You know why, said that voice in his head. But that made no sense. Whatever else Elena was—however she felt about him, or didn’t feel, or struggled with feeling—she was Corps. She wouldn’t bolt, not in the middle of something like this.
Not unless she had a damn good reason.
“Galileo, who was on duty when Elena took Antigone?”
“Lieutenant Azevedo.”
Perfect. Azevedo was an asshole, but he was an asshole with a nearly eidetic memory. “Galileo, get me—” But before he could finish, he was interrupted by an incoming signal. Commander Tetsuo Shimada, the ship projected before his eyes. Irritably, Greg answered, “What is it, Commander?”
“Sir. The artifact—”
Greg cut him off. “I’m not interested in that right now. Elena’s bolted. I need to talk to Azevedo to find out—”
And Shimada interrupted in return. “I know, sir.” Shimada was breathless; Greg realized he was running. “I’m on my way up to see you now. She took Antigone out on Admiral Herrod’s authorization, but it’s more than that. The artifact? The one that knocked you out? That the parts trader got murdered over?
“It’s gone.”
Chapter 33
Everything unraveled too quickly.
Jos had retreated back to his quarters after breakfast. He had enjoyed his brief respite, the bustle of people around him as he ate undisturbed at his little table by the window, watching the surface of Yakutsk below them. He had never liked space travel and had even, early in his career, worked toward assignments that would keep him Earthside; but he always envied the presumptive camaraderie of a starship crew. He had never belonged like that, not anywhere. Not even with Andy. But sometimes, sitting close to the ones who did belong, he imagined he could feel a little of that warmth soothing his old bones.
This time, that fleeting warmth was not enough.
Foster walked in to Jos’s quarters without ringing, Security Chief Broadmoor in tow. In addition they had brought a tall security officer, whom Foster ordered to stay by the door. Jos recognized him: Gilbert, he thought his name was. Always came to attention when Jos came in the room, and hid his resentment better than some of the others. Jos wondered if Foster had chosen the man because of that.
Pritchard had jumped to his feet when Foster came in, positioning himself instinctively between the Corps captain and his charge. Jos had not moved at all, but took a moment to brush aside the book he had been reading. “It’s all right, son,” he said to Pritchard. “Stand down.”
He saw the boy’s fingers clench, but then Pritchard stepped aside, standing stiffly, eyes on the wall. And Jos had a clear look at Foster.
He had learned, Jos realized, since he had been the fire-eyed cadet Jos had met eighteen years ago. Foster had a sharp intellect, and an analytical mind, but emotionally he was prone to volatility, and when he was hurt, he torched everything within reach. He rarely lost his temper, but when he did, that was when everything went to hell. Now, at nearly forty, Greg Foster seemed to have that dragon contained. Jos could see it in his eyes, the blind rage, the desire to strike out; but he was standing at attention, almost respectfully. Some of that, Jos conceded, might be Commander Broadmoor’s presence. Jos didn’t know Emily Broadmoor, but he knew her reputation. She was dispassionate, dedicated, and scrupulously by the book. If the Corps survived all this, Emily Broadmoor was the sort of officer who would keep them together.
“Perhaps Pritchard could wait somewhere else,” Foster said.
Pritchard didn’t move, but Jos saw his jaw clench. “It’s all right, Logan,” he said gently. “I’ll call for you later.”
He thought for a moment the boy wouldn’t listen to him, but then, obedient as always, Pritchard pivoted on his heel and stalked out of the room.
Jos looked back at Foster. “He has nothing to do with any of this.”
Foster nodded. “Noted, sir.” Almost as an afterthought, he sat in the chair opposite Jos, where Shaw had been sitting only the night before. Foster really did have absurdly long legs; he looked almost like a grasshopper, folding himself into the soft upholstery. “Admiral. What have you done with Elena?”
He was out of uniform, Jos realized suddenly. Around his right wrist, he wore a thin band of black elastic. Unobtrusive, but blatantly non-regulation. “She is where she is of her own accord, Captain,” he said.
