“What assurances?” The woman at the end of the table opposite Admiral Ayala wore a uniform as black as the emptiness outside and that seemed to mirror the emptiness inside her. After a decade as Director of Central Intelligence, Colonel Maria Tirseer seemed to have been hollowed out. Years of overseeing torture and execution did that to a person, Bayne supposed.
“That I’d provide them safe passage to wherever it was they wanted to go,” Bayne answered. “And I don’t believe this is where they wanted to go.”
“Got that right,” Wilco said with a chuckle.
The council seemed to have forgotten the boy was there. Several cast him sidelong glances.
Admiral Ayala wove her fingers together and rested her chin on them like they were a hammock. “Matters of system security trump your word to a couple space rats.”
“Rude,” Wilco said as he picked as his teeth with Grisholm’s pen. The portly finance minister snatched it back with a guttural sound of disgust.
Bayne held back a smile. He enjoyed watching the fat bureaucrat squirm. “What bearing do a couple space rats have on system security?”
“Can we stop with the space rats?” Wilco objected.
Captain Milo Pratchett bristled at the indignation of the whole affair. He was the Navy’s most decorated captain and considered one of a few in line to succeed Ayala. Much like Mao, he lived and breathed and ate and shat protocol, but with a much more diminished sense of humor. He and Bayne shared a deep dislike of one another.
“It seems your time with the space rats has rubbed off on you,” Pratchett said to Bayne. “You both display egregious disrespect for this council and for the admiral in particular, who has afforded you far more leniency than you deserve.”
“Leniency I’ve earned doing the work you wouldn’t dare for fear of soiling your white gloves,” Bayne shot back.
Pratchett made to counter, but Ayala stood, driving her fists into the table. “This meeting is adjourned.” Her declaration was quiet and firm, not an outburst of temper, though none were misguided as to her mood. “Thank you, Councilors. We will continue our debrief at the scheduled meeting tomorrow.”
The councilors rose from their chairs and shuffled out of the room. Grisholm huffed and snorted like an offended boar. Colonel Tirseer moved like a shadow. Pratchett remained still, as though waiting for something.
“Captain Bayne,” Ayala said. “You stay.” Pratchett seemed to deflate, his puffed-up chest wheezing as the pride let out. “Wilco,” the admiral said to the boy as he followed the wave of others. “You are to report to the Intelligence Office immediately. Ensign Willis will escort you.” She pointed to a thin, young man, barely older than Wilco.
Wilco’s irreverent smile never wavered, but he looked to Bayne for some unspoken guidance. Bayne spied some worry in the boy’s eyes. He tried to return some assurance but was unsuccessful.
Soon, Bayne and Ayala were the only two in the room, and he felt a weight on his chest.
“What of the other one?” Bayne asked. “Hepzah.”
Ayala sat back down, rubbing her hands together as if to keep them warm. “He’s been granted leave to return to your ship. What little information he had that interests me has been collected. Wilco, however, seems teeming with it.”
The image of the pirate falling dead, the knife in his neck, flashed in Bayne’s head. Wilco plucking it out of the dead pirate. Every decision Bayne made in the boy’s company replayed. Every violation of protocol. The altercation with the Black Hole. The incident in Ore Town. His meeting Parallax. He tried to piece together what the boy knew and separate that from what Hep knew. Why was Wilco so interesting?
“But that’s not why you’re really here, is it?” Ayala said. “Ask me.”
A host of questions ran through Bayne’s mind. Ayala couldn’t have been expecting the majority of them.
Were the Rangers really gunned down as Parallax claims?
If not, where are they?
Did you sanction their murder?
If so, why?
How can you still claim the moral imperative in the system? To be the arbiter of justice?
How can you look yourself in the mirror, you goddamn hypocrite?
Then he landed on a question he knew she’d expect. “Am I still captain of my ship?”
The admiral let out a long sigh, a sign that she was tired. Not physically, but emotionally. Mentally. Deep in her soul. The life seemed to ebb from her. “It’s not your ship, Drummond.” It seemed laborious to remind him. “The Blue belongs to the Navy. But, yes, you are still captain.”
