"Perhaps that’s possible," Brad said.
Roland raised his head, eyes narrowed. "How."
Brad took her hand again. "You were at Brjyl, Allysha. Did you weave any of your magic there, as you did at Tisyphor? Hiding information? Is there more to find?"
Never underestimate Brad Stone. "What if there is?" she said.
"Then this standoff can be ended with facts. Suldan Bentrax can deal with the unrest on his own Qerran planets without intervention from either side," Brad said.
"Yes. At least, maybe," she said.
All of them stared at her.
"It’s just a chance," she said. "They shot up the control room, as I remember. Was it completely destroyed?"
"No. They set it alight but the fire went out," Roland said. "I… er… managed to get hold of the intelligence footage." He even looked a bit embarrassed.
"Do you have it? Here?" she asked.
"Why?"
"Because I built the information system at Brjyl."
"Did you indeed," Roland said, eye brows arched. Well, now. Editor, show us the analyst’s images from the Brjyl control room."
"Searching now," the IS said.
No restrictions on talking information systems on this ship, it seemed. And Roland had called the system ‘Editor’. Cute.
"And editor, leave out the smell, yeah? The place really stank," he added.
"Understood."
A holovid near the far wall came to life. The control room’s interior filled the screen. Charred walls, shattered bodies, both human and Ptorix, blood and ichor, overturned furniture, burnt debris. A finger of smoke rose from a pile of rubbish in a corner. Scorch marks and dark stains discolored the walls.
Bile rose in Allysha’s throat. She pressed her fist to her chest, forced herself to swallow. The last thing she needed was to throw up. Brad put a hand on her shoulder. "Go back to the beginning," she said.
The picture reset, started again.
"There." She jabbed a finger at the image. "Stop and zoom in on that alcove." The image grew; the alcove was empty.
"What are we looking at?" Brad said, his gaze switching from her to the screen.
"That alcove hasn’t been damaged, hasn’t been searched. I fitted a backup system behind that wall. It’s a Tor control device. If we’re very lucky, it’ll have the Ptorix versions of all transactions in the place," she said.
"But if it’s a functioning IS, wouldn’t the analysis team’s IS units have picked it up?" Tyne asked.
She grinned. "Not if I programmed it. They asked me to ensure nobody would find it. Not even an InfoDroid. So I did."
"Why?" asked Tyne. "The place is a mining operation."
"Yes, I thought so, too," Allysha said. "But Jarenz, the senior manager on Brjyl, had endured one too many attacks. They were using a new technique and he was paranoid about industrial espionage."
She’d thought at the time that Jarenz had been more than a little paranoid. After all, who would bother with an isolated mining settlement? How wrong she’d been.
"So this unit will show us what actually happened?" Roland said, his body as tense as a hunting dog on a scent.
"I don’t know what it will show you. But yes, you should be able to see the same scene as the one where the fellow calls for help but from a different angle."
Roland sat up. "Fantastic. Let’s go and get it."
Saahren contained his jubilation behind his professional mask. Well done, Roland. That’s exactly what I want. The grin on Tyne’s face threatened to split his head in two and Grallaz’s eyes swirled yellow. Allysha, of them all, frowned and rubbed her fist over her lip.
"So what’s the plan?" Tyne said. "You’re going to be the journalist nosing around while I take pictures? We’ve done that one before. Works well."
"Yep. The little lady here can tell us what we have to do to get this machine."
Allysha’s nostrils flared. Saahren could almost feel her fury. "That… will… do. I am not a ‘little lady’ and I am tired of being patronized."
Roland and Tyne stared at her. Saahren swallowed the smile.
"Whatever else you do, I’ll have to be there. This device is rigged so that if it’s handled incorrectly, you’ll lose the data," she said.
He stiffened. Not a chance. "You’re not going down there."
She whirled to face him. "So you’re giving orders, too?"
"Oh, I think he’s pretty used to giving orders." Roland turned to him, his blue eyes calculating. "You’re no ex-sergeant."
Saahren’s heart froze in his chest. He assumed his blank, military mask, the one that hid his feelings.
