Kwo moved his head from side to side in a rocking motion. “Forgive me, I am the liaison appointed by the United Council to this battleship. An officer representing the council is assigned to each ship belonging to United Council members. It keeps all activities transparent and facilitates communication.”
In other words, it stopped people breaking the rules.
“Why wasn't there a liaison on Tak's ship?” Her life would have been completely different if there had been.
Kwo rocked a little faster. “The Fasbe is a commercial ship, not government owned. Although I agree that it would be ideal to have a liaison on commercial ships as well, there are so many of them, it wouldn't be viable.” He suddenly went still. “I merely require a more formal statement from you. I'm afraid the situation on the Garmman trader was emotionally charged, and perhaps you didn't think to include some of the details.”
The idea of having to talk about what had happened to her again made her want to turn back to her room and curl up on her bed.
But she had been given a choice and she made it. “No. I think it's best I have my injuries seen to first.”
Jasa gave a decisive nod. “Good.” She turned on her heel and walked away, and with a smooth move, Pila stepped around Kwo, keeping his eyes on the liaison, and waited for Fee to follow him.
There was so much going on here, and with every step she took toward the med chamber, Fee decided she'd made the right decision not to speak with Kwo. She needed to be physically well, to eat something that she actually enjoyed, and to sleep.
And then she'd be ready to take on this new world she'd been dropped into.
* * *
“We have a problem.”
Hal looked up at Gerbardi, and canceled the comm he was about to put through to Rial. His communications officer tugged distractedly at his hair.
“We've lost contact with Battle Center.”
Hal went still. Silence settled over the rest of the officers on the bridge. “Define 'lost contact'.”
“All comms sent in the last ten minutes have just bounced back. Our connection is gone.” Gerbardi tapped at the screen in front of him, looked back at Hal. “It doesn't make sense. Something is interrupting the signal, but there's no logical reason why.”
Hal's first thought was the Krik. They had surprised him with their sophisticated signals duplicator and the ease with which they'd gained access to the mining vessel they'd attacked. But they were by now struggling in the hostile environment on the barren plains of Balco, and there was no way they could be messing with a Grih battleship and its encrypted comms to Battle Center.
Unless they hadn't been alone.
If there was more than one Krik pirate ship, it started to make a little more sense, and it also meant he'd better hurry if he wanted to catch the Krik crew stranded on Balco, or their friends would get to them first.
“What are the chances a second Krik vessel is blocking comms?” He flicked his gaze to Voa, his explorations officer. She was already scanning the area, flicking through screen after screen.
She shook her head. “If they're out there, they're well hidden.”
“And if they're blocking comms, it's selective, because I can still reach the ships in our immediate vicinity.” Gerbardi tapped at his screen again. “I can even reach Larga Ways.”
Hal stood. He'd been waiting for Hoke to get back to him, tell him whether they should deliver Vilk to Larga Ways and then return, or head straight back with Fiona Russell.
If long-range comms were down, the decision was up to him, and he wanted Vilk off his ship, and the Krik tracked down.
Fiona Russell didn't seem to have any specific information on what the Tecran were up to. Battle Center could wait for whatever it was she had to say.
He'd have put that argument to Hoke if she'd told him to come straight back, but he'd had the feeling the admiral wanted Vilk off their hands just as much as he did.
“Right, that makes it easy. We pilot the mining vessel in convoy with us to Larga Ways, and Rial and Favri pilot the Fasbe so it comes with us, too. I'm not leaving anyone out here alone.”
The order eased some of the tension that had been riding him. He didn't want to leave any of his crew out here. Especially if a second Krik vessel was lurking. It would be a death sentence.
Liaison Officer Kwo stepped onto the bridge, frowning at his handheld. “There seems to be a problem communicating with United Council headquarters.” He waved his handheld in Gerbardi's direction.
“We've lost long range comms. We can't get hold of Battle Center, either, but nearspace comms are working fine,” Hal told him.
