by Alex Stewart
“Not a lot,” Clio said. “The green slut apologized for what had happened to you, which surprised everyone, and John said I should apologize for trying to hit her.” I noted the careful phrasing, which left me in little doubt that any apology actually offered would have been grudging to the point of nonexistence, if she’d actually bothered to make one at all. “Deeks kept on whining until his skipper told him to shut up, then Ronnie threatened to arrest anyone who wouldn’t go back to their own quarters.”
“Well, at least that gave the two of you something to talk about for the rest of the evening,” I said, trying to look on the bright side.
“Yeah, well, that’s another thing,” Clio said. “He left straight away, said he had reports to write, and was shipping out right after that. So it looks like I scared another one off.”
“Really?” I tried to sound surprised, but I couldn’t really blame him. If he’d thought she really was a giggling simpleton, the sight of her going all valkyrie on Deeks had probably come as a bit of a shock. “Then it’s his loss if you did.”
Clio smiled, a little more warmly. “Nice of you to say so, but, no, not just his. I’d been working on him ever since he first boarded, hoping to get a bit of information we could use as leverage to get out of here, but that’s all wasted effort now.”
“You were playing him?” I asked, surprised, although now I came to think about it, at least that explained her apparent personality flush every time he was around.
“Mostly, but I can’t pretend it wasn’t fun as well. He is quite good looking, after all.” She shrugged. “You’re not shocked, are you?”
“Why would I be?” I asked. “I’ve been doing the same thing with Jas, haven’t I?”
“Oh, please.” It was hard to tell which was the most scornful, her voice or her expression. “You’re all over her every chance you get. Don’t tell me you’re only after info nuggets.”
“I do genuinely like her,” I admitted. “But I’ve been trying to crack her comm link with my sneakware too.”
“Really?” Clio looked surprised. “I didn’t think you had it in you. Guess you really are a natural born Guilder.”
“I can be a lot sneakier than that,” I said, not quite sure how I felt about the way the conversation was turning, but relieved to find that she seemed to approve of my actions anyway. “I managed to crack a node while I was in the infirmary.”
“You did what?” Despite the number of times you read it, people’s mouths very seldom drop open in surprise in real life, but if they ever did I imagine it would probably look a lot like Clio’s expression at that moment.
“I got into the system,” I said. “Not for very long, but I managed to get hold of some stuff.”
“Like what?” I had her attention now, all right, and I must admit I rather liked the feeling: Clio wasn’t exactly the easiest person in the galaxy to impress.
“Like this,” I said, sending her a copy of the shipping movements I’d lifted. “Do you think John can use that for leverage?”
“He might.” She nodded, turning the idea over in her mind. “Not directly, but it’ll be catnip to the Guildhall. If he waves this in front of them, they’ll do whatever it takes to get us out. As soon as they’ve analyzed what cargoes are moving in and out of here, they’ll be able to corner the market in whatever the League Navy most wants, and set their own price.”
“Good.” I yawned, taken suddenly by surprise by how tired I felt. “I’ll talk to him as soon as I can.”
“Yeah. You look like you could do with some sleep.” Clio nodded sympathetically. “Catch you later.”
Sleep, however, was a long time coming. I couldn’t resist starting to sift through the data I’d snaffled as soon as I was alone, and, as before, it wasn’t long before I was completely absorbed. It was dry stuff, though, and I found myself stifling a yawn or two long before I reached the end. In fact I was beginning to doze, which was fortunate as it turned out; because it was in that half-waking state where the mind begins to free-associate that I spotted something seriously wrong, and sat bolt upright on the bed, suddenly completely awake.
One of the vessels listed on the schedule was the Eddie Fitz, which had apparently arrived from Numarkut the same day the Stacked Deck had been boarded and impounded. But that was impossible: I’d seen it breaking away from the transit lane in the first system we’d passed through, bound for Iceball. I was absolutely positive about that, because, doubting my own memory, I replayed the datastream I’d tapped from the Stacked Deck’s sensor suite—and there it was, large as life.
