He checked every system, cleaned every possible channel, made certain that she could both contact him directly and contact the ship overall.
Nothing.
No word.
The silence unnerved him more than he thought it would, and he counseled patience to himself. He had more than enough to do, after all.
He had spoken to Stephanos about her work on the last foldspace trip. She had apologized profusely, said that Preemas had called her to the bridge and ordered her to help.
Preemas is the captain, you know, she had said, and she was right. He was still the captain, although it made Crowe sick to his stomach.
Preemas hadn’t ordered Stephanos to keep Crowe in the dark, like Crowe had initially thought. Instead, Preemas had lied, saying he had contacted Crowe, and Crowe was in Engineering.
Which was why Stephanos had given Crowe such a strange look when he arrived on the bridge and was so utterly furious. Why everyone had given him a strange look.
They had all thought he had known about the foldspace journey when he actually hadn’t.
So, to them, he looked a little off. But Stephanos immediately figured out what had happened. She had told a few others.
There was that, he supposed. Mostly, they thought he had overreacted to something, or that he was angry about the loss of attitude control.
He wasn’t angry about the loss of attitude control; he was worried about it. The ship recorded the momentary loss—it had lasted less than a minute, even though it had felt like hours—in its logs, but he still hadn’t pinpointed the cause.
He wanted to do that deep investigation of the systems, to make sure everything was working properly, but that was hard to do without Preemas’s permission.
Crowe could do a lot of things without Preemas noticing, but to have the entire engineering crew dig through every system on the ship would be impossible to hide.
Still, Crowe spent most of his time in Engineering, partly because he was waiting for the contact, but partly because his anger wasn’t as contained as he wanted it to be.
The crew knew they could find him here—and they did. He was dealing with what he was beginning to think of as the usual First Officer stuff—people relations, mostly, trying to keep this ship together by the sheer force of his personality.
In his past assignments, he had never noticed the First Officer doing anything like that, but maybe the situation on those ships wasn’t as fraught, or maybe he had just paid attention to Engineering and ignored the rest.
Part of him suspected that on his previous assignments, the captain had handled the toughest part of crew relationships, if not directly, then through various intermediaries, not just one.
Preemas noticed how his crew got along—he wouldn’t have been able to make such good reassignments if he hadn’t noticed the people on his ship—but he didn’t seem to care if emotions were high or someone was unhappy, so long as it didn’t interfere with his damn mission.
Crowe tried not to think about the damn mission. Because getting to the Scrapheap was only the start of their work; investigating, sending information back to the Fleet (somehow) and then getting home—those were the other three parts.
He still wasn’t sure they would be able to complete the first part.
While Crowe waited for Gāo to respond, he started doing something else, something he told no one about, something he was doing so stealthily that if he got caught, he would probably be up for court-martial himself.
He was slowly dismantling the command centers in the captain’s mess and in the captain’s suite. As First Officer and as Chief Engineer, he had access to both locations.
And as Chief Engineer, he knew how to wipe any trace of his entry so that no one could figure out he had been there.
The equipment in the mess was easy to deal with. He didn’t have to disassemble the equipment at all. He simply had to block access to the controls.
Blocking access from the mess was a major part of the design since any officer could enter that mess hall. The captain had to be able to shut off mess access to the controls at a moment’s notice.
The captain’s suite was another issue. Crowe had gone in once so far to see how old the equipment was and to see if it had been updated with the rest of the ship. The command center had been inspected and made shipshape, but it hadn’t been upgraded—which showed just how rarely those things were used.
Then Crowe had done most of the work inside Engineering, slowly dismantling the captain’s ability to command the ship from his own quarters. The last thing he was going to dismantle—more as a screw-you than anything else—was the captain’s ability to communicate from his quarters to the Fleet.
While Crowe dismantled the captain’s command center, he built one in his own cabin. The one in his cabin wasn’t as elaborate as the one in the captain’s suite. Crowe just wanted the ability to communicate and to hold the ship until he could contact someone else on the crew or until he could consolidate command of the ship on his own.
He hoped he would never have to use either rebuilt command center, but he now discounted nothing. He had spent his entire career—ever since the screw-ups of his youth—following rules, staying within the lines, protesting if need be but doing so at risk to himself and his career, not by inserting himself into a process he didn’t belong in.
And, if truth be told, he was doing the same thing right now, by contacting Gāo.
But she was staying maddeningly silent.
He had just checked the communications array for the fifth time that morning when Preemas contacted him directly.
“Per your request,” Preemas said, “I’d like to notify you of a course change. I’d just tell you, but you’re going to yell at me, so come to my ready room right now.”
Crowe went cold. There should be no course correction. There shouldn’t be any changes, not yet. Crowe hadn’t figured out what, exactly, caused the loss of attitude control, and he had told Preemas that it was essential they know as much about that particular event as they could know before they headed back into foldspace.
Of course, Preemas wouldn’t listen to him.