"No, he’s not," Tyne said before he could speak. He flicked a hand in resignation. "Might’s well tell him. Brad was a senior commander. But the likes of him don’t go looking for work as a security guard so I changed his implant to sergeant and dummied up his record to suit."
"You’d need an InfoDroid for that," Roland said.
"What d’you think?" Tyne winked.
Saahren breathed again. He’d be sure to buy Tyne a drink for this one, bar of his choice. At least. "Which reminds me, Tyne, I haven’t had a chance to ask you what happened on Chollarc?"
"Couple of men broke into my place," Tyne said. "Said you’d stolen a ship and I had to know something about it. They slapped me around a bit, said there was no Sergeant Brad Stone. They’d have Fleet contacts, of course. Needless to say, I pleaded ignorant. They asked me about a woman; that would have been you, Miss Marten; but I didn’t know anything so that was easy. They had me trussed up, ready to take me to explain all on Tisyphor while they waited for you to turn up. That worried me, I can tell you. Our friend van Tongeren is not a nice man. Grallaz got me out."
Allysha turned to Saahren, her eyes as hard as marbles. "So what’s your name?"
"Brad Charters," Saahren said. He hadn’t even hesitated. She’d have to know sometime, but not now.
"Why was that a secret?"
"Because the fact that I’m a senior commander and not a sergeant meant Tyne was at risk," Saahren said. This was one of the things you learnt as you rose up the slippery pole of rank; how to lie through your teeth and sound convincing. Sometimes he despised himself.
Roland chuckled. "Sounds like a great way to start a marriage, darling. Make sure he tells you what your married name will be before the ceremony."
What he’d give to wipe the smile off his supercilious mug. Blast and damn, the man was right. Don’t bite. He’s trying to rile you. Yes, he knew that. He and Roland were not going to get along.
"Perhaps we’d better plan this Brjyl raid," Tyne said, fingering his goatee.
Roland turned to Tyne, dragging his eyes away from Saahren.
"Yeah. Editor, ask Melching to drop us out of shift-space and then come join us, will you? Stand up, everybody."
Grallaz took himself off downstairs.
The sofas rolled away into the walls and six chairs rose from the floor. As soon as they sat down the chairs tilted and lengthened and harnesses slid out of housings, confining their legs, shoulders and waists. The sub-light engines roared, transcending the barely audible hum of the shift-drive. Saahren’s body strained against the harness for a few moments as the ship slowed down. The sound of the engines died into the background, the harnesses retracted and the seats tilted upright.
"Reconfigure the room, editor," Roland said, levering himself out of his chair.
The chairs disappeared and the sofas rolled out again.
"Miss Melching is on her way," the IS said.
Melching’s footsteps rang on the stairs. She stepped through the door, a swarthy, stocky woman with short-cropped hair. Her eyes flicked around the group, pausing for long enough on the Ptorix to make her feelings clear and then she sat down next to Tyne. Not the sort of captain Saahren would have expected from a man like Roland; or maybe not the sort of woman.
"What’s the target?" she said to Roland.
"Brjyl."
She nodded.
"Needs a course change. I suppose that’ll help shake anybody following us. The folks at Chollarc station weren’t too impressed with us shooting up their people." She spoke in staccato jerks, like gun fire, but her voice was a pleasant alto.
"Oh, I doubt it was the station’s people. More likely GPR." Roland scratched at his chin and eyed Tyne. "Any chance of changing my ship’s signature? You or your toe r… Ptorix mate? I’ve got a few spare registrations but I don’t have an InfoDroid to make the change."
Tyne shook his head. "No. I’d need an InfoDroid, too. Didn’t have time to collect mine. Sorry."
"I can do it," Allysha said. "But I don’t like that expression. Toe rag. I don’t like it one bit."
She jutted her jaw at Roland, which only seemed to amuse him. His expression was enough to make Saahren’s blood boil. The man was virtually smacking his lips. She wasn’t available.
"Change my ship’s ID and I promise I’ll behave," Roland said.
"Give me the registration documents and show me the interface to your IS," Allysha said.
Melching grinned, eyeing the two of them as if they were in an arm-wrestling competition.
