“So that leaves us back where we were.”
“What about the object on the surface I saw?” Nelyubov asked.
Shaking his head, Cunningham said, “We’ve gone over the whole area five times, and drawn a blank. No sign of anything unusual, and certainly no sign of any sort of blue light.”
“Everyone flying over it saw something,” he pressed. “We couldn’t all be wrong.”
“Did you see it again when you were on your way up?” Marshall asked.
“No, but I wasn’t looking.”
“We could send a probe down.” Caine suggested. “If we were careful about it, we could make it clear that we weren’t launching at the enemy ship.”
“Except that we’d be letting them know that there was a part of the planet we were especially interested in. I’m almost certain that they still have boots on the ground, and we can’t be certain that they aren’t able to communicate with them. As it stands, they have enough advantages already.”
There was a knock on the door, and Evans cautiously stepped in, looking around at the officers as Nelyubov rose to his feet, gesturing her to take his chair. Still hesitant, she sat down, perching on the edge of the seat as though expecting to be tipped out of it.
“You wanted to see me, sir,” she said.
“Quite right. First of all, my compliments on what you did down there on the surface. Good work.”
“I didn’t do very much, sir.”
With a smile, Marshall said, “I understand you’ve opted to return to Midshipman rank. I’d be perfectly happy for you to continue as Acting Sub-Lieutenant.”
“I only had the job for a little while, sir, and there are plenty of better officers around.”
“That’s a matter of opinion. You’re up for your boards in a few weeks, aren’t you?”
Nodding, she replied, “Yes, sir. My tour of duty is about up.”
“I don’t think you have anything to worry about, and we’ll get you home as soon as we can. I’m sure all of you are up for some leave.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“At the moment, you are the only officer we have from the station, so we need to ask you a few questions. Are you up to it? The doctor seemed uncertain.”
“I’m fine, sir. Honestly. I was going to ask if you wanted me to man a duty station.”
“Appreciated, but that won’t be necessary.”
“In that case I volunteer to return to the surface to rescue the…”
Raising a hand, Marshall said, “If that mission launches, I’ll be at the controls myself, and that isn’t in prospect while that ship is here.”
“I’m sorry, sir.”
“Don’t apologize, Midshipman. What we especially want to know is any theories you have about what might have drawn that ship here.”
She paused, shook her head, and said, “I can’t think of anything, sir, or I’d have told you before this. To be honest, the last year has been rather tedious.”
“Nothing wrong with a boring tour of duty on occasion,” Cunningham said. “I must try it some time.”
“Speaking purely personally, I find boredom overrated,” Nelyubov replied.
“Sorry, Frank, I forgot.”
“There must be something,” Caine pressed. “What long-term projects were you working on? The station, I mean.”
“The Commander was surveying the system. He and the station geologist went back a long way, I think they were old war buddies, and he had some idea of finding sites for potential commercial exploitation.” She looked around, and said, “I think we all thought that we were stuck in a bit of a backwater, and were trying to find some reason for it to open up a bit.”
“Mineral deposits?” Cunningham asked. “Did they find anything?”
“Not that I know of, but they were keeping it to themselves a lot more lately. I think because they weren’t finding much, but I know that they were spending a lot of time in the science labs.” She paused, then said, “There were some rumors flying around.”
“Go on, Midshipman.”
“I don’t know if I…”
“Speak,” Caine said. “The dead won’t care, but I will if we add to their ranks unnecessarily.”
“There was talk that they’d found something, and the rumor was that they were planning to keep it to themselves.” The words tumbled over each other, all in a rush. “That the Commander was leaving the service in a year or two, and that they would make use of it then.”
“Do you believe it?”
“I didn’t want to, sir, but they were spending more and more time locked up in the geology lab. I know there was a mission down to the planet scheduled for, well, today, actually. That’s why we landed where we did, we already had some supplies down there, and the courses had been pre-loaded.”
“That sounds very specific.”
“It was, sir,” she said. “It was just going to be the two of them, and it had been made perfectly clear that we weren’t to ask any questions.”
“The light,” Nelyubov said. “I’d bet it had something to do with that. Who started these rumors?”
“Do we need to know, Frank?” Cunningham asked.
“We do if that might be how someone found out about what they had found. All of this sounds like too much of a coincidence to me.” Turning back to Evans, he asked, “We know that people came through the station from UN territory on occasion. How did that happen?”
“There were a couple of freighters that stopped off here. Again, the Commander told us not to ask too many questions about it, but I had the impression that it had something to do with Triplanetary Intelligence. They’d pick up cargoes at times, and a few people would pass through on their way to Ragnarok. Only one way, inbound. Never back.”
“Where the hell is Logan when we need him?” Caine asked, shaking her head. “It does sound logical enough, if we’re helping out the UN rebels. A quiet, out of the way station not far from the border. It fits.”
