Alliance Rising

by C. J. Cherryh

  “Understood.”

  “You’re going to be short-handed. I want all of Hewitt’s hand-picked security to stand down. I want them off the Strip, which means bringing in civ-side enforcement. However, I’ve asked ship captains, local and otherwise, to keep their own folk in order in the current emergency, and I don’t think they’re any more anxious for a riot than we are. I’d like your domestic officers to do nothing more than man the Strip to get their bearings, and I want them to smile and be pleasant to the spacer-folk. Rules against drunk and disorderly are temporarily suspended. I don’t care if they’re passed out drunk on the concourse. Just wish them sweet dreams and be nice to them.”

  Bellamy nodded. “What is Chief Hewitt’s situation? Does he know what’s going on?”

  “No longer Chief Hewitt,” Abrezio said. “He’s now the acting captain of Rights of Man, and on his way to the ship, along with the entire crew, to deal with an emergency.”

  Bellamy’s brow tightened. “What emergency?”

  “I wonder.” Abrezio allowed himself a moment’s satisfaction. “Whatever it is will keep them occupied trying to find it for at least an hour, but if you hear rumors about Finity taking over Rights . . . squelch them. That’s the last thing Finity wants at the moment, and I’m very sure on that point. As soon as you leave here, I’d like you to put A-mast under lock, nobody to be allowed out, including Enzio Hewitt. He is not to leave A-mast until I give permission. As for your promotion . . . he’ll know soon enough, when his keycard doesn’t work.”

  “Promotion?” Bellamy asked. “Permanent?”

  “As long as I’m in office,” Abrezio said. “I warn you: you’ll be earning your pay raise, just in personnel juggling. I want you to assign your people from civ-side in every sub office, replacing EC Enforcement. If anybody resists that, arrest them under the Station Safety Act. We’ll sort them out later, maybe return some to their jobs, but that’ll be at your discretion.”

  “Sir.” It took a great deal to shake Bellamy Jameson, but he was looking a bit shell-shocked. “I’m—not—I don’t—we don’t have that many trained personnel.”

  “You’ll have to give some junior trainees a baptism of fire. Let them handle civ-side and answer questions.—I know it will put you short, but we’ve got no choice. We can’t use Hewitt’s men. Tell your folk to trust the bartenders and shopkeepers. If they say a person is all right, they’re all right. If they say troublemaker, deal with them. We have to trust the station residencies won’t break out in crime in the next shift. Skeleton crew there, to take complaints and investigate as they can. Call in both shifts, tell them dress uniforms, and be polite. Walk up and down, smile, and talk to the businesses and the captains. Don’t enforce the minutiae. Trust the captains to control their people. We’ve got no rivalries we know of. Just some people unhappy to hear Cruz has hijacked one of their ships and gone off to Sol. Which there’s no stopping at this point.”

  “It’s true then, they got the coordinates.”

  “Right now everybody including the bar staff up and down the Strip may know the coordinates. Secrecy is out the hatch and done with. Everyone, spacer and stationer alike, needs to vent a little steam and discuss what to do. Let them. It’s not hurting us. That ID will get you into any door. Guard that card. Guard yourself: I’d suggest you take over the office out there in Registry and Finance, operate out of my hallway, and preserve any records you find. Hewitt’s been into those since he arrived. Be careful. Some of Cruz’s people may still be wandering around and they’re not going to be happy.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Your salary will naturally take a rise. We’ll discuss it. Good luck, Chief Jameson.”

  “Sir.” Bellamy offered a hand. He shook it.

  It was a slightly overwhelmed man who left his office. But he knew Bellamy, that things didn’t overwhelm him for long. Left to his own devices, Bellamy ran a tight ship, so to speak, and didn’t hesitate to move when he had to.

  More, the man was honest and believed in station code, which some legal wits called lex solis alieni, the law of another sun, meaning that a twelve-year question and a twenty-year round trip to enforce it . . . called on stations to devise an answer that worked. Local necessity had to make binding laws and issue rulings without Sol being involved. Lex solis alieni.

