by Jason Fry
Diocletia looked evenly at her daughter, refusing to take the bait.
“We settled a financial matter between associates in a legal business venture. Besides, I suspect the Jovian Union will be more concerned with having sent an incompetent admiral into the field, one who lost two destroyers and a privateer in a battle he was warned not to fight.”
“Arrr, Badawi will be lucky if his next command is the Ganymede ferry,” Huff said from his usual spot alongside the ladder.
“And what about the Ice Wolves?” Yana asked. “We didn’t exactly put an end to their rebellion.”
“No, we didn’t,” Diocletia said. “There will be a great deal of talk about that, I’m sure. And about other things as well. Apparently the Jovian Defense Force located six of Earth’s secret automated deep-space listening posts while we were away. They destroyed them all. His Majesty is calling it an unwarranted provocation.”
The data disk, Tycho thought. That was the information the Securitat wanted.
“So we’re at war on two fronts?” Carlo asked.
“I wouldn’t go that far. But clearly matters are worse.”
“So what are we going to do?” Tycho said.
Diocletia sighed. “Well, for starters, we’ll get Vesuvia’s data to the Defense Force so they can figure out a better way to counteract Mox’s jammer.”
“About that . . . ,” Yana muttered, so quietly that Tycho could barely hear her.
“About what?” Diocletia asked.
“The jamming. There’s something you need to know, since you’ll find out eventually.”
“Is that how you decide whether or not to tell me things?” Diocletia asked.
“No . . . I mean . . . just listen, okay? I took a closer look at my board, and my countermeasures didn’t do anything. The jamming just stopped.”
“What do you mean it just stopped?”
“Two minutes and thirty-seven seconds in, it stopped. So I took another look at what happened back at P/2. It was the same thing—two minutes and thirty-seven seconds of jamming, then it cleared. It had nothing to do with the PKB band or harmonic oscillations or anything else. And it had nothing to do with me.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense,” Tycho said. “We know the jammer kept working, because the other Jovian ships were still blind.”
“That’s what I’m telling you,” Yana said. “Some system aboard the Comet broke the jamming on its own.”
“Vesuvia,” said Diocletia, “does this make any sense? Can you analyze what Yana’s talking about?”
“No analysis is necessary. The statement is correct. The countermeasures suite referenced takes one hundred fifty-seven seconds to initialize and activate.”
“What countermeasures suite?” Diocletia asked, baffled.
“The one installed to counteract the technology deployed at Refueling Station Gamma earlier today.”
“I’ve never heard of any such program. How long has it existed?”
“The program has resided in memory since September 8, 2883.”
Tycho and Yana looked at each other, eyes wide.
“That’s a little over a year after 624 Hektor,” Yana said.
“I never loaded such a program,” Diocletia said. “Who did? And on whose authority?”
And then, one by one, their eyes turned to Huff.
“Arrr,” Huff said. “I did it. And on me own authority.”
Diocletia looked at her father in disbelief.
“I hired someone to do the work an’ loaded the program after I recovered. Did it to protect us after what happened that day.”
“I was captain then, not you,” Diocletia said icily. “What else have you done to my ship while no one was looking?”
“Nothin’. Nothin’ ’cept that one thing, a long time ago. Which was the thing what saved our lives today.”
Diocletia looked equal parts amazed and furious. “And are you going to tell me why?”
Huff raised his chin defiantly. “That’s me own business. An’ it’ll stay that way.”
And before anyone could say anything else, he turned his back and clambered up the ladder to the top deck.
“Well,” Diocletia said, “that’s all, then.”
Tycho looked from Yana to Carlo.
“I’m sorry, Mom, but it isn’t,” he said. “It can’t be.”
“And why is that?” Diocletia asked.
The words felt like he was forcing them to his lips.
“Oshima Yakata told us Huff helped Mox distribute the program to the Jupiter pirates—the one that had been sabotaged,” he said.