“Which means that someone has got into the intelligence networks,” Marshall said. He tapped a sequence of buttons on his datapad, then passed it over to Evans. “Do you recognize this man?”
She looked down at the face, nodded, and said, “He came in on the Maltese Falcon, about three weeks ago. They took a load of materials out again, just left him behind. I think he’s on Ragnarok, sir.”
“He’s in our morgue, Midshipman. He died in an attempt to kill me on Hunter Station.” Looking at Nelyubov, he said, “I don’t think we have to look far to find the source of the intelligence leak. When did the Commander start acting strangely?”
“About a month ago, after he’d done some digging on the planet.”
“Then they picked up on the rumor, did a little investigating, and decided to come and take a look.”
“I don’t buy it,” Cunningham said. “They wouldn’t got to all this trouble for some mineral deposits, even valuable ones. Unless it was something amazing, and even then, why keep it a secret?”
“If he was planning to exploit it himself…,” Nelyubov began, but Marshall shook his head.
“He wouldn’t get away with it in a million years, and he’d know it. And unless his pension is a hell of a lot bigger than mine, he wouldn’t have anywhere near the money he’d need for anything other than a little light prospecting. Hardly seems worth it. No, there’s something more here.”
“We need to go and look for ourselves,” Nelyubov pressed. “We have Shuttle Two, and I can be on the way in fifteen minutes. I’m willing to run the gauntlet. I think I can get down into the atmosphere before they can launch missiles.”
“We had three shuttles when we started, and we’re down to one. I’m not willing to risk the equipment, and frankly, I’m not willing to risk you either,” Marshall replied. “Is there anything else, Midshipman? Anything else we need to know?”
“I can’t think of anything, sir.”
“Then go back to sickbay, get yourself checked out, and get some rest. If you still want to return to duty, let Mr. Cunningham know, and he’ll assign you a station.”
“Thank you, Captain.”
“Dismissed.”
She stood up, walking out of the room, the others waiting for her to leave. Nelyubov walked over to the viewport, looking out at the slowly rotating planet below.
“We can’t leave, sir. Not without the secret. If it is important enough for them to attack one of our stations, we need to know what it is.”
“Can we talk to the station? Let them know?” Caine asked.
“Know what?” Marshall replied. “All we have at the moment is guesswork, and communicating with them would be difficult in any case. Go and have a word with the science team. Maybe the samples we got from the surface will give us something to go on. Until then, we wait.”
“For what?” Nelyubov asked.
“If I knew that, Lieutenant, I wouldn’t be waiting for it, I’d be doing it.”
Chapter 20
Bartlett stepped cautiously into Weapons Control, Salazar sitting inside frantically typing commands into a console, shaking his head and swearing under his breath in four different languages. He turned with a start and gestured for him to come in.
“Misery loves company,” Salazar said.
“What’s the problem?”
“You mean aside from us being cut off from the ship, with an enemy vessel blockading the station and able to wipe us out at the blink of an eye, and nothing we can do to stop them, unable even to take to the escape pods because of a damn-fool stunt of mine that threw them away?”
With a grin, Bartlett said, “Yes, sir. Apart from that.”
Thumping the console, he said, “I’ve got the combat fabricators working.”
“That’s good news.”
“It would be if we could actually make missiles with them.” He gestured at the screen, watching blueprints spin around on the display. “See here?”
“What am I looking at?”
“That’s where the guidance system should be.”
“I don’t get you.”
Shaking his head, he said, “Guidance technology is evolving all the time, a lot faster than missile tech, so our lords and masters in their infinite wisdom decreed that guidance systems are plug-in modules for the missiles, both in separate files. It usually doesn’t matter much, if at all, because the system just does all the construction work for us.”
“And?”
“I just got back from the databanks. Someone tried to do some hacking down there, and I mean the kind that uses an axe. I don’t know whether our friends out there were trying to steal components, or someone decided to secure classified information, but the end result is that we don’t have any guidance system designs on board. Or about a thousand other things, but fortunately only one of them is critical.”
“I wondered what was up with the coffee.” With a shrug, Bartlett said, “Contact Alamo, let them know the problem, and they can send us some new data.”
“How?”
“The communications system is working fine, sir. I’ve gone over it twice. All green.”
“With an enemy ship blocking our line of sight, how do we fire a message laser? They positioned themselves very carefully, I suspect for precisely that reason. As for the normal systems, we can’t guarantee that Alamo is the only other ship that can hear us. Besides, guidance control is extremely complicated. It’d take at least fifteen minutes to transmit the data, maybe more.” Shaking his head, he continued, “And not that it matters, but even that would violate regulations on the transmission of classified material. It’s supposed to be physical delivery only.”
“Not to mention that if the enemy ship thought that we were vulnerable, and that the vulnerability would be ending any minute…”
“It would probably force their hand, and they’d launch an attack, wiping us out before we could be a threat.”