“What could be interfering with long range comms, though?” Kwo's words were calm enough, but Hal sensed the liaison was feeling more emotion than he let on.
Hal watched him closely. “If it's the Krik, we can't find them.”
“What if it's the Garmman?” Voa asked.
There was a thought.
Hal leaned back in his chair. Things were definitely less friendly between the Grih and the Garmman since it emerged that the Garmman United Council member, Fu-tama, had been the driving force behind the Class 5 project. He'd taken two-hundred year-old Grihan blueprints for vessels created to be run by banned thinking systems, and allied himself with the Tecran to build them.
His end game still wasn't clear, although it seemed certain he had planned to use the firepower of the Class 5s to subdue any opposition.
He was dead now. Killed by one of Hal's superior officers in a mad attempt to minimize the damage, but while Rose McKenzie had brought two of the Class 5s with her when she'd allied herself with the Grih, there were still three out there, and they were under Tecran control.
Garmman officials claimed absolute ignorance on whatever it was Fu-tama had been up to, and given he'd gone to the Tecran, rather than his own people, to build the Class 5s, Hal was inclined to believe them.
But it didn't hurt to be cautious.
“Is it possible the Garmman have come up with a way to block comms to Battle Center and the UC?”
Gerbardi shook his head. “Unless our intelligence has missed something huge, the Garmman don't have anything that could interfere. The only recent case I know of where signal to Battle Center was blocked was a month ago, and that was by the thinking system Sazo.”
Sazo controlled a Class 5 battleship.
And last time the Grih had stumbled across a Class 5, there'd been a woman from Earth around, as well.
Hal looked up, found Kwo watching him.
“You're thinking of Fiona Russell,” Kwo said.
“I'm wondering what she was doing ten minutes ago.” Although she'd had nothing on her when she'd come aboard, and even her handheld was still over on the Fasbe.
And again, if she was in league with a Class 5, why had she been barely surviving on Tak's ship?
“I can answer that.” Kwo tucked his handheld under a thin arm. “She was speaking to me in the passageway outside her room.”
Hal stood. “What did you want with her?”
“Nothing sinister.” Kwo looked at him through huge, dark eyes. “I merely needed a more formal statement for my UC report. The guards you set seemed overly protective.”
Hal studied Kwo's face, but it was hard to judge expression when it came to the Fitali. Their skin was much less elastic than the Grih's, their eyes big but static. “I told them to treat every interaction as potentially suspicious. I don't want what happened to Rose McKenzie to happen to Fiona. We don't know who the other officers are who were in league with Fu-tama.”
“I've read the report of what happened on the Barrist.” Kwo inclined his head. He said nothing more, but Hal thought he was still annoyed at being questioned.
Tough.
He didn't let that feeling show on his face, though. He bowed back and realized he had too much energy to resume his seat.
It would take a few hours for the mining vessel to catch up to their position, and all they could do
was monitor the nearspace environment for threats until it got here. It would also take longer to get to Larga Ways with the miner and the Garmman trader in convoy, but rather that than split up his crew.
Hal paced to the door.
He might as well go and find Fiona Russell, and see if she really didn't know anything about the Class 5s.
The Barrist's captain, Dav Jallan, hadn't realized Rose McKenzie was hiding the existence of a thinking system from him when she'd come onboard his ship.
Hal didn't intend to make the same mistake.
8
Fee sat on the edge of the examination table and watched Jasa's hand hover over a piece of equipment and then drop down uncertainly.
It didn't inspire confidence.
“Something wrong?”
Jasa's gaze flickered up, then away. “I was hoping to get some response from Rose McKenzie's doctor on the Barrist, the ship that found her, on how to treat your fractures and bruises, but there seems to be a problem getting my comm through.”
Fee watched her finally pick up what looked like a pale blue gel circle, floppy and phosphorescent.