Out of the corner of his eye, Jos saw Commander Broadmoor shift. Foster said, “That’s not an answer, sir.”
“I don’t owe you an answer, Captain.”
“That’s not true, I’m afraid,” Foster said. “Elena’s a civilian.”
Jos scoffed. “She’s no more a civilian than you are, Foster. That woman was born Corps, and that hasn’t changed just because she made the impulsive choice to resign.”
Jos thought Foster might be fairly close to leaping out of that chair and throwing a punch. “Regardless,” Foster said stiffly, “she is not currently a member of the Corps. Involving a civilian in a military operation is a court-martial offense.”
Jos suspected if he mentioned his own civilian status, Foster would not consider it relevant. “You don’t think that’s a little hypocritical, Foster?” The captain shot him a glare, and Jos went on. “You think we don’t know what the two of you have been playing at all this time? Exchanging intelligence, trying to piece together a case against Ellis, preferably one that implicates Shadow Ops, and me specifically? You think we stopped watching her when she shucked off that uniform? We may be low on resources, Captain, but we can track one mechanic.”
It had been easy. Good mechanics were a rarity, and their comms fingerprints were lit like neon. The only way she could have hidden would have been to stop working, and he had known that would never happen. It was one of the reasons they had started watching her in the first place. Unlike Foster, she was predictable.
“Hypocritical or not,” Foster told him, “I’m placing you under arrest.”
“Given that I’ve committed no civil offense, what gives you the authority?”
Foster leaned forward, and just a little bit of his rage escaped into his voice. “The fact that this is my ship,” he said. “And my security people, and my allies in this sector. But if it makes you happy, sir, I’ll put Commander Lockwood in charge when this is all over, and you can have your friends court-martial me while you’re serving time.” He sat back. “What have you done with Elena?”
Jos took a moment to look over at Commander Broadmoor. She seemed to find nothing objectionable in her captain’s statements. Not that she would say a word in front of me, Jos thought. He could not help but approve of her. Slowly, feeling his joints objecting, he pushed himself to his feet. “Can I get either of you a drink? I know it’s before lunch, but under the circumstances, I don’t think it’s inappropriate.” They didn’t respond, and he turned to the bar. “What about you, Lieutenant Gilbert?” he called to the man at the door. When the security officer was silent, Jos poured himself half a glass of scotch. He wouldn’t drink it all this time, but it would give him something to hold.
“Amazing, isn’t it,” he said, half to himself, “that you still get the good scotch here. I’m sure you feel like you’ve been screwed over, Captain, and indeed you have been. But they know what they have, the Admiralty. Or at least some of us do.” He drank.
“‘Us.’ So this is a Shadow Ops operation,” Foster guessed, and Jos shrugged.
“As much as it’s anyone’s. But to be honest with you, we’ve been pretty divided on what, if anything, to do. The last time I spoke to the others, they were leaning against my idea. I barely convinced Waris, and I would have thought she’d have been the easy one. But I think they’d feel differently now. I’ll make sure to ask them, if we ever get the First Sector back. If they’re even still alive.”
“Where did you send her?”
“I can’t tell you that.”
“When will she be back?”
There was no avoiding it. “She won’t.”
/> He kept his back to them. If Foster was going to hit him, it wouldn’t help to see it coming. If he was going to shoot him . . . let the man shoot him in the back, if his temper was really so hard to control.
“Captain.” That was Broadmoor, her voice low, warning.
It took Foster a very long time to speak, but when he did, his voice was almost composed. “What’s the mission, Admiral?”
“The mission,” Jos said, “is to take out the strongest piece of Ellis’s assault plan. They have a research station that has not only been manufacturing weapons, it has been triggering the equipment failures. Right now, it’s controlling the Olam Fleet. We can’t be sure it’s their only station, but it’s the focus of what they’re doing.”