Crowe was noticing that Preemas wasn’t listening to anyone anymore.
Crowe gave the communications array one final look, silently begging for a message from Gāo to arrive right away. He wanted the entire ship to hear about the change of command before they heard about yet another change of course.
Then he half-smiled at himself, hoping that someone (like Gāo) would save him. The smile was also for his pessimism. He knew—knew—that the change of course meant something bad, not something that he wanted.
He knew Preemas would not announce that they were heading back to the Fleet. Preemas was going to do something else, something that Crowe suspected he would not agree with.
Then Crowe mentally chided himself for having the wrong attitude. Maybe Preemas had changed his mind.
And maybe Crowe would wake up from this nightmare to find that he had never boarded the Renegat at all.
He walked quickly to the bridge, greeted the afternoon crew, most of whom were people who had never worked on a bridge crew before Preemas found them, and then slipped through the open door of the ready room.
Preemas was leaning against the desk, exactly where Crowe had been the last time they met in the room. No, they weren’t playing passive-aggressive games with each other. Not at all.
Crowe suppressed a sigh.
Behind him, the door audibly whooshed shut. The sound had to be programmed. Normally, it was silent. Then the door and wall to the bridge opaqued.
Either Preemas was getting rid of Crowe as First Officer, or Preemas was expecting a fight. Crowe wasn’t sure which it was, although he suspected that, if Preemas was going to demote him, he would do it with the window between the ready room and the bridge clear, because he would want the entire crew to see Crowe’s humiliation.
“Captain,” Crowe said, deliberately sounding as neutral as he could.
He found it slightly fascinating that he had trouble saying the title without some sarcasm attached.
“First Officer Crowe.” Preemas managed the same tone, but the half smile on his face belied that professional sound. “As I said, I am letting you know of the course correction.”
Crowe felt a chill run down his back. After he had seen the door opaque, he had hoped the course correction notification was just a pretext to get him up to the bridge. Apparently not.
“I have been thinking about all you told me about the difficulties with the various anacapa drives and with foldspace,” Preemas said.
Crowe held himself still. Preemas didn’t believe him now, did he? After all this time?
“We are finally going to follow the Fleet’s original plan,” Preemas said. “More or less.”
Crowe frowned. Original plan? He wasn’t even sure what that meant.
Then Preemas chuckled. “Less, I guess, since we’re only going to cover less distance.”
That chill ran through Crowe again. “Sir?”
“Considering all the problems you and Natalia and the others have flagged,” Preemas said, “I decided it’s prudent to just rip off the bandage, as they used to say.”
Crowe bit the inside of his lower lip. He didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Getting a major emotional reaction out of him was part of what Preemas wanted.
Preemas waited a half a minute. He wanted Crowe to quiz him. Preemas wanted this to be a dramatic reveal and Crowe wasn’t playing along.
So, like a kid who couldn’t contain a secret, Preemas said, “We’re going directly from here to the Scrapheap. One long foldspace journey. Just not as long as the one the Fleet wanted us to take. But since the danger is going in and coming out, we’re better off doing that once, wouldn’t you agree?”
There was so much wrong with what Preemas had just said that Crowe didn’t even know how to start. He finally understood why Preemas wanted a fight.
Preemas wanted to show Crowe, in every way possible, that Preemas was captain, and as long as Preemas was captain, he would be the most reckless captain Crowe had ever served with.
Preemas hadn’t opaqued the door to hide a fight. He had done so to protect himself. If the crew saw how angry Crowe had been with Preemas on this day, then realized the order had come down that they were taking the long foldspace journey, everyone would be able to put two and two together and figure out the reason for the anger.
Now, though, they would think Crowe was in on the decision.
He could simply open the door. He could walk away. He could resign.
He wasn’t sure if any of those things would be valuable.
No matter what, the Renegat would have to go through foldspace—or it would remain trapped here, wherever here was.
If the Renegat wanted to rejoin the Fleet, it would have to go through foldspace. To continue the mission, the Renegat would have to do the same thing.
“What?” Preemas said. The word wasn’t really a question. It was a taunt. “You have nothing to say?”
“Would my comments make any difference?” Crowe asked, using that same neutral voice.
Preemas’s face flushed. “I am the kind of captain who listens to my First Officer. That’s why I made this decision.”
Sure, Crowe wanted to say, you’re the kind of captain who listens to his first officer, and then disregards every single word spoken.
Crowe said, “You might listen to your first officer, but you failed to consult with your Chief Engineer.”
Preemas’s half smile grew just a little bit. He thought the fight he had planned for had arrived.
“If I had known you were going to do this,” Crowe said, calmly, “I would have briefed my engineering crew. We would prepare for the long journey. We would make sure systems are ready. We would like to do similar things any time we go into foldspace—”
He couldn’t resist that dig.
“—but the opportunity isn’t always there. This time, I would think it essential. No ship has ever taken a trip this long, that we know of anyway, and we do not know what kind of stress the journey will take on us.”
