by Dan Thompson
He grinned at that, remembering a rather scandalous room service call Josie had made before dawn the night they had spent at the Spire back on Taschin. “I suppose we’ll just give them their privacy and keep them fed.”
She allowed a small chuckle. “More protein … that was what she said. He needs more protein.”
“Anything else?”
“No, but at least I didn’t have to deal with Vivian’s mess this morning.”
Michael raised an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”
“She might be great with the engines for all I know, but that woman should not be allowed anywhere near a kitchen. Four scorched pans in the six days of that last leg. At least with her on days, I can keep her on the safe side of the buffet.”
“So you knew about the change?”
“Of shifts? Hell, yes. I was talking to Hector about it before we hit Rapoen.” She shook her head and bit into her taco. “I only wish it had happened sooner.”
Michael finished his breakfast, thanked her, and headed back to his cabin. His uniform was starting to feel ripe, so he took a quick shower and put on a fresh one before starting his shift. He caught Richard as he was leaving the bridge. “Everything smooth, Mr. Mosley?”
“Smooth enough, sir, though we’re getting a lot of minor instabilities in the upper derivatives. It might be the leading edge of a storm, so I told Mr. Rodriguez to keep a sharp eye on things. Other than that, all is well. I was just going to stop off and compliment Miss Vargas on last night’s dinner. Best I’ve had since we left Taschin.”
“I think she’ll appreciate that,” he said, and headed forward to the bridge.
Carlos looked up from the navigation console. “You heard about the storm?”
“Mr. Mosley mentioned it. Do you see anything yet?”
“Not yet. I really want to look at the overnight log to see what he saw, but if we are heading into a storm, I don’t want to be caught looking the other way when it hits.” He motioned to the pilot’s console beside him. “Perhaps you could give it a quick look?”
Michael sat down beside him and pulled up the log. He set it to highlight inflection points and found a huge cluster of them from two hours before. He expanded them into a series of snapshots and could see why Richard had been so worried. There were dozens of them, jumping back and forth, hinting at wind changes and then reversing. If that was truly the leading edge of a storm, they were in for a very rough ride.
“Anything on the charts?” he asked.
“No,” Carlos replied. “The latest updates we got at Rapoen show the route to Ballison as green-two with only a minor yellow flag on the final approach. But the data on the galactic north is old, maybe two months. If it’s dropping down from there, we could get slammed hard.”
Michael looked at them again, trying to remember everything his cousin Gabrielle had told him about the shape of storm fronts. Leading shockwaves were common indicators of that, but these somehow looked wrong for that. They were too sharp and far too regular. In fact, he realized while looking at a pair of them, they looked suspiciously like the inflections Carlos had pointed out back near Taschin as likely wakes.
He glanced at Carlos and saw his eyes focused hard on his own console. Angling his shoulder to offer a little extra privacy, he tapped in a few commands to enable the display of the Sophie’s sail profiles. The result was a flood of ship detections.
The sail profiles came first, a mess of multiple detections with varying degrees of identification. The display listed everything from single-sail configurations up to vast arrays of eight or more sails. Michael had never even heard of any sail configuration that complex, so he began to wonder about the accuracy of all this. After all, maybe it was simply turning the random fluctuations of a storm front into phantom ships.
But further into the log, the identifications cleared up. The eight-sail array was listed as the CFS Defiant, which Malcolm’s database listed as a carrier attached to the twelfth fleet. Another eight-sail array was listed as a probable carrier, but it did not identify the vessel. Others followed: seven cruisers with six sails apiece, a dozen ships listed as likely frigates, and four tiny single-sail ships identified as naval couriers. The only other positive identification was on one of the cruisers, the CFS Hidalgo. He smiled to himself, remembering his brief time on board.
He disabled the sail profiles and logged out of the secure mode. After leaving himself logged in the last time he had checked those modes, he made certain that he was logged out this time. Looking at what was left, he gathered up three pairs of the sharper inflections that corresponded to three of the wake detections and stretched them out to fill his own display. “These look a lot like those ship transits you were telling me about when we were leaving Taschin.”
Carlos glanced over briefly and nodded. “Yeah, that stabby little peak in the second derivative, that’s what I’m always talking about. What about those profile things that we saw last week? Anything there?”
Michael shrugged and did his best to look noncommittal. “I took a peek, but it was a mess.”
Carlos looked back to his own display and relaxed back into his seat. “Well, if it was simply other traffic, then we don’t have anything to worry about. Still, would have been nice to know who it was.”
It was very likely the twelfth fleet out on some tour of duty, though the profile system had not matched their course to any known pair of ports. For all Michael knew, they could have been out hunting for Elsa Watkins or Father Chessman, but he was not ready to talk to anyone about that. “Like I said, I wouldn’t trust those systems. It identified one of the transients as being us and the other, if you can believe it, as being the Rapoen station.”
Carlos raised an eyebrow, but shook his head. “I don’t think we’re going to run afoul of the station out here, so I’ll let that slide.”
Michael did not want to dig into it any further so he switched tracks. “So, what’s your take on the engineering switch? Are you working well with Vivian?”
“Yeah, she’s good.”