  In this case, booting that ambitious little EC import right into the vacancy Cruz had created, and promoting a fifth-generation stationer up to run security.

  God . . . a year, minimum, without Andy Cruz. Hard to imagine . . .

  But damned if he wouldn’t enjoy it. Scared? Hell, yes. Terrified would be more apropos. Granted the numbers worked, granted Galway got through, and took Cruz with her . . . he still had time to get the station working the way he’d always dreamed of it working, if Finity and this alliance of merchant ships proved reliable.

  First things first: keep spacers happy.

  He sent out a message to every bar office on the Strip: Stay open. Start serving food. Free food, on the station, and a lot of it, to moderate the alcohol. Bellamy Jameson now appointed Chief of Enforcement. Call Civil Enforcement if you have any problem. Report any improper Enforcement activity to this office immediately.

  Message to the bank: honor Galway scrip and bill it to station.

  Message to the Fortune: void the Galways’ checkout and reissue their room keys. Complimentary breakfasts all round, long as they stay. Receipts, however, must be signed.

  Accounting would have a fit, otherwise. And it was hell and away cheaper than repair bills.

  Message to JR Neihart. We still need to talk. Urgently.

  And then . . . he leaned back in his chair, and let go a long, slow breath. He’d had a head of adrenaline. It had almost run out.

  He expected a call from Mr. Hewitt. He expected a very irate call from Mr. Hewitt. Benjamin Abrezio had upended the Earth Company power structure without stirring from his chair. He had very probably just lost his retirement—his position—possibly his freedom, if Galway made it through—unless Niall Monahan could do some very eloquent persuasion.

  At least Callie wouldn’t be touched. Divorcing her would protect her legally and financially. It was just an official status. They could go on living together. Their friends would understand. Their friends wouldn’t blame him for what he’d done. They’d even be sympathetic. And if he was hauled off to Sol, at least it would be a quick trip. And friends would rally round Callie, for what that was worth.

  He had enough savings, maybe, to beg a one-way passage for him and Callie—as far as Venture. But he couldn’t leave Alpha to whatever came. He and Callie had friends, had relatives, had lifetimes invested in this place. What he’d just done . . . threatened all that, but only for him. More to the point, what he’d done might just save the station. It damned sure wasn’t terrible.

  The terrible thing had been building that monster ship in the first place. The terrible thing had been meekly following EC orders. Sinking resources into a design that Pell had modified and modified since the version the EC had lightfingered from an engineer’s files. Espionage from Pell had occasionally delivered observations of those changes, and the engineers had said—his engineers had said—it was all for the ring-docking. That they were changes for trade, not the necessary mechanics of the ship and its drives. And meanwhile, Sol sent a steady stream of demands, and his engineers had struggled to incorporate those changes Sol wanted.

  The damned monster was a bodged-up mess, with engineers blaming programmers and programmers telling the engineers to go to hell . . . and nobody had an answer, just a large mass of metal that couldn’t perform the most basic task it was designed for.

  But now, finally, Rights actually had a purpose. It was containing Mr. Hewitt. And it would continue to contain Mr. Hewitt until Stationmaster Abrezio had had time to figure what to do next.

  Ames appeared in the doorway. “Captain N
eihart is coming in. With a number of people.”

  “I’ll see him,” Abrezio said. “I’m very glad to see him.”

  Chapter 16

  Section i

  “Right on in, sir,” the secretary said, and JR, with a nodded thanks, walked into the carpeted office. Xiao Min, Sanjay Patel, Asha Druv, and Owen Monahan were with him, and there were not enough chairs by half.

  “Welcome,” Abrezio said, rising from his desk. “Thank you all for coming.” He stretched a hand across his desk to Owen Monahan. “You are—sir—a Monahan captain.”

  “Owen Monahan, Second Captain.”

