“I do.” Westover had recommended her for her last decoration. “She’s the officer who was assigned to Loews.”
“But because the sender lacked the encryption key, there’s no sig file attached to the message.”
“That’s why the IW people got it? What do they say?”
“They’re going over the message now looking for artifacts—so far nothing.”
“Why would . . . whoever send a message in the name of a junior officer serving in a diplomatic capacity using a gray-market drone?”
“We don’t know yet, sir. But the other communications might shed some light on that.”
Westover rubbed his face again. It was far too early in the AM for this. “Go ahead.”
“The second message came from Admiral Rhimer. It’s not entirely coherent. He speaks of detecting ‘secret forces’ . . . Intolerable provocations . . . Acting promptly to ‘avenge the insult to his flag’. Then he concludes by saying he will soon be able to report events he trusts we will find ‘most eminently satisfactory’.”
“Insults to his flag? Events we’ll find most ‘eminently satisfactory’? That sounds insane.”
“Very possibly, sir.”
“What about the third message?”
“It seems to be the catalyst. It also came by hyperdrone, but the person who sent it botched some of the parameters and it only just arrived. Frankly, we’re lucky it arrived at all . . .”
“Yes?”
Billington’s wandering attention recalled, she cleared her throat softly. “It came from the Mission. Loews suffered a collapse—no details, but he’d been under treatment for some years—and it was quite serious. They removed him to Iona with his personal physician. At the time of sending, his status was unknown. Rhimer makes no mention of this, by the way.”
“He doesn’t?” That was insane. Could Rhimer have possibly initiated hostilities with a senior league diplomat in the custody of the very people he was attacking? It beggared belief. “That’s all we know? Nothing more than that?”
“The Mission’s message says that Loews and Rhimer had a serious confrontation the PM Loews suffered his attack. Over Iona’s ‘provocation’—those ‘secret forces’ the admiral was rambling about.”
“All right, Collette.” Westover rose and began to dress. “Call Joss and meet me in five minutes. Invite whoever you think can help, but I don’t want a circus just yet. That’ll happen in its own time.”
“Yes, sir. Indeed so.”
* * *
“That’s that.” Westover stared a moment at the blank console screen. He’d just ended his conversation with the Ionian Minister Plenipotentiary. That excellent gentleman and his entire staff were in the process of boarding a fast packet for return to their home system. He had called Westover to serve formal notice that a state of war now existed between their respective governments. These circumstances made it inappropriate for him to appear in person before the Consul-General of Eltanin Sector. He regretted it extremely.
No doubt he did, Westover thought. They all did. If by chance some didn’t, they soon would.
With a feeling akin to a man watching a tidal wave approaching from far off—those mild swells that did not reveal their titanic proportions until they came in-shore—Westover looked across his desk at Admiral PrenTalien and Captain Wesselby, who were now alone with him. His chief of staff had departed with a select handful of his and PrenTalien’s other staff officers to explore options—more a euphemism for “kissing your ass goodbye” (did one start on the left or the right?) than anything else he could think of right now.
With Lo Gai far beyond recall and First Fleet committed, the only available units were from Grand Fleet, and not only were those weeks away, employing Grand Fleet units would advertise Ninth Fleet’s absence as clearly if it were a top-line news item. Halith could hardly fail to draw the obvious conclusion. The fallback—using the Tuffs—might have flown, but that option had just been foreclosed. Day-cycle before last, Westover had received a communique from Admiral Sansar that the Sultan had left for Ivoria to arrest the Emir, who’s treason had now been proved. Since the Emir would not rebel without support, Sansar had deployed to Winnecke IV, to secure that vital junction and provide the Sultan with any local support he might require. At the time, it seemed the entirely prudent thing to do. Now it looked to merely change the name of the impending calamity.
“Well, Joss. We’ve had the devil’s own day. How do you feel about the power of prayer?”
“There’ll be a time for it, Carlos. Y’know what they used to say: ‘a prayer’s as good as a bayonet on a day like this.’ ”
Both men gave a sour laugh: only ancient history buffs even knew what a bayonet was. And at no time in military history had they been of much use.