"I’ll need some help to tell me what I have to change," Allysha said.
"Tyne and Melching between them should be able to give you some advice," Roland said.
"I’ll take you through to engineering," Melching rose and went to the stairs, Tyne and Allysha behind her.
"What do you propose to do on Brjyl, Roland?" Saahren said.
"Last time I heard there were still a few journalists hanging around there, hoping for something. I should fit right in. I have accreditation and Tyne can be my photographer. He’s done it before. We’ll tell them I’m doing a free-lance documentary." He sauntered over to the bar, pulled out a bottle of soda and waved it at Saahren. "Want one?"
Saahren shook his head. "What about Allysha and I?"
"She can be the dolly-chick assistant. You we don’t need."
"I go where she goes." Whether you like it or not.
Roland laughed. "Scared I’ll seduce her?" He cracked open the container and tipped the soda into his mouth, throat working as he swallowed.
Anger bubbled. He pushed it down; there wasn’t any point. "You and Tyne will be creating a diversion so that Allysha and I can get that device. If she has to be there, I’ll be there to look after her. You can call me your bodyguard if you want. Technical assistant, whatever."
"I suppose you’re going to insist. Can your girlfriend dummy up accreditation for you?"
"I expect so."
Roland crushed his soda container and tossed it with languid accuracy into a recycle bin beside the bar. He seemed sunk into himself, deep in thought. "Quite a find, isn’t she? Speaks Ptorix, can make an InfoDroid obsolete. Can you imagine a woman like that working for someone like me?"
"No." Saahren snapped the word. Idiot. The man was baiting him. He stood. "I have to make some calls to Malmos. Do you have multi-dim capability?"
"Of course. I’m a journalist." He grinned. "With very deep pockets."
"May I use your comms room?"
"Sure. Down the stairs, first on the right." Roland swung his legs up onto the sofa.
***
Saahren closed the door to the comms room behind him and activated his personal scrambler. He had no doubt Roland or his captain would be trying to find out what he was doing but Fleet security included full encryption of anything entered into the keypad and any recording devices would hear static. He entered his personal code into the keypad and waited. A new screen flashed up, requesting a series of passwords, which he entered.
Another brief wait, a flicker and the 2-D image of Admiral Vlad Leonov, head of Fleet Intelligence and Saahren’s closest friend, appeared. He sat in his office, the Malmos cityscape just visible in the window behind him, bullet head bent forward, eyebrows lowered.
"Where the fuck have you been, Chaka? I’ve been worried sick about you and what the grand admiral was threatening me with doesn’t bear thinking about."
He grinned. "I’m pleased somebody missed me. I’ve been enjoying a short holiday on a planet called Tisyphor. It’s a nice little facility the GPR has set up to smuggle weapons. It’s an edge planet, abandoned by the Ptorix."
"Where?"
Saahren sent the coordinates.
"When will you be back?"
"A week, ten days. There’s something else I want to track down before I come back. I’ve met a person who was involved with the information system at Brjyl. She might just be able to provide us with some new evidence."
Leonov’s shrewd grey eyes narrowed. "What sort of evidence?"
"A different view of the shootings in the control room. She installed a secret backup system."
"You’re no proposing to go there yourself, are you?"
"Yes, I am, Vlad. I have Tyne with me. His operation has been blown, by the way."
"Yes, I know that. But you can’t go to Brjyl."
"I can and I will. She has to collect this thing, otherwise the data will be wiped. I’ll be with her. Let’s face it Vlad, if you send somebody it will take too long and she’d have to be there, anyway. We’re on our way now."
"On Tyne’s ship?"
"No. Marius Roland’s ship."
"Him. Has he recognized you?"
"So far, so good. No scar, longer hair and having the body double on Ceres seems to be good enough."
"Huh. I expect he’ll get a cracking story out of this."
"He will. And he hasn’t blotted his copybook with your people. Unless you know more than me?"
Leonov’s eyes lost focus for a moment as he carried out an interrogation of his databases. "No, he’s clean. Sometimes we’re not happy with his methods but he has no love for Anxhou, or the GPR. And as you say, you have Tyne with you."