  “Doubly welcome. You’ll find your scrip backed by the bank and your lodgings re-registered. I am beyond sorry. It was not my order that put Cruz on your ship.”

  “What is your position on the situation, sir?” JR asked.

  Abrezio looked a little pale of countenance. Sweating, despite the temperate air. “In short: Mr. Cruz and I are not allies. We’ve never been allies. Mr. Cruz was sent here to run the project. He has now left. Enzio Hewitt arrived with authority to run Rights security, which Mr. Hewitt used first to appropriate A-mast, and has lately expanded to include jurisdiction over the Strip. Since Admiral Cruz has left us—I consider the project suspended. I sent Mr. Hewitt up to Rights, as the least provocative place I could put him, I relieved him of any duty to patrol the Strip, and appointed Bellamy Jameson, the head of civil law enforcement, which used to include the Strip, to handle all law enforcement on the station, including directing the ECE. My orders to him, Captain, include cooperation with ships’ authorities, quiet on the Strip, and a new attitude.”

  “Right now things are quiet,” JR said. “Is it your intention to pull Rights back and give chase?”

  “I don’t want Mr. Hewitt to do anything, Captain. I don’t think they stand a chance in hell of getting that ship out of dock. They certainly couldn’t give chase. I only hope Cruz has the sense to keep hands off Galway’s crew. He’s a fool. An unprincipled fool.”

  “A fool,” Owen Monahan said, “decidedly. It’s a long trip, for a fool. I have every confidence in our senior captain.”

  Abrezio looked at Owen Monahan and looked very sober indeed. But not outraged. No. Mr. Cruz and I are not allies, the man had just said. One could only imagine what Cruz planned to report to the EC about Abrezio, when and if he got to Sol.

  “You say,” JR said, “that you’ve dealt with the scrip and the lodgings for the Monahans. A good gesture. It’ll be up to the Monahans how long they stay here. Any ship here would give them passage.”

  “Until Galway comes back,” Abrezio said. “We’ve promised that.”

  JR just nodded, saying nothing of Niall Monahan’s planned layover in the deep dark. “We’ll stay a little longer ourselves, seeing how it settles. Among the immediate questions—the people on Rights at the moment, who continue to pose a threat. I take it they are loyal to this Hewitt?”

  “Right now, yes.”

  “Until that changes, you will have them to deal with. Unfortunately. Do you intend ever to have these people back on the Strip?”

  Abrezio sank into his chair. “I am out of ideas, there, sir. The hiring and training of ECE personnel was part of Hewitt’s orders. But I will own they are, for the most part, Alpha citizens, sons and daughters of Alpha citizens, and they are our responsibility.”

  “They have family here,” Min said. “And what is their training?”

  “The majority?” Abrezio said. “Enforcement.”

  “And the minority in FTL ops?”

  “From the ship’s entry security scan,” Abrezio said, “a minority, yes. Those missing from that scan are, I assume, with Cruz, though possibly some of that number are holding the number one mast access area. About twenty percent of the entire ECE is trained on the sims. The ones who voyaged with Hewitt on Qarib may be with Hewitt now.”

  “Which means those with Cruz are completely without real-time experience,” JR said, and Abrezio nodded. “And they have ops on Rights, with Cruz’s man Hewitt in charge.”

  Another nod.

  “Am I correct, sir, that you have EC authority overriding Hewitt’s, with Cruz not even out of the system?”

  “Technically,” Abrezio said, “I do. But . . .”

  “Technically is good enough,” Sanjay said with a shrug. “Within the regulations. Not that any of us give much for them, but considering your position. And theirs. If you order them to stand down, and Hewitt resists, he might be placed under arrest.”

  “I ordered Hewitt and the rest to board Rights. That got them off the Strip. But keeping them up there—is another matter. They were provisioned-up for the test run, sufficient to have gone to Bryant’s. They can easily stand us off until you leave. And if I can manage to get them sorted out, they may view it’s just a matter of waiting. Granted Galway gets through, come another year, I may not be in office.”