“I suppose we have some time to sharpen up both those alternatives. What is it, Trin?” Westover looked over at where Trin sat with her dark, level eyebrows drawn together and her finely cut lips pinched; a characteristic expression when she had something on her mind.
“I’m sorry, sir. I’m afraid it’s not terribly germane.”
Now, Admiral PrenTalien turned to look at her, too. Trin’s not-terribly-germane thoughts were generally anything but.
Westover smiled. “At this junction, Captain, I’m certain we’d both appreciate hearing something not terribly germane.”
“Well, sir . . .” Trin paused, and her hands fidgeted in her lap—a sure sign this was no trifling matter. “I’ve been wondering . . . why Corporal Vasquez was sent to Iona.”
“Oh, that.” Westover settled back. He had, in fact, been wondering the same thing. The line they’d been fed—that the corporal was attached to provide the Envoy with additional security—seemed a weak justification to employ a prominent member of CAT 5. “Did you find something?”
“Have you heard of Dr. Isabeau VelSilinjes, sir?”
The name rang a faint bell with Westover. “I connect that name with neurology.”
“That’s right. However, recently she’s been working with lithomorphs.”
“Lithomorphs, yes,” Westover deadpanned. Joss was looking interested, but no more enlightened.
“Her initial paper came out about a year and half ago. She’s been continuing that research, and according to certain parties, has achieved some startling results,” Trin continued. “She hasn’t published anything yet, but it appears, if the reports are accurate, that this lithomorph she’s been working with has astounding mathematical capabilities. To the point where it could be the most powerful cryptanalysis agent ever discovered, potentially capable of breaking any math-based code, almost instantaneously.”
“Oh.” Westover actually blinked, as did Admiral PrenTalien. Few people were better qualified to render that judgment than Trin, who’d headed up a very select and unacknowledged group of cryptanalysts in the months before Wogan’s Reef, and succeeded in mostly breaking one of Halith’s most secure codes. Indeed, it was largely due to her groups efforts that the battle was fought at all.
Drawing a breath, he considered whether to ask Trin about her sources, but given Trin’s background, he thought better of it. Obviously, this presented them with either a grievous threat or an extraordinary opportunity. There was no doubt in his mind which view the Plenary Counsel would take of the matter.
Westover scrubbed his palms together. “You believe they sent the corporal on a covert op aimed at Dr. VelSilinjes or this lithomorph?”
For him to not have heard about it, any such operation would have to have been approved by the Council directly. Joss had been kept in the dark, too. That—just the mere possibility—was cloak and dagger at a rare and dangerous level.
Trin glanced between the two men. “I can’t put it strongly as believe, sir.”
“Suspect, then,” Westover temporized, earning an arch look from PrenTalien.
The noise Trin replied with was indistinct, but the way she looked down and passed a knuckle across her lips was not. It was an intim
ate gesture, one she’d never display outside the company of people she didn’t entirely trust. Looking up a moment later, her expression had lost its closed look.
“If there’s no objection, I’d like to accompany Commander Huron to Iona.”
That was the one concrete outcome of the AM dismal meeting: that Huron should travel to Iona to discover what actually happened there. By the clock, he’d be boarding a starclipper any minute.
“You aren’t under orders to me, Captain.” Then Westover glanced at Joss. PrenTalien shook his head, with a keen smile. “I’ll ping them for you, Trin. But I suggest you run.”
Standing up, Trin gave them both a nod. “Could one of you get my leave extended? Urgent personal business?”
“We’ll take care of it”—“No worries” they said together.
“Thank you.” She ran.
“Damn,” Joss PrenTalien commented as the entry closed behind her. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen her actually run before.”
“I certainly haven’t,” Westover agreed, with a slight air of wonderment.
“What was that you were saying about prayer?”
“What was that you were saying about bayonets?” In public, Trin cultivated a bookish demeanor; a discerning fellow officer had once observed that in reality, she was as bookish as a bayonet.