“Better than Dieter?”
He frowned. “Not better, not worse. Just good.”
“Are you okay with the switch?”
Carlos looked around the empty bridge and then back to Michael. “Can I speak my mind, Skipper?”
Michael nodded. “Always.”
Carlos shook his head. “Look, Skipper, you’re making too big a deal of this. It sounds like you’ve been crawling around asking everyone on board what they think of this. Hell, for all I know you busted in on those two kids in the middle of some marathon sex to ask them about it. But the simple truth is that two or three of your crew were having a problem, and they worked it out for themselves. Problem solved. The only one still thinking about this is you, and if you’ll take advice from someone who’s bounced around ships longer than … well, let’s be honest, sir, longer than you’ve been alive … I think you should drop it.”
Michael’s face went flush, but he was not sure if it was anger or embarrassment. “But, Mr. Rodriguez, I’m the captain of this ship. I need to know what’s happening on my ship.”
Carlos scowled. “What, down to the last detail? Shall I call you when I’m wiping my ass?”
“Of course not, but …”
“But shit, Skipper. Crew makes the ship work. You’ve got to trust them to do that, and I don’t mean reading the screens and flipping the switches. No disrespect, sir, but a seasoned captain would know that.”
Michael was sure now. It was anger. He stood and opened his mouth, but nothing came out.
Carlos glanced up at him. “I think I’m done speaking my mind, sir.”
He stood there another moment, trying to find something to lash out with, but he failed. In silence, he stalked to the back of the bridge, tried once more to find a comeback, and then headed to his cabin.
He was furious. He wanted to hit something. In fact, he had half a mind to go down to the gym and take out his frustration on the punching bag. Was
this why Malcolm had installed it in the first place? But the truth of it was that as angry as he was with Carlos for what he had said, he also knew Carlos was right.
Damn it.
Bishop walked down the ramp at Cenita station, but this time there was no one waiting for him in the crowd. Along with his new identity as Victor Trent, Elsa had given him an encrypted file of instructions from Father Chessman. “Proceed to Cenita, check into Cabellos Casa and wait for further instructions. Arrive no later than the thirteenth.”
Cabellos Casa was down two rings in a section dominated by local residents and industry. The desk was staffed by an attractive young woman in an ill-fitting hat and vest that was probably never in style in any era. “Victor Trent, checking in.”
She scanned her screen and nodded. “Yes sir, we have your room ready, and I believe we have a package for you.” She disappeared into a back room for a moment and emerged with a brightly decorated envelope. “I see you’re here for the livestock conference. We have quite a few of you this week.”
He took the envelope along with his key and headed for his room. Once inside, he sat down at the corner desk and tore it open. It truly was an information packet for some livestock conference. “Taking Stock in Lives” was the title. He shook his head and scanned through it. There were the usual freebie inserts, the most unusual among them an old-style pocket watch with a bull’s head embossed on the cover.
The conference was to begin the next day, and according to the schedule, it was a very full day. Three tracks of presentations began at nine, and the trade show floor opened at eleven. Both then ran on until six. The next three days were similar with an option for a tour down to one of Cenita’s ranches on the final day.
But the most important of all of it was a small addendum showing meetings scheduled for Mr. Victor Trent of Hannover Shipping. There were five total, all scheduled for the first two days. Three were with vendors, one with a rancher of some kind, and one with a health code advocate. He was not sure which, but he was confident that one of these would be his next contact.
Until then, there seemed little else to do, so he turned on the wall computer and ordered room service. According to one of the brochures, this was supposed to be an excellent world for venison.
Michael stared at the two pictures he had of Elsa Watkins: her younger passport photo and that of the older raven-haired Jana Lewis. This was a much better place to focus his rage than on Carlos. Carlos had been trying to help him. Elsa Watkins had been plotting to kill him. For all he knew, she still was.
The younger version had blonde hair and high cheekbones, strongly highlighted by a ridge of freckles. The older picture was paler, almost gray, and those cheeks were gone. Was it merely the lack of freckles, or had she actually undergone surgery? The nose was different as well. It was much more angular and seemed a little longer. The eyes had changed color as well, but the way they sat on her face, the way the brows framed them, that was the same.
He pulled up the old pictures of the other survivors of Malcolm’s witch hunt. Gunter Farlin had been in command of the Reilly when it had destroyed the Kaiser’s Folly and murdered Sophia and Peter. Malcolm’s notes listed him as a possibility for the elusive Father Chessman, but so were twelve other men as well as three women.
The man in this picture was in his 30s with vivid blue eyes and lush blond hair draping down to this shoulders. He was officially dead, lost in the Lorista disaster back in 3382 shortly after the war ended. Then again, Elsa Watkins had been officially dead as well. Michael tried to picture Gunter with different hair or eyes, but it was pointless. With enough modifications here or there, Michael’s imagination could have turned him into almost anyone.
The next was Johannes Richter. Malcolm’s notes listed him as having been in charge of the Reilly’s boarding team. He had a broad nose and an almost permanent squint to his eyes. His skin was deeply tanned, but it was hard to make out any underlying ethnic background from the single picture. Then again, out here in the far-flung colonies, everyone was a mixed genetic bag. The only true ethnicities were either back on Earth or some of the older colony worlds where local conditions had begun to leave their mark on the population.