Preemas’s half smile froze. Preemas no longer looked as amused as he had just a moment ago.
“You agree with me.” He didn’t quite make that a question either, but it wasn’t an insult. It was surprised, shocked even, as if Preemas couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“We have to travel through foldspace,” Crowe said, warming up to this. “I prefer to be prepared whenever you order the journey, Captain.”
“Huh.” After saying that he was following Crowe’s suggestion, Preemas couldn’t then say that he expected Crowe to disagree with him. This cagey sound on Preemas’s part told Crowe that Preemas was recording this conversation, and probably had planned to use it with the crew later, when Preemas emerged triumphant at the Scrapheap.
Because Preemas never believed he could be anything other than triumphant, of course.
What Preemas didn’t know was that if he gave Crowe permission to do the inspections, Crowe could buy time until Gāo’s message—whatever it was—reached them.
“So…” Preemas said, speaking slowly. “You see no problems with this foldspace trip then.”
Definitely on some kind of record. Preemas was still trying to save his career. For some reason, he believed that despite everything he was doing, the Fleet would see him as some kind of hero.
“Oh, I see a million problems,” Crowe said, thinking of the record as well, the one he might have to send to Gāo, “but we might be able to mitigate half of them.”
Preemas’s mouth tightened. His eyes narrowed. He seemed to know that Crowe was playing some kind of game, but what kind, Preemas clearly had no idea.
“These problems would exist whenever we went into foldspace,” Preemas said defensively.
“They would,” Crowe said. “These are the ones we know about. We might encounter more on the longer trip, but we won’t know that until we’re taking that trip.”
We might get stuck in foldspace. We might emerge somewhere completely unplanned. We might lose the entire ship. Crowe didn’t say any of those things, even though he wanted to.
“We need to take some extra time to prepare for the journey,” Crowe said. “We want to get through foldspace with no problems at all.”
“More time,” Preemas said quietly, as if he was actually considering it. “Would more time make a difference on the quality of the trip?”
“Yes,” Crowe said. If Preemas gave them long enough, they might not have to make the trip at all.
“Can you finish all of these inspections and fix the ‘half-million’ problems that you’re somehow seeing?” Preemas asked.
“I would prefer more time than that,” Crowe said, “especially considering how much time we’re lopping off the journey by not going into and out of foldspace four other times, and crossing some sector in between to get in position.”
“I recognize the time savings,” Preemas said. “That’s one of the reasons I want to do this. The crew is restless, First Officer Crowe.”
Crowe couldn’t tell if that comment was meant to be blaming or if Crowe had just heard it that way.
“Yes, they are,” Crowe said. “Not all of them are fitting into their new jobs.”
“At least they have that new work to keep them occupied,” Preemas said. He was still frowning, still considering Crowe’s proposal.
But Crowe waited patiently, wanting Preemas to feel that the decision to give Crowe more time was beneficial to the ship and Preemas’s ambitions, not beneficial to Crowe, or Crowe setting up some kind of roadblock.
Preemas nodded, as if he had just settled an argument with himself.
“More time makes sense to me,” he said. “But not too much. That’s why a week is best. If you find something serious, we might have to reconsider. But for now, one week.”
One week. Crowe hoped that was enough. He had no idea if it would be, but if he fe
lt he needed more time, he would find some kind of problem that would convince Preemas to remain here.
That loophole helped.
Crowe hoped he wouldn’t need it. He hoped he would hear from Gāo soon.
He hoped this nightmare journey would end, before the situation got worse.
Part Twenty-One
Rescue
Now
The Renegat
Everything looked the same in the dark. The walls, the floor, the ceiling. The doors weren’t even labeled. Not with real printing. When the power was working, all Breaux had to do was touch a door, and the name of the department would flare at her.
She hadn’t memorized the ship, not in that unconscious way that would have allowed her to get around it in the dark and the cold, leading five other people, none of whom had corrected her, and said, You’re going the wrong way.
She was, though. She had to be. Because she should have been to Deck Four by now. Had she gone down too far? Not far enough? Taken the wrong ladder? Turned the wrong direction?
She had no idea, and her suit—the regulation, ill-fitting suit she had pulled out of the recreation room, had no map. What kind of suit had no built-in map?
“Does anyone know where we are?” she asked. “Does anyone have a map?”
One of the others brushed against the wall, and tapped it, as if expecting one of the built-in maps to appear. But of course, it didn’t. The power was off. Hadn’t these people realized that? There wasn’t even enough atmosphere for them, because otherwise they wouldn’t have to wear the damn suits.
Those tears that had been threatening came back and she blinked them away.
Had she missed the opportunity? Had the rescuers, whoever they were, already gotten everyone else off the Renegat?
Was she going to die here, with five people whose names she didn’t even know, on a failing ship because she got turned around?
Because she never bothered, in all the time she’d been here, to learn how to find her way around without electronic help?
The Renegat Page 47