“When can I leave?”
Another question and another apparent nail in Ayala’s side. “You, your crew, and the ship need to be evaluated first. And the Joint Council is not done with the debrief of your last tour. This business with Ore Town is no small matter. It has the doomsayers on the council worried that the entire social order is on the verge of collapse.”
She stood with some effort and paced the length of the table, dragging her hand along its smooth surface. She stared off at something Bayne could not see. A time when she didn’t feel crushed by administration, perhaps. Or a moment when she wasn’t tasked with keeping order amongst a band of people who’d rather knock each other’s teeth out.
A pang of sympathy pierced Bayne’s side. He knew her as a warrior once. Even as the head of the council, she was fierce. Now, she was beaten down, and he was somewhat responsible.
He wavered in his belief of Parallax’s story.
And then he wavered back.
Ayala stopped by the wall-sized monitor at the far end of the room. She read the names of the sailors killed within the last month. The scroll was constant on all Navy screens in Central. She waved her hand, never turning back to look at Bayne. “That’s not a matter for the moment. We’ll discuss it another time.” She turned to face him. “I want to give you the chance to tell me, in your words, what happened out there. Is there anything you need to report?
She was trying to help him. Offering to provide him some cover. He hated her for that. Hated her for making it so hard to hate her. “No, ma’am,” he said. “Nothing to report.”
She sighed. “You’re dismissed. Get some more rest. You still look like death warmed over.”
3
The pit in Bayne’s gut rang hollower than ever after leaving the administrative offices. No answers. Not even questions asked. But seeing Ayala again, being in her presence, not just the holographic likeness of her, made Bayne waver in his pursuit.
The back and forth was making him sick. He needed solid answers, something to hold firm to. Whether it was the answer he wanted or not.
He wasn’t even sure which answer he did want.
He made his way through the bustle of Central, back toward the Blue, finding room in his crowded mind to formulate a plan. If he could not get answers from the admiral, then he would need to get them from somewhere else. There would be records, a paper trail of the orders given. He just needed to find them.
He knew where to look, but the thought of doing so left him cold—the Central Intelligence Office, the realm of Colonel Tirseer. There were none in the breadth of the United Systems with as much black ops and intelligence experience as Maria Tirseer. Her career as an operative was legendary. She toppled regimes, removed heads of state, and that was only the declassified intel Bayne was privy to as part of mission briefings. She controlled the shadows of the United Systems.
If what Parallax claimed really happened, then Colonel Tirseer would know. She would have been crucial in planning it.
But one did not stroll into Central. One was summoned. Luckily, he knew one such unlucky soul.
Hepzah had done little since they left Ore Town. When thinking on it, it seemed the boy did little in general. He showed little interest in exploring the ship or speaking with the crew. Little interest in speaking at all. Next to Wilco, the copper-skinned boy was easily forgotten. Bayne reckoned that was by design. He knew the life of a
n orphan. He knew that if you weren’t strong and confident enough to stand against whatever would beat you down, then it was best to be invisible.
And that was exactly what Bayne needed.
The boy was wallowing in his quarters, nose in a book lent to him by Dr. Simmons. She was the only one who still carried them, a collection of a dozen dusty volumes chronicling the exploits of some fictional adventurer. There was a time Bayne would have found them entertaining.
Hep’s almond-colored eyes looked like storm clouds over the edge of the book. “Captain?”
“I need your help,” Bayne said.
Sigurd said nothing. He just gave Bayne what he asked for and stepped out of the way, casting only questioning glances at the captain and the pirate waif. Mao, on the other hand, behaved typically.
“Can I ask?” the XO said.
“Would it matter if I said no?” Bayne replied.
“We are docked,” Mao said, as if to remind Bayne. “In a friendly space station. The friendliest space station, in fact. Yet you appear to be prepping for a mission.”
Bayne said nothing as he checked his sidearm, a stun gun reserved for nonlethal missions, not his standard blaster. Then he shoved a ghoster and a set of comms into a shoulder bag. “Training mission. Need to find a way to keep active while we’re docked or I’ll go stir crazy.”