Still, there was something impressive about his face. Michael tried to call it sinister, but he knew better. It was that look of quiet command. The rest of the notes listed him as a decorated marine lieutenant. He had done two tours of combat in border skirmishes with the Shiantic Ribbon in the 3370s before serving two years in a special team with Naval Intelligence. Malcolm’s notes had two screens’ worth of entries under that, but they mostly consisted of “information request denied” with dates and contacts.
Michael thought about the four chess pieces Malcolm had used in the security challenge to the chess files. The white king was obviously Father Chessman. Michael could see it no other way. The white queen he associated with Elsa Watkins. He thought about assigning the white knight to this Richter fellow, but this secret program gave him more of an air of mystery. The bishop seemed more appropriate.
Michael allowed a brief smile, remembering Mr. Bishop, the security chief of the Blue Jaguar. He had seemed so serenely vicious at the time, but Michael enjoyed a perverse pleasure at the idea of him locked away in some navy prison.
He pulled up the last file, Stefan Carrillo, whom he was already thinking of as the white knight. It made sense, actually, since he was listed not only as one of the Reilly’s boarders, but Malcolm’s notes identified him as the lead jumper. Michael’s experience with ship-to-ship boarding was limited to the movies, but he knew combat boarders often jetted over riding one-man armed harnesses. In many ways, they were overpowered versions of the same cargo loaders the Sophie- used, but he would not be the first to romanticize them as horses. They were sometimes called the Dark Cavalry, like the ancient horse-riding warriors of old Earth.
But there was no official picture. Instead, there was a note that Carrillo’s profile in the Confederate Port Registry system had been corrupted sometime during the war. Michael found that unlikely given the supposed reliability of holographic backup memory, but the notes continued that the backups Malcolm accessed from different locations showed six different pictures. They were attached, so Michael glanced at them, and they looked nothing like one another, with skin tones ranging from dark black through a pinkish Caucasian with scars, hair color from black to blond, and eye colors from across the spectrum, including one picture where the man’s left eye was green while the right was brown. Malcolm’s final note on all of these read, “The tampering with backups suggests two things. First, despite the death certificate and autopsy, Stefan Carrillo is very likely alive, and second, the need to remove the images from the record suggests Carrillo has some medical problem with surgical alteration and/or genetic re-expression therapies.”
There was one final picture, though, that Malcolm’s notes marked as being from a hardcopy kept by a childhood girlfriend of Carrillo’s. Here, he was merely an adolescent: thin, pimpled, with red hair hanging down low in front, almost covering the left eye. He looked far too innocent to grow into a trained killer, but clearly, he did. There was something eerily familiar about the eyes though, but Michael could not place it.
He shook his head and closed the file. He had looked at too many faces for one night.
Elsa Watkins boarded the Fat Grizzly with her three team members in tow. A woman waited for them inside the airlock. The gold triangle on her collar identified her as the first officer. “Welcome aboard, my Lady,” she said. “Captain Gallows wanted me to see you and your team to your cabins.”
“Thank you, Miss …”
“Davies, ma’am. Celeste Davies.”
“You can see my team off to their quarters, but I want to speak to Captain Gallows immediately.”
The first officer waved another crewman forward. “Please escort these gentlemen to their cabins on deck four. And if you’ll follow me, my Lady, I will take you to the bridge.”
They moved
forward and split off from her team at the first down ladder. “The bridge is on deck two,” Davies commented.
“I know,” Elsa replied. “I’m familiar with this class of ships.” She watched how the young officer moved. There was something unnaturally crisp about her bearing. “Tell me, Miss Davies, how long have you been in the organization.”
“Four years, ma’am.”
“And before?”
She paused at the foot of a ladder. “I was at loose ends when I joined, but before that I did two and a half tours in the Union Navy.”
“And how did you manage that last half tour?”
She closed her eyes, took a breath, and fixed Elsa with a steady glare. “You can see my dishonorable discharge if you want the details, ma’am, but the real issue was the lack of advancement. Beyond a certain point, the Union’s Navy is a men’s only club.”
“And the Confederate or Catai navies?”
Davies shrugged. “It doesn’t matter how you explain it, ma’am. After a court martial, the only government that might have taken me is the damned Shiantics, and they’re even worse than the Union boys.”
Elsa nodded, remembering her own experience with the officers of the Solarian Union. “Well, I’m glad you landed with us. I can speak from personal experience that the Yoshido organization bases advancement on merit, not on the size of your balls.”
Davies smirked. “Thank you for saying so, ma’am.” She started up the ladder. “But as I’ve always said, my balls are so big I had to put them on my chest.”
Elsa followed her with a grin. This was her kind of officer.
The bridge was directly ahead through a pair of hatches. She noted the decompression safety design with approval. Her old Blue Jaguar had been much faster than the Grizzly was rated for, but this ship seemed to be built much more for battle. Stepping forward, she saw Davies whispering in the ear of her captain as he sat in his seat on the bridge.