Perhaps the files I’d filched had been corrupted, or the wrong date entered by mistake—these things happened. I went back and checked, but the data was all clean, and verified by the ship’s ident beacon. Which meant one of two things: either the Eddie Fitz was capable of being in two places at once, which I rather doubted, or another ship had been given her identity. The question was why.
Looking for a clue, I began to examine the file more carefully. The impostor was definitely a vessel of the same class, the attached visual made that perfectly clear, even down to the distinctive blisters on the hull which had once housed its defensive armament. Or perhaps still did: this was a Naval base, after all. I moved on to the maintenance schedule for the ship, and found my forebodings confirmed almost at once—the graviton beamers weren’t just still mounted, they’d been upgraded. The not-Eddie Fitz wouldn’t last long in a stand-up fight against a proper warship, but if she got the first shot in she wouldn’t need to; and no one would expect a freighter to be armed in the first place. A cold chill began to work its way down my back. I still didn’t know what this was all about, but I was beginning to have some very dark suspicions.
Which were confirmed the moment I looked at the manifest. Officially, the Eddie Fitz was about to leave Freedom for Rockhall with a mixed cargo of consumer goods and agricultural supplies, via Numarkut, with a transit waiver in place for the neutral system. But what was actually being loaded looked to me a lot more like the kind of supplies a company of Marines would need to establish a beachhead, and support themselves while they waited for reinforcements.
I digested this slowly, still not quite able to take it all in. As plans went, it was pretty neat in some respects; the Eddie Fitz and her sister ships were frequent enough visitors to Numarkut for no one to give them a second glance, and with a transit waiver she’d just pass straight through the system without even the most cursory of inspections. The League would be able to sneak its raiding party into Commonwealth space without the Numarkut authorities being any the wiser: or at least being able to claim they hadn’t been. Having seen the place, though, I’d be very surprised if a substantial sum of money hadn’t changed hands, to make absolutely sure the Trojan freighter would pass through without any hindrance from Plubek and his chums.
But parts of it still didn’t make any sense. Even if you were able to pack a couple of hundred combat troops into a ship that size (which you just might, if they were all very friendly with one other), a planet’s an awfully big place, and has far too many strategic objectives for such a small group of men and women to take unaided. Even if they took one each, which hardly seemed likely.
I was missing something, I was certain of it, something I’d half thought of a moment ago, and skipped over. Something about the ersatz Eddie Fitz going unnoticed . . .
Because the real one and her sister ships had been plying that route for years.
Sister ships.
Now I knew what I was looking for, I started trawling the data in earnest, looking for matches, and to my growing horror, I found a good half dozen. The league wasn’t just planning to raid Rockhall, it was preparing to invade it. The latest Trojan was even docked here, the Tom Shelby, waiting to take on cargo as soon as the engineers finished working on it. Which, according to the schedule, would be in less than a day.
Of course the Commonwealth would retaliate as soon as they learned of the attack, but by that point it
would be too late. The League fleet at Caprona would make their move at exactly the same time, as the trojans moving into the Sodallagain system to lie in wait for the relief force from Tintagel. Which would put my mother and sister smack in the middle of the firing line. . . .
I was still trying to digest all this when my bedroom door opened, and I belatedly remembered I’d forgotten to tie a rag to the handle before settling down to review the data I’d acquired.
“Clio says you’ve got something to tell me,” Remington declared, without preamble.
“Yes.” I nodded, the words practically falling over themselves in my sudden surge of relief. “We’ve got to get to the Guildhall right away, use their riftcom—” Which would only get a message as far as the next system, of course, but the Guildhall on Iceball would relay it to Numarkut, and thence to Avalon. Once the warning was coded it could be on Aunt Jenny’s desk within a day or two, while the invasion fleet was still preparing to shoot the rift to Iceball, or possibly Numarkut, depending on how long it took us to get out of here. Long before it could get anywhere near Rockhall, anyway, which was the main thing.