“And him?” Mao said, nodding to Hep.
“Figured I’d show him around. Get him off the ship.” Bayne clapped Hep on the shoulder. “The kid’s a basket-case. Need to loosen up. Reminds me of someone.”
Mao scowled at Bayne and then at the boy. “Should I be expecting a call from the admiral as to your court martial?”
Bayne hoisted the bag onto his shoulder, ignoring Mao’s sarcasm. “Just watch over the ship.”
Mao grabbed Bayne by the elbow before he could turn away, pulling him close so he could speak only to him. “Something happened out there in that graveyard, with Parallax. Judging by how you’ve been acting since, I can safely assume that it is affecting your judgement. I have a right to know.”
Bayne scanned his XO’s face. There was not another man in the system that Bayne trusted as he did Taliesen Mao, but Bayne wasn’t sure he could trust even him with this. “You’re right,” Bayne said. “But not just yet.”
Bayne tugged his arm free and marched off the Blue, Hep shuffling unsurely behind him.
“Sir?” Hep sounded like a child. His meekness made Bayne’s head throb. “What are we doing?”
“I told you the plan.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t really understand it.”
Bayne stopped and spun. He stuck his face in Hep’s. “Yes, you did. I’ve seen you, boy. I’ve seen you when it’s all hitting the fan. Composed, precise. What are you trying to pull with this weak act?”
Hep’s face grew to stone. No more weakness. No nothing. Just stillness. Then it cracked and showed something Bayne had yet to see, but suspected had always been there. “Wilco and I don’t need any of this attention. We thought you were going to drop us somewhere.”
“I will. As soon as I get the info I need.”
“And we get Wilco,” Hepzah added.
“Of course.”
They continued through the shining corridors of Centel—Central Intelligence. The walls were accented with chrome and glowing lights. The floors were a reflective polymer, like walking on a mirror. The whole place was distracting, and the design made it feel busier than it actually was. The perfect environment for what they were about to do.
Bayne pulled Hep into a service closet once they were free from prying eyes. Hep pulled off the greasy overalls and jacket he’d been wearing to reveal a Navy ensign’s uniform underneath. Hep was too young to join the Navy, but he looked old enough pull off the ruse.
He straightened his collar and tucked in his shirt. Looking down at himself, the boy almost looked impressed.
Bayne took the ghoster out of the shoulder bag and gave it to Hep. The device was no larger than the standard scanner, fitting easily in the palm. “You remember what I showed you?” He hadn’t realized how patronizing he sounded until the boy responded with a sharp look.
“Point and click,” Hep said. “It’s the other bit I’m worried about. I don’t know anything about being a Navy ensign. The ruse only goes as deep as the costume. If I get cornered, it’ll crumble.”
“Ensigns are invisible. The worker bees that all blend into one indecipherable blob of faces and blue uniforms.” Bayne clapped him on the shoulder. “You don’t have to be an ensign, you just have to be invisible.”
Hep returned a nod, filling Bayne with equal parts dread and confidence. They stepped out of the closet and continued on to Centel. The walk made Bayne’s guts flutter. He’d made the trip several times. This was where he was debriefed after every tour, but each trip was informed by that first time: the time he was assessed by Colonel Tirseer herself after the war ended and the Navy was considering coopting the Rangers. She had interviewed each one who had agreed to join.
Tirseer was like a surgeon, cutting into him with each measured and carefully-considered word. Cold, decisive, nothing wasted or done without purpose. She seemed inhuman at times, robotic, a machine driven by logic. One left every interaction with her feeling like he was just turned inside out, the dark recesses of himself laid bare for all to see.
It was a vulnerability Bayne had never felt before. He had no desire to ever see her again.
Centel seemed to be a manifestation of Tirseer’s personality—cold and intimidating. The lighting fluctuated from dim in places to blindingly offensive in others, as though intended to keep you off balance. Though he couldn’t point to anyone who was actually watching him, Bayne felt eyes on him as soon as he entered. As he intended. He marched forward, mustering as much bravado as he could, ensuring the eyes stayed on him.