PrenTalien chortled, without the bitter edge this time. “Touché, Carlos.”
~ ~ ~
Day 204 (PM)
LSS Polidor, in free space
Iona, Cygnus Mariner
Eyes red-rimmed and exhaustion worked so deep into her bones that the ache made sleep impossible, Kris slumped in her rack, staring at the handle of a spoon sticking up from the ration pack like the marker of an anonymous grave. She’d meant to eat it—had zipped the foil to heat the contents, now congealed—some time ago, in another era; an epoch in which eating made sense, even if only as a mechanical need like breathing, but requiring more effort. Now, it hardly seemed worth it.
Since the three surviving ships had limped in—two ships and a blasted hulk, really—time had been banished in favor a perpetual Now; a paradoxical state of frantic yet motionless hurry; of doing without achieving; of events succeeding one another without going forward, merely transitioning from one nightmarish state to the next.
On Polidor, where she lay in a senior warrant officer’s berth—all the staterooms and larger spaces having been given over to wounded—things had been worse than she’d ever seen, but nothing compared to the ordeal aboard Osiris. Stepping through the main hatch into a slaughterhouse, Kris found every intact compartment crammed with torn and anguished men and women (the dead having been briskly ejected, there being no time or sentiment to waste on them), lying in rows on the bloodstained decks, some murmuring to absent loved ones in soft, remote and dreamy voices; others silent—only the lumps of the knotted jaw muscles under the pallid, blotched and sweating skin to articulate their agony. Some perfectly lucid, like the petty officer with the ruin of his lower body covered by sodden blanket, his eyes bleach gray with pain, who said in a clear distinct voice as she leaned over him, “Don’t waste nothin’ on me, ma’am. See to those who need it,” before closing his eyes one last time.
And all around, all the time, the slow hollow rattling sound of lungs drawing breath their bodies fought to use. Fought, and too often lost, to lie horribly still, deflated, until one of the few corpsmen had a moment to move them outside. So few corpsmen; fewer doctors—only Polidor’s medical director and a handful of flight surgeons—and there was Vasquez working with them, newly risen from Leander’s sickbay, still moving stiffly, but moving: quiet, efficient, grim.
Encountering Tom Salsato, Polidor’s TAO, Kris asked him who now had command. The lieutenant shook his head like man beset on all sides, which—having fought Polidor after her senior officers became casualties—described him exactly. But Kris was not at all prepared for what he said.
“You do, ma’am.”
As urgently as Kris wished Salsato to be mistaken, a brief look at the butcher’s bill proved him right. Admiral Rhimer and Commander Sayles had been killed (atomizing actually) by Ticonderoga’s first salvo. Captain Narris died with everyone else on Polidor’s bridge minutes later. Commander Osier numbered among the many wounded, along with the captain of Ariel and his exec. Osiris had suffered the worst, without anyone above the rank of lieutenant ambulant. On the list of persons fit for duty, those who were senior to Kris were not line officers, and Min—nominally equal—was a marine.
Learning this, Kris, as her first official act as senior officer commanding, took her hat in hand (literally) and called on General Corhaine. The conditions of their parole forbade any action against their employers, but in Kris’s view this did not apply to purely humanitarian measures. On the other hand, she was in no position to compel cooperation, and the role of a supplicant did not suit her.
The general made no difficulty, however; her medical staff responded instantly, the wounded were distributed throughout her fleet, and Kris left feeling obscurely scolded for having doubts. Although that was the most pressing issue—and it remained pressing, if no longer hopeless—there were myriad others, and they also pressed. Lo Gai couldn’t arrive for at least a week, and she couldn’t leave. Whether retreat would be considered prudent or deserting her station in the face of the enemy (her personal opinion) was mooted by the fact that only Ariel remained hypercapable and the short-winded frigate lacked the reaction mass to go anywhere useful. What the Ionians had in mind to do about her, she had no idea. Lightspeed sensors told her they were hard at work preparing for Ninth Fleet’s arrival. So the chances they’d leave her alone for the time being seemed—
A chime from the entry panel startled her. She’d been drifting, self-mesmerized by the watch list of calamity: past, present and future. Struggling into a sitting position, she shook her head to clear it.