“Tricky. There must be an answer.”
“Maybe, but I haven’t got the first idea where to start looking for one.” Tapping a control, he said, “No point even depleting our stores.”
“Can’t we launch them without guidance systems?”
“Shotgun? That would only work if they were really close, I mean a few dozen miles away, and didn’t have a chance to maneuver. Not really practical, except as a last resort.”
“Then right now, we’re unarmed.”
“That’s pretty much it.”
“Can we put together something new?”
His eyes widening, Salazar replied, “Not without a hundred-strong research team, a few hundred million credits, and a top design laboratory. And about six months.”
“We must be able to come up with something that’ll do the job. Adapt something.”
“Not a chance. Not in the time.”
Frowning, Bartlett said, “You said that the actual physical memory had been removed.”
“Yes.”
“Could it be repaired?”
After a pause, Salazar nodded, and said, “If the actual datachips were intact, then we could just plug them in somewhere else. I think I know what you are getting at.”
“No reason why they wouldn’t hide them somewhere on the station.”
“Assuming it was our people that took them, not the enemy.”
“If the enemy’s got the chips already, then Alamo might as well take the risk of sending them to us, I guess.”
Pulling out his datapad, Salazar started to flick through blueprints, and said, “No-one’s been into the mineralogy lab yet. That might be worth a look.” Sliding off his chair and to his feet, he said, “Come on. I need to clear my head, if nothing else.”
“You need to be a bit more visible as well,” Bartlett said. “Everyone’s beginning to get worried.”
“They’ve got good reason,” he replied, stepping out of the room. The central corridor was deserted, everyone either at combat stations or deep in the bowels of the station, trying to get it operational again. The duty roster suggested that most of them felt like Salazar, wanting solitude, scattering themselves around.
“The shuttle’s ready for launch,” Bartlett said. “We could have a try with that, couldn’t we?”
“As a last resort, I would, but I’m not that optimistic.”
“Come on, sir, I’ve seen you fly.”
“And I’ve seen the enemy missile systems. Fast and deadly, and we haven’t got any countermeasures to outrun them. Suddenly trying to hide out down on the planet makes a lot of sense.” He frowned, then said, “We will try it, though. No point making a last stand down here, not if we don’t have anything to shoot.”
“That’s the spirit! Don’t go down without a fight.”
“I’d really rather not go down at all.”
Running footsteps echoed from behind them, and they turned to see the severe face of Petty Officer Cook, clutching a datapad in her hand, thrusting it towards Salazar.
“Repair reports, sir.”
“Just give me a quick summary. We don’t have a lot of time.”
Scowling, she replied, “Sensors and communications are nominal, life support and power are at full operational condition, and the shuttle is on pre-flight and ready to launch at thirty seconds’ notice. I’d like to start moving everyone right away.”
“Moving them? Where to?” Salazar asked.
“The shuttle, sir. When a window to launch opens up, we’re to make full use of it. Captain’s orders.”
Shaking his head, he said, “I think it more important to keep the station running.”
“The automatic equipment is capable of handling it, sir. We need to think of the men.”
Closing his eyes for a sec
ond, Salazar took a deep breath, and said, “I need to think of the operational performance of this station. We need to be able to provide information to support any attack Alamo makes, as well as continuing to monitor for any sign of the people still down on the planet.”
“Sir, I…”
“Did Captain Marshall specifically orders us all to sit in the shuttle for the next three days, waiting for a launch window that might never come?”
Shaking her head, she said, “No, sir.”
“Then set up a watch schedule in Operations, and another for a damage control team, two and two, and the others can go off-duty and get some rest. Those not at a duty station will be in the shuttle, they can rest in there. Is that understood?”
“Yes, sir. Understood.”
“Then go get to it.” He sighed, then said, “And put yourself off-duty for this watch as well. We’ve all been working around the clock, and you can’t live on stimulants and coffee forever. Even NCOs.”
Nodding, she replied, “Aye, sir,” turned, and walked away down the deck.
“You really are good at making friends, sir,” Bartlett said. “She’s already writing her report to Captain Marshall, you know.”
“It’ll fit nicely in with the rest of my service record.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
“If I worried about what other people thought of me, I’d have been in civilian clothes long ago. We’ve got a job to do.” Drawing level with the laboratory door, he said, “Let’s see what the geologist was playing with.” Frowning, he asked, “Did he make it down to the surface?”
“Killed in the crash,” Bartlett said, “according to our last report from Alamo. They haven’t got around to debriefing the survivors yet. What about a relay?”
“What?”
“A relay satellite. We could fire it out, and it could bounce a message laser. No danger of it being intercepted that way.”
“Even if they didn’t misinterpret it as an attack and blow us into lots of very small pieces, they’d knock down the satellite before we could transmit a megabyte of data. Keep thinking, though. We’ll come up with something yet.”
Battlecruiser Alamo: Aces High Page 17