“You have proof?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
He shook his head. “As much as I’d like to share that, Captain, Ellis has people in the Corps as well.”
“Not on my ship.”
He shrugged; it didn’t matter. “You don’t know. You can’t. Some of the officers you’ve got have only been here three months. If Ellis planted them a decade ago, you’d have no way to tell. Hell, neither would we.”
“Why didn’t you send a warship to take out their station?”
They were consistent, Foster and Shaw. “We did.”
When he said nothing else, he heard Foster rise from the chair. “They took out a warship, and you sent her there alone in your shuttle?”
“Do you think we’re stupid, Captain Foster?” He turned then; Foster was standing, much closer to Jos than he had thought. The captain’s eyes were furious and sharp and his fists were clenched. Despite having a slighter build than Jos, he was taller and forty years younger, and he was doing an impressive job of looming. Jos moved past him, close enough for Foster to reach out, to grab him, to hit him. The captain did none of those things, and Jos was mildly impressed. “She has a cover story and a way in. She’s going to take the place out from the inside.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“On her own?”
Jos took another drink. “Yes.”
Foster shook his head. “Why?”
“Put it together,” Jos said irritably. “We haven’t the time to do anything else. And you name me one person better qualified than she is.”
“Me, for one,” Foster said predictably, and Jos scoffed.
“You’re good, Foster,” he said. “But apart from the fact that we need you to keep being a captain, your face is known all over the galaxy.”
“So is hers.”
“Not in the same way. And it was easy enough for us to plant false stories on her location, put her in some Third Sector gray market repair shop, manufacture some blocky surveillance vid. She’s been nothing but a struggling ex-soldier for the last year, as far as the streamers are concerned. On top of that—this is a research station, and anyone going in to destroy the place is going to need mechanical knowledge of a depth that you just don’t have. A mechanic was our best bet.”
“And it had to be her?”
Foster was shouting now, and Jos closed his eyes. He knew what Foster felt for the woman. They all knew. It had been noted early, listed in his profile, a potential vulnerability, something they could exploit. They always saw attachment that way: weakness. It had been Jos’s weakness, certainly, and Andy’s, and after Andy’s death Jos had seen the wisdom of their perspective—or at least the utility. But it didn’t make him any happier. “She’s the best chance we have,” he said simply, and it was the truth.
But Foster, unsurprisingly, was not thinking logically. “Bullshit.” Foster walked up to Jos, so much more vital, more angry, than Jos had ever been. “Elena’s not fucking magic. Shadow Ops could have sent any Corps mechanic on this mission. Shimada could have done it. Hell, if you want to take out a station, send Jess, for fuck’s sake. She could probably hack the place from here, if you got her the access. You sent Elena because you knew she’d go. That she’d never turn you down, because she couldn’t bear the idea of having someone else die in her place. You’ve been watching her like you watch all of us, and when the time came, you used what you thought you knew. She went willingly, because she loves these people, and you knew it would never occur to her to fucking say anything to anybody about it.” He stepped back. “We’re just tools you hold in reserve until you need us.”
Foster’s assessment was remarkably close to the truth. What he didn’t know was how close Jos had indeed come to asking Jessica Lockwood instead, or Foster—or taking the mission himself. Technically, it was possible he could have done it; he had a decent knowledge of mechanics, he was a better hacker than Lockwood, and he had decades of experience on top of it. But there was no way to shuffle an aging, cynical old man into a research lab in any way that was remotely anonymous. And underneath it all . . . he was tired. Not returning from the mission wouldn’t have bothered him, but he wasn’t sure he would have had the passion to fight hard enough to succeed.
Excuses, Jos? So like you. Home where it’s safe, while the rest of us die.
“Your assessment of our motives is fascinating, Captain Foster,” he said, “but ultimately irrelevant. She’s out there, and she will succeed or fail with or without your outrage. And nothing she does will change what has already happened. If we’re lucky, though, it might give us a solid base of support from which to move forward.”
