sigh of relief, and slumped back in his chair. “Did that all seem to hit the right note?” he asked Amelia.
“I think so,” she answered. “I’m pretty sure Amar is going to take a good long look at how he’s using his people and make sure they get more rest. But I think Reed could use a shot in the arm. He probably feels like he let everybody down, and he’s the kind of person who takes that sort of stuff to heart.”
“We’ll keep an eye on him,” Sikander decided. “Discreetly, of course.”
Later that evening, Sikander wandered up to the bridge to get out of his cabin for a bit and see how the watch team was doing. He found them engaged in the job of systematically cataloging every piece of debris in orbit and directing the ship’s small craft toward anything that had the remotest chance of posing a danger to ships operating near the planet. It would probably take weeks to really clean up Meliya’s orbital approaches, but as long as Decisive was on station there was no reason not to lend a hand. The subdued voices and quiet efficiency of the watch team spoke to the meticulous nature of the work, but Sikander found it strangely relaxing: It was just the right amount of white noise to let him listen to his own thoughts for a time.
“Captain, we’ve got a personal transmission for you,” said Grace Carter, interrupting Sikander’s ruminations. The young ensign had the watch at the moment. “Commercial message traffic, sir. It must have come in on the most recent courier ship.”
“Personal transmission?” Sikander straightened up in his command station. Ordinary civilian correspondence between people in different star systems generally consisted of text messages or recorded vids carried in a courier’s info storage, but sending notes to distant stars wasn�
��t cheap, especially if the recipient wasn’t exactly where they were supposed to be. He wrote his mother once a week when Decisive was in port, but most of the family’s messages for him were held at Neda until he returned from wherever he’d gone. Very few people would have known to forward a message for him all the way to Meliya. “Send it to the ship’s info assistant. I’ll read it in my quarters.”
He went back to his cabin to retrieve the message … and was more than a little surprised when Elena Pavon’s face appeared on the vidscreen. “Hello, Sikander,” she began. “I hope this message reaches you in good time—I’m recording this two days after Decisive departed from Meliya. To come straight to the point, my people have come up with a lead about the Carmela Día attack: Some of her cargo was sold in Tunis by a company called Venture Salvage. Our investigators in Tunis tried to locate a headquarters or point of contact for the salvage company, and found nothing. But they did discover that Venture Salvage owns a mining operation in the Zafer system, which is not all that far from Meliya. It seems that Venture bought the installation a few years ago when the original operation shut down, but there is no record of the Zafer operation being put back in service. Since Zafer is otherwise uninhabited, my people think it’s possible that someone bought the facility to serve as a pirate base.
“I wish I could tell you that we’re certain you will find pirate activity there. It’s entirely likely that the mining operation is just an abandoned facility or that Venture Salvage itself is just a recycled front of some sort.” Elena gave a small shrug. “But it’s the first real lead our investigations have turned up, so maybe it’s worth checking out. I’m attaching copies of our documentation to this message so that you can see what we have.
“I don’t know whether you can look into this or not, but I’m holding on to this information until I hear from you—I don’t want to share it with anybody who might warn the raiders that you’re coming, if they are really in Zafer. Reply to me at the Pegasus-Pavon offices in Dahar if you want me to give this information to someone else.” Elena bared her teeth in a hungry smile. “But I think you want to get these bastards yourself, Sikay. Good hunting.” The recorded message ended.
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