“Yes,” Diocletia said. “He was tricked. Tricked and betrayed.”
“We never knew that,” Yana said. “It was our right to know that.”
“Don’t ask me to defend your grandfather right now.”
“Nobody’s asking you to,” Carlo said, his face red with anger.
Diocletia shook her head.
“Maybe you deserved to know,” she said. “But what does it change? Your grandfather will carry what happened that day for the rest of his life. Do you imagine he doesn’t think about it during the hours he’s trapped in his cabin every day? Sometimes I wonder if he thinks of anything else.”
“Then why didn’t he tell us?” Yana asked. “Why didn’t one of you?”
Diocletia swiveled in her chair and stared out into the darkness beyond the viewports.
“Because he can barely stand to remember it,” she said quietly. “Because of the guilt he feels—about having been fooled by Thoadbone Mox, about getting people killed, about having contributed to the end of the only way of life he’d ever known. Since that day, he’s lived mainly for the three of you—watching you grow and learn and carry on the tradition he fears will be lost without you. If you’d known what he’d done . . . well, I don’t think he could bear the idea of that.”
All were quiet for a long moment. Mavry stared down at his hands in his lap.
“And what happened before 624 Hektor?” Tycho asked. “Oshima—”
“That witch again,” Diocletia said, turning to glare at Mavry.
Tycho bit his lip, then pressed on. “She said you and Dad were going to join the Gibraltars—to break up the family. Is that true?”
Diocletia seemed to sag in the captain’s chair.
“That’s our own business.”
“Grandpa just said something like that,” Yana said.
“This is different—”
“Dio,” Mavry said quietly, “they deserve to know this, too.”
Diocletia scrubbed at her eyes with her hand.
“You tell them, then.”
“No,” Mavry said gently. “You’re the captain.”
Diocletia raised her eyes and looked at her husband, then away. Finally she nodded.
“Very well. Your grandfather always saw Carina as the perfect pirate—while I . . . well, let’s just say I never met his standards. It was obvious from the day I made middie that Carina would be the next captain, and there was nothing I could do to change his mind. Not even Carina defying him and running off with Sims made a difference. He was so angry—he called Carina a traitor and accused Cassius Gibraltar of scheming to take over his ship. But he still wouldn’t deny her, or consider me. Rather than accept me as captain, he was willing to see the son of his archrival on his own quarterdeck.”
Diocletia looked up at the deck above their heads.
“So your father and I decided that rather than spend the rest of our lives as dirtsiders on Callisto, we’d find another way. When we went to see him, Cassius was even madder at Sims than Dad was at Carina. But he agreed to our proposal—Sims would marry Carina and serve aboard the Comet, while your father and I would become part of Cassius’s crew aboard the Ghostlight.”
“But the family is the ship,” Tycho said. “And—”
“And the ship is the captain, and the captain is the family,” Diocletia said. “I was taught that as a child too, you know. Just like
Dad, and every Hashoone back to Lodovico. But things change. You’ve learned that by now.”
“But then why did you still teach it to us, Mom? Since you no longer believed it yourself.”
“Because I still wanted to believe it. Because I wanted to believe I was the exception, that I was the one who’d failed to make it work.”
“But it has worked,” Yana said. “What you taught us was true. Our family didn’t break apart. I mean, just look around. The family is the ship. It’s as true as it’s ever been.”
“Our family didn’t break apart, true,” Diocletia said. “Because something terrible happened that forced us to stay together.”
She sighed.
“On some level, your grandfather’s never forgiven your father and me for what we tried to do then—just like I fear two of you will refuse to forgive the one who becomes captain. And maybe that’s just the way it is. But sometimes I think that tradition no longer makes sense and needs to change—just like a lot of things are changing.”
It was Carlo who spoke first.
“I think our family tradition has sustained us for centuries for a reason,” he said. “Maybe 624 Hektor was a blessing in disguise.”
“That’s quite a disguise,” Mavry said sharply.