“Does it happen often?” Fee suddenly realized if Jasa could speak to Rose's doctor, surely she could speak to Rose?
A flutter of excitement and trepidation started up in her chest.
Jasa shook her head. “No. It can be hard to communicate with long range targets, but Battle Center has the boosters to make it theoretically possible to communicate with them from anywhere in Grih airspace. And we were communicating with them less than ten minutes before comms cut off.”
“You suspect foul play?” Jasa's tension was making Fee nervous, too.
The doctor shrugged, then pushed up Fee's sleeve and carefully draped the blue gel over Fee's arm. It instantly firmed up, wrapping itself around her and becoming warmer. “For the last month, we've been on the brink of war with the Tecran. And while the fight's been taken to the United Council chambers, foul play is definitely something that springs to mind more often than it used to. The Garmman were implicated in the invasion as well, although they claim they had no idea what the Tecran and one of their own councilors was up to. That's why we have the remaining Garmman councilor, Vilk, on board. He just met with Battle Center and the Grih's leaders to assure us the Garmman are not in league with the Tecran and have no plans for a war with us, and now we're returning him to Garmman airspace. He insisted on a Grih battleship to take him to Battle Center and back so there would be no Garmman military craft in our territory, as a sign of goodwill.”
“So what happens now?” Fee remembered how nervous Vilk had been when he'd seen her, how he'd spoken of her as if she were a major spanner in the works. Her being on a Garmman ship was obviously bad for the Garmman reputation.
Jasa shrugged. “Nothing we can do but try to get comms back up and stay on task; drop Vilk off, and then head back. We're nearly at Larga Ways anyway. We'd be there already if we hadn't encountered those Krik.” She picked up another gel circle, slid it under the waistband of Fee's pants, over her bruised hip. Again, it became firmer, seemed to grip her skin, and heated up.
Fee lay back on the bed and Jasa slid on a head band of sorts and warmth blossomed where she'd been hit behind the ear.
She closed her eyes, let the soothing warmth of the gel pads and the gentle hum that seemed to vibrate through the ship lull her into a light doze.
She vaguely registered a chime from a handheld and Jasa leaving the room.
When the door opened again, she jerked awake, body turning slightly away from the threat, shoulders hunching.
She looked over her shoulder, and saw Captain Vakeri glowering from the doorway, his face so furious that she curled a little tighter before she forced herself to straighten and sit up.
They stared at each other for a long, tense beat.
“I told you,” Vakeri said, his voice deeper than before but just as harsh, “no one will hurt you here.”
Fee lifted both brows and looked over his shoulder to Pila and Carmain standing just outside the door.
Vakeri followed her gaze, grimaced, and then stepped fully into the room and closed the door.
“Even if they weren't there as a constant reminder that someone could try to hurt me here, I can't turn off my reactions in a couple of hours after over two months on Tak's ship.” She was so indignant, she realized she was speaking louder than she intended and took a deep breath.
Vakeri did the same, looking away from her to the screen on the far wall. “My apologies. You're right, but seeing you so afraid of me just because I caught you by surprise was . . . disturbing.”
It was no picnic for her, either. Knowing Tak would be thrown into a deep, dark hole certainly helped, though.
Vakeri eventually looked back at her, and she acknowledged his anger on her behalf was . . . nice. She hadn't felt grateful to anyone for a long time.
“Doctor Jasa says you know Rose McKenzie.” He shifted, putting his feet apart and his hands behind his back, as if he was questioning her in an official capacity.
She frowned. “I know of her. We've never met.”
“You sure about that?” He was watching her so closely, she began to lose the warm glow she'd had for him. It was like he was trying to trip her up.
“I'm pretty sure I'd remember.” She leaned back on the bed. “She was abducted a month before I was, so unless she was on the same ship as me, and saw me while I was under sedation . . .” Fee tried to work out what that would mean if it were true, and how it could be so important to Vakeri.
