"Right, captain." The Com officer flipped a switch, and then came back on line, sounding puzzled. "Captain, it's a colony supply hauler, on contract to that Ryxi colony."
"And I'm a rich ambassador's wife. Try again." A screen came up at her right hand as the Com officer insisted. "Nothing wrong with the IFF signal, captain, I'd swear it. Look."
It looked clean. Mazer Star, captained by one Argemon Godheir, owned by Kirman, Vini & Godheir, Ltd., registration numbers, crew size, mass cargo and volume . . . every detail crisp and unmistakable. Com had already queried the database: Mazer Star was a thirty-seven year old hull from a respectable shipyard, refitted twice at the normal intervals, ownership as given, and no mysterious disappearances or changes in use.
"So what is it doing here?" asked Sass, voicing everyone's confusion. She looked back at the Com section, and the Com watch all shrugged. "Well. They're acting as if we don't exist, so let's see how close we can get."
Whatever Mazer Star was doing, it was not looking for a cruiser in its area; Sassinak began to feel a wholly irrational glee at how close they were able to come. Either their stealth gear was better than even she had supposed, or the stubby little insystem trader had virtually no detection gear (or the most incompetent radar operator in seven systems). Finally they were within tractor distance, and Sassinak ordered the shields full on and stealth gear off. And a transmission by tight-beam radio, although she felt she could almost have shouted across the space between ships. Certainly could have, in an atmosphere.
"Mazer Star, Mazer Star! FSP Cruiser Zaid-Dayan to Mazer Star—"
"What the—who the formative novations are you! Get off our tail or we'll—" That voice was quickly replaced by another, and a screen image of a stocky man in a captain's uniform.
"Mazer Star, Godheir commanding, to Federation ship Zaid-Dayan . . . where did you come from? Did you receive the same distress message?"
Distress message? What was he talking about? Sassinak took over from the Com officer, and spoke to him herself.
"Captain Godheir, this is Commander Sassinak of the Zaid-Dayan. We're tracking pirates, captain. What do you mean, distress beacon? Can you explain your presence in company with a heavyworlder transport?"
"Heavyworlder transport? Where?" On the screen, his face looked both ways as if he expected one to come bursting through his bulkheads.
"Below—it's going in to land. Now what's this about a distress beacon? And what kind of range and detection gear do you have?"
His answers, if a bit disorganized, quickly made sense out of the past several days. On long-term contract to supply the Ryxi colony, he'd recently returned to the system from a Ryxi relay-point. "You know they prefer to hire human crews," he said with a twinkle. "Routine flying's too boring for them, or something like that. We'd picked up some incoming specialists, and the supplies. Unloaded over there—" He waved in a way that Sassinak interpreted as meaning the planet in question. "Then we heard about some kind of problem here, a human exploration team that needed help, maybe a mutiny situation. So we came over—we can land without a grid, you see—But if you're here instead, then I guess we're not needed. You certainly gave us a start, Commander, that you did—"
"You may be needed yet," said Sass. "How were you supposed to find this missing team?" Godheir gave her the reference numbers, and said he'd detected a faint beacon signal from near the coast. While they were talking, Com suddenly waved wildly.
* * *
Timran, piloting the number one shuttle of the Zaid-Dayan, felt for the first time since coming on active duty like a real Fleet officer. On the track of slavers or pirates or something, in command of his own ship, however small. Actually it was better small—more of an adventure. Gori, hunched in the copilot's seat, was actually pale.
"This is really it," Timran said, with another quick sideways glance. He had said it before.
"Don't look at me, Tim—keep an eye on your sensors."
"We're doing just fine." In his mind's eye, he saw himself reporting back to Commander Sassinak, telling her exactly what she needed to know, saw her smiling at him, praising him . . .
"Tim! You're sliding up on him!"
"It's all right." It wasn't, quite, but he eased back on the power, and settled the shuttle into the center of the transport's blind cone, where turbulence from its drive prevented its sensors from detecting them. It was harder than he'd thought, keeping the shuttle in the safe zone. But he could do it, and he'd follow it down to the bottom of the sea, if he had to. Too bad he didn't have enough armament to take it himself. He toyed with the idea of enabling the little tractor beam that the shuttles used around space stations, what the engineering chief called the "parking brake," but realized it wouldn't have much effect on something the mass of that transport.
"This is what I thought about during finals," he said, hoping to get some kind of reaction from Gori.
"Huh. No wonder you came in only twelfth from the bottom."
"Somebody has to be on the bottom. If they didn't think I could do the work, they wouldn't have let me graduate. And the captain gave me this job—"
"To get you out of her hair while she deals with that escort or whatever it is. Krims, Tim, you spend too much time daydreaming about glory, and not enough—look out!"
Reflexively, Tim yanked on the controls, and the shuttle skimmed over a jagged peak, its drive whining at the sudden load. "She said stay low," he said, but Gori snorted.
"You could let me fly. I can keep my mind on my work."
"She gave it to me!" In that brief interval, the transport had pulled ahead. "And I've got better ratings as a shuttle pilot."