“I know. But if you’d carried out your plan, you and Mom would be Gibraltars, and our family would have been weakened.”
“I don’t think your aunt would see it that way,” Mavry said.
“You’re wrong as usual, Carlo,” Yana said. “Mom and Dad would have flown with the Gibraltars, yes, but one of them would have succeeded Cassius. There’d be two Hashoone pirate ships now. We’d be stronger, not weaker.”
“The Jovian Union would never have allowed that,” Mavry said. “Not then, not now, not ever.”
“You might be surprised,” Tycho said, thinking of the title to the Hydra and how it would soon be in his family’s possession. A lot had gone wrong recently, but they had survived. And now, perhaps, they even had a way forward—a way for him and his siblings to all keep flying.
“After today, I don’t care what the Jovian Union will or won’t allow,” Yana said.
“And what happens when two Hashoones chase the same prize?” Carlo asked.
“We’ll do the right thing,” Yana said.
“In my experience, that’s not a value particularly prized by pirates,” Mavry said.
“But we’re not pirates anymore,” Tycho said. “Which is exactly why we should do the right thing.”
The others looked at him.
“In fact, we can start today—with the fact that Johannes Hashoone murdered Josef Unger and stole the Iris cache from him.”
“You already told us what you and Mom discovered,” Yana said. “It was a long time ago, Tyke. It’s over.”
“It’s not over. Because Johannes didn’t just kill Josef. He destroyed Josef’s son’s life too. And that ruined his grandson’s life. But we can break that chain—if we do the right thing. And that starts with giving Loris his share.”
“Not this again, Tyke,” Yana said. “We already took it from him, fair and square.”
“You know that isn’t true,” Tycho said. “Loris isn’t one of us—he isn’t a privateer, or a freight hauler, or anyone else who knows our rules. And he doesn’t have tons of livres like Lord Sicyon does. We had the advantage over him, like Father Amoss said, and we used it to cheat him.”
The twins glared at each other.
“Seems like every time you talk about the Iris cache our share gets smaller, son,” Mavry said. “Maybe Yana was right and you should have let go of it under Callisto.”
But his father was smiling as he said it.
“Give Loris his share,” Diocletia said, sighing. “I’ll answer for my latest deplorable attack of conscience. There’ll still be enough to repair the Comet, and give us a stake for more cruises. Because we’re finished with military missions. Last time the Jovian Union stole the Hydra from us. This time they abandoned us to Mox and his thugs. There won’t be a next time. I promise you that much.”
“And if they take our letter of marque?” Yana asked.
“Then we’ll figure out something else,” Diocletia said. “And we’ll do it as a family.”
19
AT SAINT MARY’S
This time, it was DeWise who contacted Tycho.
The message arrived an hour after Carlo eased the Shadow Comet into dry dock above Callisto. Tycho saw the message light on his mediapad while he and Yana were mustering out the Comets. He knew immediately who it was from.
“What are you smiling about?” Yana demanded.
“Just glad to be home,” Tycho said.
After they reached Darklands, Tycho messaged DeWise that he’d meet him in the morning, at the same Port Town café they’d used last time. Then, while the other Hashoones unpacked, he slipped down the steps from the homestead’s lower level to the gloomy confines of the family crypt.
None of Tycho’s ancestors was actually buried there—as spacers, the Hashoones found the idea of being entombed in the ground appalling. The crypt was for memories, not bodies.
A pale-green square in the darkness marked the controls for the main holographic unit. Tycho peered down at the softly lit screen until he found the name he wanted.
A moment later, a blue light filled the crypt, and Tycho stepped back to look up at a shimmering hologram of a man in slightly outdated clothing. Johannes Hashoone had a bald head, a sharp nose, and a slight grin that suggested he had thought of a joke that he might or might not share with the listener.
“Hello, Great-Grandfather,” Tycho said. For a moment he felt foolish, talking to a dead pirate, but then he found his voice again.