“Yeah?”
The door hissed aside to reveal the stooped form of Major Lewis. Halith shipbuilders took no account of persons of Min’s height, and even Kris—no giant by anyone’s standard—felt the top of her skull uncomfortably near the overhead. At first the major made no move to enter, and after a moment Kris realized she was considering the open rat pack, with its mired spoon upthrust.
“Y’know, there’s a galley on this here barky”—stepping inside at last. “I hear it works, too.” Kris answered with a grunt as Min swung out a seat from the bulkhead and helped herself to it. “I always thought you needed the digestion of a hyena to eat those things.”
Kris, who’d been eating those things her entire life, let as much of a smile as she could manage show. “Did somethin’ new hit the fan?” It seemed unlikely this was a social visit.
“Not as yet—not as you’d say hit. Our friends across the ether are busy little beavers, makin’ hay while the sun still shines. No one’s ventured out, thus far. They don’t seem to crave our society.”
“Has Leander jumped out yet?” That AM, they’d packed Leander with the most urgent cases that could be transported and sent her off, much to the relief of all aboard.
“About an hour ago. Took off like he had the devil up his ass.”
It had been years since Kris heard that picturesque phrase. The Mission had been on tenterhooks ever since the battle, and Leander’s captain much the same. She’d already resolved to grant their earnest wish and let the ship depart as soon as her leaving outweighed the value of her staying to help with the immediate crisis, although the question of Loews’ status remained. Then a message arrived from Iona—the only communication they’d received—informing them that the Honorable Mr. Vilnus Loews had succumbed to a cytokine storm, despite their best efforts. Official condolences were offered.
The Envoy’s death, which would certainly create an enormous stir in the Homeworlds when it became known, meant nothing to Kris beyond putting another tick mark on the butcher’s bill and erasing any qualms she’d had about sending Leander away. The only emotional rea
ction she’d been conscious of was a touch of relief at having one less thing to worry about. What slim worry she could spare, she reserved for Dr. Leidecker, about whom the message said nothing. She’d passed the news onto Vasquez who apprised her of the good doctor’s relations with Isabeau VelSilinjes, and the latter’s exalted government connections. All in all, the corporal privately assured her, Leidecker was in good hands.
Min relaxed in her seat; a careful, even studied, insouciance. “So now that we’ve jettisoned the politicos, any plans for the future?”
“Like do we have one?” As gallows’ humor, the comment almost succeeded.
“Yep. Short of early retirement, that is.” Each branch of the service had their favored phrases for earning a bronze box (what the CEF sent to the families of those killed in action), and early retirement was popular with the marines. Mariners tended toward “taking up permanent residence”. In the SRF, one heard any number of phrases, from the ancient “buying the farm” to getting a “wing upgrade”.
As much as she admired the creativity, Kris leaned towards simpler terms, like “dead”.
“Damfino. Depends on when Lo Gai gets here, I guess.”
“Yeah.” Min stretched, elaborately. “About that . . .”
“What about that?” She’d thought the casual air betokened no good.
“Well, if things are on schedule, he’s transiting the ass-end of nowhere right about now.”
The leaden feeling in the pit of her gut proved she’d half expected to hear that.
“How long’s this been going on?” Asking the question seemed better than choking the shit out of something, but there was nothing at hand to choke the shit out of.
“Six weeks, now.”
“Who else knows ’bout this?”
“On this station? Me. Now you.”
“That’s it?”
“I hope to hell so.”
“Not Vasquez?”
Min’s lips quirked sideways in a knowing smile. “Y’never wanna bet against what the corporal knows, but officially, she doesn’t. And with the wrap they put on this, I’d be a mite surprised if she did. The basic idea behind the whole thing’s along these lines . . .”
Loralynn Kennakris 4: Apollyon's Gambit Page 42