Hepzah slipped away to the right, moving like a shadow in a land of shadow, unseen, just part of the tapestry.
A grizzled man in his fifties met Bayne. “Do you have an appointment, Captain Bayne?” His chin was crisscrossed with scars, leaving bald swatches where his gray hair would not grow.
“Wasn’t aware I needed one,” Bayne answered.
“Of course you were,” the man said.
His name was Officer Dillihunt, Tirseer’s right hand. He was present at all of Bayne’s debriefs and never once exhibited any evidence of possessing a sense of humor.
“Correct you are, Dillihunt,” Bayne said. “No, I don’t have an appointment. I’m just coming from meeting with Colonel Tirseer. There’s a matter I’d like to follow up on.”
“You are just coming from interrupting a meeting attended by Colonel Tirseer,” Dillihunt corrected. “You had no reason to meet with her then. You have no reason now.”
The hairless crisscross on Dillihunt’s chin suddenly looked like a target, and Bayne’s fist ached to hit its mark. “My reasons are my own. They are not a matter of public record.”
“Public record, no,” Dillihunt said, coming as close to a smile as Bayne had ever seen, his eyes glowing. “But not solely your own either.”
Bayne reached for his belt before realizing that his swords no longer hung on his hip. So little time with them and they already felt part of him. “You spying on me?”
“No need,” Dillihunt said. “You wear your intentions plainly enough.”
A cold voice froze the tension between the two men. “I’m in the middle of something, Captain Bayne,” Colonel Tirseer said, appearing from around the corner. “What is it you want?”
The men never broke eye contact. “Just a moment of your time,” Bayne said. “I’ve got some questions I thought best asked of you in private.” A shiver ran up Bayne’s spine, Tirseer’s eyes injecting the cold into him.
“So be it,” the colonel said. “This way.”
Officer Dillihunt stepped aside without protest. The colonel’s word was absolute, though Bayne thought he heard the man grumble something under his breat
h as he passed.
Bayne followed Tirseer, gliding like a specter, down the hall from which she emerged and into a dimly-lit room with the atmosphere of a cinema. It wasn’t until the door closed that Bayne realized what they would be watching. On the other side of a one-way mirror, sitting at a metal table in a sparse room, sat Wilco.
Bayne swallowed hard, forcing down the sudden welling of anxiety. The chirp of a voice in his ear almost made that lump come screaming back out of his throat, along with the rum still swirling in his gut.
“I see the records room,” Hep said over comms. “Hall’s clear. Going in.”
“Well?” Tirseer said, shaking Bayne from his stunned silence. “Here we are, in private, where you can now feel free to say whatever it is you feel compelled to say.”
Bayne tapped on the glass. “Not totally private.” Wilco looked up from the table, thinking he’d just heard something.
“I didn’t think you kept things from him,” Tirseer said. “He seemed quite knowledgeable as to the workings of your ship. Especially considering his position.”
“Orphans have eyes and ears like the rest of us.”
“But pirate eyes and ears have no business on the bridge of a UNS ship.”
They had even less business inside the confidential records room of the Centel, but Hep still said, “I’m in,” over comms. That did little to assuage the bubbling in Bayne’s intestines.
Bayne knew he couldn’t trust anything Tirseer said. She was right that Wilco was a pirate, but he couldn’t be sure Wilco had surrendered that information. She could be tossing out information like grenades just to watch them explode and gauge Bayne’s reaction. That was where she got the real information.
He would surrender nothing. “No pirate has ever been invited aboard the bridge of my ship.”
Tirseer’s eyes glinted with cold recognition, a smile the only way she knew how. “Of course.” She faced the window and Wilco on the other side. Bayne expected to see nothing in front of her but was relieved to note that she did have a reflection. “I am grateful at times for intriguing circumstances such as this. Such an interesting tour you’ve had. A Byers Clan mining outpost overtaken and covertly held by pirates. An altercation with the most notorious pirate in the system. Returning with two young pirates in tow. Your crew shaken and distressed.”
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