Gori said nothing more, which suited Timran fine right then. He had cut it a little close—although he was certainly low enough for fine-detail on the tapes. Now he concentrated on the landscape ahead, wild and rough as it was, and tried to anticipate where the transport would land. There—that plateau. "Look at that," he breathed. "A landing grid. A monster—" The transport sank toward it, seeming even larger now that it was leaving its own element and coming to rest.
He barely saw the movement—something small, but clearly made, not natural—when a bolt of colored light from the transport reached out to it. "Look out!" he yelled at Gori, and slammed his hand on the tractor beam control. The shuttle lurched, as the badly aimed beam grabbed for anything in its way. Tim's hands raced over the controls, bringing the shuttle to a near hover, and catching the distant falling object in the tractor beam just before it hit a low cliff.
"An airsled!" breathed Gori. "Oh gods, Tim, what have you done!"
"Did you see those murderers?" His teeth were clenched as he worked the beam to set the airsled down as gently as possible. "Those dirty, rotten, slimy—"
"Tim! That's not the point! We're supposed to be invisible!"
All the latent romanticism burst free. "We're Fleet! We just saved lives, that's what we're supposed to do."
"That's not what the captain ordered us to do. Tim, you just told everyone, from the transport to whoever they're meeting, that we're here. That Fleet's here."
"So . . . so we'll just . . . mmm . . . we'll just tell them they're under arrest, for . . . uh . . . attempting to . . . uh . . ."
"Illegal use of proscribed weaponry in a proscribed system is one charge you're looking for." Gori was punching buttons on his console. "Kipling's copper corns! The captain's going to be furious, and I've heard about her being furious. She's going to eat us alive, buddy, and it's all your fault."
"She'd want us to save lives . . ." Tim didn't sound quite so certain now. For one thing, that transport had lifted, and then settled itself firmly on the grid. He sent the shuttle forward again, slowly, and wondered whether to stand guard over the airsled or threaten the transport, or what. It had seemed so simple at the time . . .
The voice in his earplug left him in no doubt. "I told you," the captain's crisp voice said, "to follow that transport down cautiously, with particular care not to be noticed.
Did you understand that order?"
"Yes, ma'am, but—"
"Yet I find that you have engaged a possibly hostile vessel, making sure that you would be noticed; you may have damaged Federation citizens—" That wasn't fair at all; it was the crash that damaged them, and he hadn't caused the crash . . . at least, he hadn't shot the airsled, although his handling of the tractor beam had been less than deft. "Moreover, you've made it necessary for me to act—or abandon you, and if you were alone that would be a distinct temptation!" Gori smirked at this; he was getting the same tirade in his own earplug. "Now that you've started a riot, young man, you'd better stay in control of things until I get there."
"But how—?" Tim began, but the com cut off. He was breathing fast, and felt cold. He looked over at Gori, no longer smirking. "What do we do now?"
Gori, predictably, had a reference. "Fleet Landing Force Directives, Chapter 17, paragraph 34.2—"
"I don't care where it is—what does it say?"
Gori went on, pale but determined, with his quotation. "It says if the landing party—which is us—is outnumbered or outgunned, and Fleet personnel are in danger of capture or injury—"
"They're civilians," said Timran. As he said it he wondered—but surely anyone on planet had to be civilians, or they would have known Fleet was down here.
"Really? Those look like Fleet duty uniforms to me." Gori had a magnifier to his eye. "Shipboard working . . . Anyway, when personnel are in danger of capture or injury, and the landing party is outnumbered, then the decision to withdraw must be made by the commander of the orbiting ship, unless such ship—"
"She told us to stay here and stay in charge—"
"So that's paragraph 34.3: In cases where rescue or protection of the Fleet personnel is deemed possible or of paramount importance, the pilot of the landing party shuttle will remain with the craft at all times, and the copilot will lead the rescue party—"
"That's backwards!" said Tim, thinking of Gori's character.
"That's regulations," said Gori. "Besides, if we just hover here we can keep anyone from bothering them. By the way, d'you have the shields up?"
He hadn't thought of it, and thumbed the control just as the transport's single turret angled their way. Gori was watching the plateau now, and commented on the people clumped near the ship. "Native? This planet's not supposed to be inhabited at all, but—"
"They might shoot, Gori," Tim pointed out. He was glad to hear that his voice was steady, though his hands trembled slightly. He'd never expected that the mere sight of a blast cannon muzzle aimed his way would be so disturbing. Were shuttle shields strong enough, at this distance, to hold against a blast cannon?
Time passed. Down below still figures slumped in an airsled crumpled against the rocky face of the plateau. Above, the transport's blast cannon continued to point directly at them. With only two of them aboard, Tim couldn't see asking Gori to go out and check on the injured (dead? He hoped not) sled passengers. Should he hail the transport? Command them to send medical aid? What if they didn't? What if they fired? Gori maintained a prudent silence, broken only by observations on activity around the transport. It felt like years before the com unit burped, and put the Navigation Senior Officer on the line. "Not long," Bures said. "We've got a fix on you and the transport. How's it going?"