“I found your treasure,” he said. “Just like I figured out what you did. You murdered Josef Unger, a man who considered you his friend. You cheated your associates. And you didn’t even use the money you stole—you hid it away and tried to make sure your own family would never find it. You know, Grandfather once told me you taught him everything he knows about pirating. Which means he passed that knowledge down to my mother. And she passed it down to me.”
Johannes’s mocking smile remained frozen in place.
“But I’m not like you, Great-Grandfather,” Tycho said, suddenly shaking with anger. “And when I’m captain, I’ll make sure no Hashoone is ever like you again.”
Tycho stabbed at the buttons on the control unit, turned, and marched up the stairs leading out of the crypt. Behind him, the image of Johannes Hashoone flickered, lingered for a stubborn second, and then faded away.
The next morning, DeWise had a jump-pop and a nutrient square waiting on the table at the café when Tycho arrived. Tycho wondered if it was a peace offering, but the sight of DeWise’s face made him think of Admiral Badawi, and the call for help that had been ignored, and everything else, and by the time he reached the table he was seething.
“We got torn up out there, you know,” Tycho said, before he even sat down.
“I know you did,” DeWise said. “Everybody knows. We told the JDF not to send Badawi, but they didn’t listen.”
“Please tell me he’ll get sacked.”
DeWise sighed. “He’ll probably get promoted. The JDF kept imagining how impressive he’d sound making a victory speech with Earth’s ministers watching. They didn’t understand that we needed more skills out there than how to groom a mustache. We needed capabilities like your family’s, frankly—crews that can fight, pilots that can fly, and officers who know when it’s wise to do one and not the other.”
“Too bad we’re done fighting for you, then,” Tycho said. “And anyway, what good could we do against Earth? I read about the spy stations. But I suppose you wouldn’t know anything about that.”
“Not officially.”
“Of course not,” Tycho said, disgusted. “And now I want to know something.”
“Oh? Are we trading information again?”
“No,” Tycho sai
d. “This time you’re just going to tell me what I want to know. It’s about 624 Hektor.”
“That’s ancient history.”
“Not to me. And not to my family.”
DeWise crossed his arms. “And what do you want to know?”
“The Martian convoy that the Jupiter pirates attacked—it was carrying experimental jammers. Your . . . employer gave the pirates software programs that were supposed to defend against the jamming. Did my grandfather and Mox distribute them to the captains?”
“That’s the story I’ve heard—that he was recruited by Mox.”
“And the story that the program had been tampered with by Earth saboteurs? Is that one true?”
“That was a terrible day for the people I work for too, you know,” DeWise said. “Just what are you suggesting, Tycho?”
Tycho realized his fingers were mashing the nutrient square. Annoyed, he brushed them off on the leg of his jumpsuit.
“Forget it,” he said. “You know what? I’m looking forward to not having to worry about you and your little games anymore.”
DeWise raised an eyebrow.
“So this is good-bye, then?”
“More like good riddance. I only came to find out when we get the title to the Hydra.”
“Ah. That.”
Tycho knew instantly. He felt himself go cold.
“It can’t be done, Tycho. Not after Saturn. If things go badly, we’ll need every warship we can outfit with a crew.”
“How many lies have you told in your life?” Tycho asked. “I’ll make it easier for you—just round down to the nearest million.”
“Quite a few, Tycho—though not that many. Would you believe me if I said what I told you about the Hydra wasn’t one of them?”
“No. I don’t believe a single word you say. And nobody else should either. I only wish I’d been smart enough to figure that out at the beginning.”
He got to his feet, hands shaking with anger.
“We’re finished, you and me. I’ll find my own answers.”
“I’m sure you will,” DeWise said. “Just remember that can be dangerous.”
Tycho started to say something but stopped at the fleeting look that crossed the Securitat agent’s face—for a moment, before he became carefully expressionless again, DeWise almost looked sad.