“Slow down.” Remington shook his head, and waved an expansive arm, which I assumed was meant to encompass not only my room, but the base beyond it as well. “In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not going anywhere.”
“I got us some leverage,” I said, dropping the file I’d been examining into his ‘sphere. Think the Guildhall will pull a few strings to get their hands on this?
“Definitely,” Remington said, after a moment of paging through the data, and coming to the same conclusions as I had; which was probably a lot easier than it had been for me, as the files I’d been looking at were still open. “The logistical contracts alone would be worth a fortune once the shooting starts.” He glanced down at me, curiosity and respect mingling on his face. “How the hell did you manage to get hold of this?”
“I cracked a node,” I said. “From the infirmary. They put us down here because it’s too far away from the operational areas to mesh in to one, but the surgery isn’t. I found I was close enough to use my sneakware, and I thought I might as well give it a try.” I thought it best to sound as though I’d been acting purely on impulse; mentioning that I’d picked a fight with Deeks in a deliberate attempt to get myself sent there, so I could use some customized datanomes I’d spent days putting together, would raise all sorts of questions I didn’t want to answer.
“I’ll get on to the Guildhall,” Remington said, “and tell them what we’ve got. Our hosts won’t listen in to official Guild business.” Not when pissing off the Guild could mean having their logistical and supply chains disrupted just before the shooting started; people had lost wars that way before. He looked at me curiously. “What do you want to use a riftcom for?”
“How much do you think the Commonwealth would be willing to pay to get a look at this stuff?” I asked, falling back on the default Guilder response to a difficult question. It was a reason he’d consider, whereas not wanting the next thing I heard from my family to be the news of Mother and Tinkie’s deaths in action probably wouldn’t have very much weight with him. “We’d make a fortune.”
“Maybe. Or the League would pay us just as much to keep our mouths shut about it.” He sighed heavily, and appeared to reach a decision. “Leave it with me, and I’ll see what I can do.”
“Fair enough,” I said, and finally felt ready to get some sleep.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
In which I move to less salubrious quarters.
I was woken an indeterminate time later by raised voices outside, one of which sounded like Clio’s shouting my name. I just had time to throw back the duvet and plant my feet on the floor when the door of my room burst open, to admit Wymes, a couple of troopers whose fatigues and body armor were as devoid of insignia as his uniform, and a comet tail of my shipmates, headed up by Remington; perhaps fortunately, Rolf and Lena were next, which kept the rest bottled up in the corridor.
“Get your pants on, please,” Wymes said, in a manner which made it abundantly clear that this wasn’t a request despite the polite form of words. “You’re under arrest.”
“You can’t do this,” Clio’s voice interrupted, tight with anger. I glanced around for a moment, wondering where it had come from, before I noticed her in the corridor, bobbing anxiously about, trying to get a look past the looming transgeners blocking the door. “He’s a member of the Commerce Guild, and protected by charter.”
“I’m afraid not.” Remington looked a little uncomfortable for a moment, then rallied, and met my eyes with a resolute stare of his own. “I’m revoking your apprenticeship.”
“You’re doing what?” I asked, not sure if I was playing for time, or genuinely unable to get my head around this unexpected development.
“I’m cutting you loose.” To be fair, he didn’t seem all that happy about the situation, but having made up his mind he was determined to go through with it. “I warned you when you signed on that I’d do that if you let me down.”
“That was before you took me on as an apprentice,” I said. “And you can’t expel me from the Guild without running it past the local Grand Master.”
That’s Grand Mistress on Freedom suddenly popped up in my ‘sphere, with Clio’s ident attached. But you’re on the right track.