“Move forward with what? What is it you want, anyway? Shadow Ops wants unity through war.”
“Not all of us.”
Foster laughed, a humorless sound. “Great. You send an officer off to her death and you can’t even say why you did it.”
“You don’t think stopping the Olam Fleet is enough?”
“Stopping the fleet is the only thing you and I agree on, Admiral,” Foster said. “But you cannot make me believe that sending one woman on her own is the only way to make this work.” He straightened, containing his emotions. “I’ll ask you again, sir. Where did you send her?”
Jos just looked at him, silent, and Foster’s lips tightened.
“Very well.” He became an officer again. “Admiral Herrod, you are under arrest for involving a civilian in a military operation. I hereby strip you of your diplomatic authority pending an investigation by a full committee authorized by Central Gov. You’re restricted to quarters until further notice.”
“And what if there’s no committee to investigate me?”
Something dark and vengeful flashed in Foster’s eyes, and it crossed Jos’s mind that the Admiralty had, despite all their carefully compiled psych profiles, underestimated how dangerous he could really be. “Then I’ll handle the investigation myself. Sir.”
Jos kept the glass in his hand, never dropping Foster’s murderous gaze. He caught Broadmoor shifting again; she was uncomfortable when Foster got like this. Smart woman, Jos thought. Slowly, deliberately, he took a sip of scotch, and waited.
Without saying another word, Foster turned and left.
Chapter 34
Interstitial
Antigone’s interior lights faded briefly to green. “Field termination in thirty seconds,” it said.
Reluctantly, Elena put the artifact down on the bench next to her and stretched. Somewhat to her surprise, she had slept, although she hadn’t gone under deeply; weeping had exhausted her, and she had managed some prefabricated food before she lay down and closed her eyes. Her mind had drifted, full of anticipation and regret and every hard, cold engineering fact she thought she might need in the ordeal ahead. She would have expected nightmares, or anxiety dreams, the sort where she couldn’t quite see and she couldn’t quite move but if she failed everything would be lost. Instead she had dreamt of Galileo, clean and bright, the atrium full of flowers, her friends relaxed and laughing. She woke feeling strangely peaceful; it had been years since she’d had an everything will be all right dream.
It had, she supposed, been some time since she’d neede
d one.
She’d grabbed the artifact as she sat up, wondering again what she’d been thinking, bringing it with her. She put it on her knees and stared at it, feeling its strange warmth through the fabric of her trousers. Odd thing, she thought. And then she said it out loud: “Odd thing.”
It said nothing, of course. Whatever it was, it was a machine. She found herself vaguely disappointed that she would never know where it had come from. Nor would anyone else, if her mission went as planned.
Unless there were more somewhere. She hoped there were more. And when did that happen? she thought. When did I go from believing it’s a weapon, to wanting it to survive?
She strapped herself into the pilot’s seat and watched the field through the window. She knew what she was supposed to see when she came out of the field, but she was still a soldier, and that meant being prepared. Antigone, as it happened, had a fairly substantial complement of weapons. She wondered whether Greg had authorized that, or if they’d somehow been hidden when Herrod brought the shuttle on board. She supposed Greg had found them and had Galileo neutralize them; she couldn’t imagine him allowing Herrod of all people on board without going through every single search the regulations allowed.
Three . . . two . . . one. The field dissolved cleanly, and she came out into an ocean of stars, no systems within reach, the galactic middle of nowhere. She did a quick scan; nobody in the near field, other ships folding space in other directions, unconcerned with this nondescript chunk of space.
She could see it in the distance: a small white dot at first, details resolving as she flew closer. It was a ship, some kind of utilitarian vehicle; not sleek and graceful like Antigone, but boxy and drab like any small freighter or bulk transport. But unlike the commercial craft Elena was used to seeing, it was bright white, and absolutely pristine. She circled around it, giving it a cursory external examination: the engine vents were clean to the point that she couldn’t tell, from the outside at least, if they’d ever been used.
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