Tim swallowed hard. "Oh . . . nothing much. We're just hovering above the sled—"
"Don't move," Bures advised. "We're coming in very fast, and if you move we could run right over you."
"Where are you going to land?" But no one answered that question; the line had cut off. Gori and Tim exchanged anxious glances before settling to their watch again. Tim let his eyes stray to the clock—surely it had been longer than that.
Even through the shields they heard and felt the shockwaves of the Zaid-Dayan's precipitous descent. "Krims!" said Gori. "She's using the emergency insystem—" Another powerful blast of wind and noise, and the great cruiser hung above the plateau, its Fleet and Federation insignia defining the bow. Clouds of dust roiled away from it, temporarily blinding Tim even in the shuttle; when it cleared, Tim could see the transport shudder at its berth. "—drive," finished Gori, paler than before. Tim, for once, said nothing.
* * *
"The only good thing about all this," said Sassinak, when they were back aboard, "is that I know you can't be a saboteur, because you weren't on board when the sabotage occurred, and it would have required immediate access. Of course you might be in collusion . . . ."
Tim tried to swallow, unsuccessfully. It wasn't that she bellowed, or turned red, the way some of his instructors had when he had been particularly difficult. She looked perfectly calm, if you didn't notice the pale rim around her mouth, or the muscles bunched along her jaw. Her voice was no louder than usual. But he had the feeling that his bones were exposed to her gaze, not to mention the daydreams in his skull . . . and they seemed a lot less glamorous right then. Even, as she said, stupid, shortsighted, rash, and unjustified. She had left them hovering where they were until the locals (whoever they were) had extricated the injured and moved them into the cruiser. Then the cruiser's own tractor beam had flicked out and towed them in as if the shuttle were powerless and pilotless. Once in the shuttle bay, they'd been ordered to their quarters until "the captain's ready for you." Gori had said nothing while they waited, and Tim had imagined himself cashiered and stranded on this malodorous lump of unsteady rock.
"I'll expect you to recite the relevant sections of regulations, Ensign, the next time you see me. I'm sure your cohort can give you the references." That was her only dig at Gori, who had after all been innocent. "You may return to your quarters, and report for duty at shift-change." He didn't ask where: it would be posted in his file. He and Gori saluted, and retired without tripping over anything—at that point Tim was mildly surprised to find out his body worked as usual.
Curiosity returned on the way to their quarters. He looked sideways at Gori. No help there. But who were the husky, skin-clad indigenes? They had to be human, unless everything he'd been told about evolution was wrong. Why had someone built a landing grid on an uncharted planet? Who were the people in the Fleet uniforms, if they weren't from this ship?
Alone with Gori in their quarters, he had no one to ask. Gori said nothing, simply called up the Fleet Regulations: XXIII Edition on screen, and highlighted the passages the captain had mentioned. The computer spat out a hardcopy, and Gori handed it to Tim. Duties, obligations, penalties . . . he tried not to let it sink in, but it got past his defenses anyway. Disobeying a captain's direct order in the presence of a hostile (or presumed hostile) force was grounds for anything the captain chose to do about it, including summary execution. She could have left him there, left both of them there, including innocent Gori, if she'd wanted to, and no one in Fleet would have had a quibble.
For the first time, Tim thought about the stories he'd heard . . . why the ship was so long in the repair yard, what kind of engagement that had been. A colony plundered, while Sassinak did nothing, in hopes of catching more pirates later. More than two or three people had died there; she had let them die, to save others. He didn't like that a bit. Did she? The ones who'd talked about it said not, but . . . if she really cared, how could she? Men and women, children, people of all sorts—rich, poor, in between—had died because she didn't do what he had done—she didn't come tearing in to save them.
Gradually, in the hollow silence between his bunk and Gori's, Tim began to build a new vision of what the Fleet really was, and what his captain had intended. What he had messed up, with his romantic and gallant nonsense. Those people in the colony had died, so that Sassinak could trace their attackers to powers behind them. Some of her crew had died, trying to save the children, and then destroy a pirate base. This very voyage probably had something to do with the same kind of trouble, and saving two lives just didn't mean that much. If he himself had been killed before his rash act—and for the first time he really faced that chilling po
ssibility of not-being—it would have done Fleet no harm, and possibly his captain some good.
When the chime rang for duty, Tim set off for his new job (cleaning sludge from the filters) with an entirely new attitude. He fully intended to become the reformed young officer the Fleet so needed, and for several hours worked diligently. No more jokes, no more wild notions: sober reality. He recited the regulations under his breath, just in case the captain should appear in this smelly little hole.
In this mood of determined obedience to nature and nature's god in the person of his captain, he didn't even smile when Jig Turner, partner in several earlier escapades, appeared in the hatchway.
"I guess you know," said Turner.
"I know if I don't finish these filters, we'll be breathing this stink."
"This isn't bad—you should smell the planet's atmosphere." Turner lounged against the bulkhead, patently idle, with the air of someone who desperately wants to tell a secret.
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