“Not exactly,” Remington said. “An apprentice can be dismissed by whoever takes them on, but you’re entitled to appeal to the head of the local Guildhall to get the decision reversed.” He glanced pointedly at Wymes, and the two soldiers accompanying him. “Good luck with that.”
“I can appeal it on your behalf,” Clio said, her face appearing for a moment beneath Lena’s elbow.
“You won’t get the chance,” Remington said. “We’re undocking this afternoon, as soon as our clearance comes through. I gave my word we’d deliver our cargo as quickly as possible, and I intend to follow through on that.”
“Then I’m staying behind, as his advocate.” Clio’s voice was as grimly determined as his own. “I’m leaving the Stacked Deck right now.”
“You’re doing what?” Rennau’s voice carried clearly from somewhere near the back of the crush. “You’re not doing anything of the kind before we talk about this properly.”
“Fine, we’ll talk.” Clio returned her attention to the drama in the bedroom, and her glare to Remington. “You’ve got no grounds for expelling him.”
“If you think you have, I’d like to hear them,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice level. After all, I’d had a lifetime of practice at hiding how I felt.
“You’ve lied to me from the beginning,” Remington said flatly. “You were planted in my crew by Commonwealth Naval Intelligence, and you’ve carried on working for them even after I granted you an apprenticeship. I should have realized something was going on after you swiped that data from the customs inspector in the Numarkut system.”
“Data you were happy enough to have at the time,” I reminded him evenly. “In fact, I seem to remember that was what persuaded you to offer me the apprenticeship in the first place.”
“It was.” Remington nodded. “And if I hadn’t been so blinded by the business edge it gave me, I’d have asked a lot more questions. Like why an Avalonian social parasite had a headful of sneakware in the first place.”
“I told you, it was just a hobby,” I said.
“You told me a lot of things. Like your aunt’s a logistics and supply officer.”
“You know she is,” I said, uncomfortable with the way this was going. “You’ve run cargoes for her. That’s why you took me on, as a favor, because you thought it would give you some leverage the next time she offered you a contract.”
“You never told me her day job’s a front for gathering intelligence!”
“News to me,” I lied, with an easy shrug of indifference.
“But not to me,” Wymes chimed in. About time, I thought, much longer and we’d all forget he was there. “Jenny
Worricker’s been known to us as a senior network controller for a long time. When Captain Remington confided his suspicions to me a couple of hours ago, I must admit I was on the point of dismissing them, until he mentioned in passing that you were her nephew.”
“Something else your background checks missed?” I asked, sarcastically, before going back on the attack. “But even if I did believe your absurd suggestion that Aunt Jenny is some kind of spy, that’s no reason to assume I am as well.”
“Do you deny you had a private meeting with Ellie Caldwell at Farland Freight Forwarding just before you lifted from Numarkut?” Wymes asked, as if he was going for the jugular. “Another known Commonwealth agent?”
“I was sent to pick up a package,” I said. “We never even spoke.”
“A package which contained your orders,” Wymes said, with the air of a man laying four aces on the tabletop.
“This isn’t fair!” Clio interrupted, from the far side of Rolf’s buttocks. “Guilders are always taking information-gathering contracts! You can’t expel him for doing what any one of us would do, given the chance!”
“That’s the whole point,” Remington said. “He wasn’t a Guilder when he joined the Stacked Deck, he was a spy, using us for cover.” He sighed, and shook his head, looking genuinely regretful as he addressed his next remark directly to me. “If you’d admitted that when I offered you the apprenticeship, we could have worked something out, converted it into a standard Guild contract with your aunt. But you were using me and my ship, and you betrayed us all.”
“I betrayed you?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “How do you work that one out?”
“How long have we been stuck here?” There was an undercurrent of anger in his voice now. “If you’d been honest from the start, we could have cut a deal. Left you behind on Kincora while we made our delivery, and picked you up on the way outsystem, something like that. You’d have been under Guild protection the whole time, wouldn’t even have been asked many questions—”