"Something else, Vlad. And this is urgent. A virus apparently killed all the Ptorix population on Tisyphor thirty years ago. You’ll have the story in your databases somewhere, as a shadowy rumor. But I’ve seen proof and I have reason to believe that the virus has been resurrected with the intention of using it as a biological weapon. We blew up the lab but I have a horrible feeling the virus might have been taken away from the planet before we did that. If the GPR has that virus and decides to use it, the business at Brjyl will look like a children’s birthday party in comparison."
Leonov frowned. "All the Ptorix on the planet? You’re certain? No survivors?"
"As certain as I can be. There has to be something—some sort of information—on Chollarc. The Ptorix knew what happened but they kept it secret; they probably feared just what I fear. We need to be very sure that lab was completely flattened on Tisyphor and if the virus was taken away, find out who has it and where. Find out what you can about these people. Sean O’Reilly, Gerrit van Tongeren, Anton Tepich, Doctor Leon Rostich, Jarrad Korns."
He added a brief explanation of what he knew about each.
"You think this van Tongeren found out about the virus and went looking?" Leonov said.
"Along those lines, yes. I’d guess he was setting up his clandestine weapons smuggling anyway. Maybe the virus was something he heard about while hiring staff and he decided to take advantage. Find out what you can and do it quickly."
"I’ll get onto it immediately." Leonov hesitated, his grey eyes twinkling. "This lady."
Vlad was fishing. He suppressed a smile. "She’s an expert on Information Systems. And speaks Ptorix. And can fool a military InfoDroid. Her name is Allysha Marten. She comes from Carnessa."
"And you met her on Tisyphor?"
"Yes."
"And you took out this lab together and you’re going to Brjyl together. Anything else you’ve done together?"
He fidgeted. This was getting a little close to the mark. "No."
Leonov laughed.
"I’m not noted for female entanglements."
"But you’re entangled with this one."
Saahren looked at the bulkhead beside him a
s the heat rose in his neck. This was very uncomfortable.
"Or are you just good friends?" Leonov asked, eyes dancing.
"Yes, all right, a little more than good friends. But that’s my business, not anybody else’s."
"Understood." Leonov fingered his chin. "Look, I know you haven’t known her long. Any prospects of marriage?"
"Yes. Of course."
"It’s just that you’ve always told Irina that when you met a nice girl you wanted to marry, she’d be the first to know."
Saahren laughed. It had, indeed, been a long standing joke between him and Leonov’s wife. Leonov had persuaded Irina to desist from matchmaking many years ago but she still clung to the forlorn hope that Saahren would eventually marry.
"You can tell her, Vlad. But she’s to keep it to herself."
Leonov was still grinning when Saahren shut down the connection and turned off the privacy screens. Irina would probably be delighted to help with wedding plans. Not that he cared. Anywhere with legal jurisdiction would do.
He left the comms room, closed the door behind him and ran up the stairs back to the lounge.
Roland scrambled to his feet. His eyes glinted and a smirk hovered around his lips. A shiver of foreboding traveled down Saahren’s spine.
"Well, well," Roland said. "You really are used to giving orders, aren’t you?"
Saahren ambled over to the sofa and sat down. "Senior commanders are used to giving orders, yes."
"Ah, but not as much as admirals." Roland’s smirk turned into a triumphant beam.
Fuck. Steps on the stairs. Tyne and Allysha.
"Not now, Roland—"
She appeared in the doorway as Roland interrupted, "Don’t bother denying it. I just did some image matching of you and Saahren. Voice-matching, too. Ninety-eight percent certainty is good enough for me. I suppose you had the scar covered?"
Allysha tensed, her face frozen in a look of horror. "Saahren?"
"That’s right, darling. Seems you’ve scored the Iron Admiral himself…" his voice trailed away.
Allysha came to stand in front of him, gazing at him with those beautiful, green eyes, pleading. "Brad? It’s not true, is it?"
What do you do? Lie through your teeth yet again, knowing it will come out soon enough? Or face the future.
Nebula Nights: Love Among The Stars Page 232