“And you remember nothing about your abduction, nothing about where you were kept?”
Fee narrowed her eyes. “No. It isn't a big secret. If I knew something, I promise, I'd tell you. I want the bastards to pay for snatching me, so believe me, I wouldn't hesitate to point the finger, if I had any idea who to point it at.”
“So why are you so sure Tak wasn't the one who took you?”
Fee hugged her knees. “Because I came briefly awake a few times, and the place where I was was light, all clear glass, and there were animals around me. I can't really remember clearly, it was like a waking dream, but I thought I saw . . .” She didn't know the Grih word for parrot, so she shook her head and tried again. “I thought I saw birds from my planet, but just for a moment or two, and then I went back under. It happened about three or four times, and then I woke in a cell on Tak's ship. The smell was different, the light was different, the material my cell was made of was different, even the sound of the engine was different.”
She thought back to those first few days when she'd slowly shaken off the stupor of sedation, when she'd walked the confines of her cell and realized there was no escape, and then had to come to grips with the fact that her guards were not human, and that she didn't understand them, or know where she was.
It was the darkest time of her life.
The handheld that had been left in her cell with her had five languages on it, and she had learned the language of her captors first, and because she'd heard the guards speak of them, she'd learned Grihan next.
Bukari had been her latest foray, but she hadn't gotten far.
“Probably, if I'd understood Garmman when I first woke up, I'd have heard more useful gossip about how I got there from my guards. By the time I could understand them, they'd moved on to new topics, but I did hear enough to work out I'd been handed over quietly, and most of the crew hadn't even known there was an exchange.”
Vakeri gave a slow nod. “That tallies with what Rial and Favri have got from the crew. They woke up one day and you were in the cell.”
“What about Tak, Hury and Lon Sang? If anyone knows, it's them.”
Vakeri's lips twisted in disgust. “Yes. But they aren't talking.”
She would have thought Hury and Lon Sang would talk, even if Tak remained stubborn. Her surprise must have shown.
“They're afraid. They know the Tecran will try to silence anyone who can testify they stole another wo
man from Earth, as well as Rose McKenzie. The Tecran defense has been it was a once-off error in judgment, but that'll be harder to sell if it comes out there is a second abductee. Their position on the United Council is so precarious, this revelation may be what pushes them out.”
Fee flinched. “What might they do to the walking, talking proof of their abduction?”
Vakeri eyed her with what looked like respect. “Nothing good. You're in danger from them, which is why I've got Pila and Carmain watching you. Jasa said she told you there are a few Grihan officers who seem to be working for the Tecran. It's probable none are on my ship, but just in case, you have protection. And when we get to Larga Ways, you'll have to stay on the Illium.”
“What is Larga Ways?”
“It's a small orbital to the planet Balco. It's a way station for traders so they don't incur the expense and time of entering and leaving Balco's atmosphere. And Balco is near the border of Grih and Garmman airspace, so Larga Ways acts as a border post of sorts.”
“Will it be a quick stop?”
“Yes. I have Krik to catch.” Vakeri looked like he couldn't wait.
She wondered if Gerwa would rat her out if Vakeri did catch him and tell the Grihan captain about the encryptor.
Well, if that happened, so be it. But she had a feeling Gerwa would rather keep the device a secret.
He'd been very unwilling to hand it over.
“So, where did Gerwa and his crew end up?” she asked.
Vakeri came to attention so fast, Fee had to force herself not to flinch, and when he took a step toward her, she sat a little straighter so she didn't feel so vulnerable.
“Gerwa?” he asked.
“The Krik battalion leader.” She watched him carefully.
“He told you his name?” Vakeri sounded incredulous.
Fee nodded.
He stared at her. “Perhaps,” he said in a clipped tone, “you should tell me was said between you. I was under the impression they hit you, you told them where the emergency pod was, and they left.”
Dark Deeds (Class 5 Series Book 2) Page 6