  Meaning, in Abrezio’s expectation, Sol might be arriving here within the year, with all that meant.

  Tell the man? Pell would know. Venture would know. Eventually Alpha would know—and maybe they ought to give Abrezio the information.

  But until Galway cleared the system and went out of all communication, however time-lagged, they were saying absolutely nothing.

  “You’ve got them contained, at least,” JR said. “What do you see happening?”

  “I foresee the people on Rights trying to get back onto station once they realize there’ve been changes. Enzio Hewitt has had designs on Rights and its crew since he arrived, and he thought he was going to run the Strip. I just put Strip enforcement in the hands of civil authority, the way it used to be, before the Rights project, and I’m not handing it back over to Hewitt. Given the equipment in A-mast, cutters and such, I’m sure they’ll escape that area eventually, not with any good will toward me and my staff, but civil enforcement, answering to the civil court, is going to be the rule on Alpha until Sol officially puts me out of here.”

  “You’ll have the Strip’s backing,” Owen Monahan said. “We’ll pass that word, and we’ll back you.”

  “Thank you for that,” Abrezio said. “The problem is the sheer numbers involved.”

  “You’ll have cooperation from us, as well,” JR said.

  “Regarding that,” Abrezio said, his frown deepening, “there is a problem. To get Hewitt and the Rights crew to move, I told them that there was an emergency on A-mast, that Finity was moving to take over Rights.”

  JR drew in a deep breath, parsing that situation for its problems. Min had a smile he used often for social purposes. This one was small, wicked, and Min didn’t say a thing.

  “I heartily apologize,” Abrezio said, “but at that precise moment, I didn’t see another way to get them off the Strip before they came in with tasers.”

  “A serious problem,” JR said, “if they decide to move Rights back and spin up.”

  “We have to give clearance to undock.”

  “And they have the ability to damage the mast if they ignore that. Is the ship armed?”

  “Enforcement has tasers. So far as I’m aware, there’s nothing larger.”

  “I mean the ship itself.”

  Abrezio slowly shook his head. “No, Captain, I don’t think so. I would be surprised. Sincerely. Is yours?”

  “Not as such,” JR said. “And nothing we would like to use.”

  “Right now,” Asha said, “the ship is using station’s power, from the mast. They’ve not disconnected and not spun up.”

  “No,” Abrezio said. “They have not.”

  “They pose a problem,” JR said, “but the greater one if they have access to utility pushers and construction equipment. Including cutters.”

  “I’m afraid they will have. And they will get back in. But a few at a time—we can stop that.”

  “On the other hand,
they might pull Rights out in the notion we have to be stopped.”

  They might estimate Finity could go after Galway and stop her—not his intention, but Hewitt didn’t know that. And the notion of a ship of Rights’ size and power moving out with mayhem in mind toward ships on B-mast was a threat all on its own.

  Invade A-mast to deal with it, hand to hand? Station security against what amounted to a military? No. Not even if they weren’t outnumbered. Not even if the merchanters added their numbers to the mix.

  But arguing with Rights as a separate hull was . . . extremely problematic.

  A cranky monster in the hands of a sim-trained crew. God . . .

  Stop them. Basically stop them.

  Rights was, aside from internal modifications, a first-generation Finity’s End. He knew its systems. If he was at the helm, trying to cut loose from an uncooperative station . . .

  Ship brought live would have a mind of her own. Ship wouldn’t spin up the ring until she was free of station. Ship would object to the pull-back with the lines still engaged. But that objection could be overridden. What couldn’t be . . . the one thing that would stop Finity cold . . .

  Damn.

  “From what we saw coming in,” JR said, “you have two ships parked on a level with A-mast, sir. Firenze and Qarib. And not that far.”

  “Under bot control,” Abrezio said, looking puzzled.

  A low grunt, a quickly inhaled breath: the other captains had read the idea. Abrezio might not see it yet.