Against the Odds

by Elizabeth Moon

  "They'll know she contacted the ansible—" Koutsoudas said.

  "Maybe—but she's farther out—she's on outside picket duty."

  "It's worth a try," Petris said. "Do it."

  Oblo nodded and sauntered off, casual as always.

  "How will she know where we've gone?" Meharry asked. "Sure as eggs is eggs, he's going to jump us out of here."

  "With Oblo and Issi on nav, we could pass all the nav data to Suiza, and Suiza can follow our course. 'Steban will have to fox the scan data somehow." He looked at Koutsoudas, who nodded.

  "I can mask it out. Don't worry." A futile statement. Petris felt he was drowning in worry.

  "He can't stay on scan all the time—Livadhi will get suspicious."

  "Well . . . two of the junior scan techs are ours, and he trained them. He's crosslinked the tightbeam to the scan desk, and he has two of the communications techs in on it."

  "That's too many," Meharry said, a furrow between her brows. "Livadhi's not stupid and a secret quits being a secret after awhile."

  "Cover story?" asked Petris. Meharry was good at cover stories; he was too worried to think of anything but decking Livadhi.

  "Yeah . . . let me think . . . look, what if there was a test of new stealth and scan gear. Captains aren't told, because . . . I'll think of a reason." She had the half-sleepy look that meant she was concentrating.

  "They want it to be a fair test of the equipment," Petris said, suddenly inspired. "Not of a captain's tactical skills. They know good captains could fox the test without meaning to. It's to be reported to Sector HQ upon return only. They put it on small ships first—the stealth stuff—and the big ship's supposed to see if it can see it, and the small ship's supposed to shadow the big one. A few of the technical crew know. I could know, being in engineering. Scan. Comm. That makes sense, sort of."

  * * *

  Esmay Suiza, aboard Rascal, would have gnawed her knuckles if that wouldn't have been too obvious to the crew. First Livadhi chewed her out for something that wasn't her fault, and then attempted a clumsy reparation. That didn't seem like the suave, charming commander she'd last seen at Sector VII HQ, but anyone could have a bad day. Then that strange message from Heris Serrano's old crew. She had no idea what was going on, but she had forwarded the message from Vigilance to Heris Serrano. Everyone had heard about Commander Serrano's former crew; she didn't know them well, but she had met them, most recently when Livadhi invited the captains of the convoy onto the cruiser for a final toast before departure. She'd wondered how Petris felt about serving under another captain, but that had made her think of Barin, so she pushed the thought aside.

  Now she was faced with a command decision. Commodore Admiral Minor Livadhi had ordered her to hold station in this system while he went back for another convoy. Esteban Koutsoudas—himself a legend of technical expertise—had passed on Petris Kenvinnard's request that she follow Livadhi instead, shadow him, and report all navigational information back to Serrano by encrypted ansible flashes.

  An admiral's order against a warrant officer's request should have been no contest. Her gut churned. Why was she even considering this? If nothing was going on, if Serrano's friends were just overreacting to some personality quirk of their new commander, she would have no excuse at all for what she was thinking of doing. If no one discovered—but of course it would be discovered, if only afterwards—and then, the court-martial, and the disgrace, and with things as they were at home—she tried to put that out of her mind, or at least on one side.

  If she disobeyed orders and nothing was wrong with Livadhi, she'd be court-martialed—that was the worst that could happen. No—she corrected herself. If mutineers came into the system where she wasn't keeping station, that would be another evil come from her decision.

  But if Livadhi had lost it—if he'd gone crazy, or—worst case—if Livadhi was a traitor—then if she obeyed his orders, she'd be helping him. If she acted on her own initiative to follow him she might—if he didn't realize she was there—be able to foil whatever plan he had. If he did realize it, Vigilance could blow Rascal into confetti. Perhaps not easily, but certainly.

  Where was the greater danger? Surely, in Livadhi as traitor, loose with a cruiser full of weaponry. And crew, some of whom were definitely loyal. What would happen to them, if Livadhi went over to the mutineers or perhaps the Benignity?

  If Heris Serrano had asked her help, she'd have given it without hesitation. Heris Serrano trusted Petris Kenvinnard, Methlin Meharry, Oblo Vissisuan. Esmay tugged mentally at that chain of trust, trying for herself if it was strong enough for the risk they asked. Could she trust what Heris Serrano trusted, just because Heris Serrano trusted it?

  She liked Commodore Livadhi. He had been, to this point, a good commander insofar as she had the experience to judge. He had listened respectfully to Captain Timmons' objections to the convoy arrangement, he phrased his orders clearly, they had delivered the convoy safely. Could he be a mutineer or a traitor or crazy?

  She wasn't on the ship with him, and had not been for weeks. Things changed. People changed. Had Heris Serrano's friends changed?

  Her stomach steadied. Not Oblo. She could imagine Petris, who loved Heris Serrano, making a mistake about Livadhi because he loved Heris, and Livadhi wasn't Heris. Methlin Meharry, concerned about her brother, might overreact. But Oblo, battered and scarred and completely unawed by any circumstance, she could not imagine changing. He might be wrong, but he wouldn't go crazy, and his instinct for trouble, for wrongness, was legendary.

  Heris trusted Oblo; Esmay trusted Heris; she would also trust Oblo. She ignored the flaws of formal logic in that emotional syllogism.

  Now to convince her own officers that she wasn't crazy or traitorous. Would they believe the truth? Or had she better concoct a cover story? Suppose it was a secret exercise, in . . . say . . . stealth technology? She worried at the idea, tugging out its possible fibers, and trying to make a plausible reason why a patrol ship might shadow a cruiser against the orders of an admiral.

  * * ** * *

  "Can you tell where he's taking us?" Petris asked Lieutenant Focalt. They had finally begun talking to bridge officers, trying to prepare them for possible trouble.

  "Ultimately, no. He's jumping us in and out of systems with multiple routes . . . someone trying to trace us would quickly have more options than anyone could follow up. Yet we're still in Familias Space; he says he's got secret orders. If it weren't for you, I'd believe him . . ."

  Petris could hear the doubt in the man's voice. "If I'm wrong, Lieutenant, I'll `fess up. But I don't think I am. He made a tightbeam communication to an ansible in the system we just passed, and according to the com watch, it was addressed to one of a list of reportable addresses he'd gotten just before we left Sector HQ."

  Focalt swore. "I can't believe he'd be so stupid."

  "I think he's desperate," Petris said. "I can't imagine why, either. But we have to be careful."

  "I will be," the man said. "I hope our tail's with us."

  "You and me both," Petris said.

  * * *

  Esmay could feel the increasing tension in her own crew as they followed Vigilance for jump after jump.

  "I don't understand," her comm officer said. "Where are they going?"

  "We don't know," Esmay said. "But we're finding out."

  "It's ridiculous, this course. Where could he be heading?"

  Esmay did not tell him what Petris had relayed of his suspicions, though she did encode it for the next tightbeam she sent.

  Another jump, this one into an uninhabited system. Vigilance had entered at low relative vee, this time, and now decelerated still more. After a couple of hours, during which she'd sent off the new data, Esmay shook her head. "He's been jumping end-on-end or clearing a system within seventy minutes. I wonder what he's waiting for?"

  "We are on the border, Captain," said her navigation officer. From the expression on his face, he was reconsidering her original explanatio
n as well as Livadhi's course. "He can reach Benignity space in one jump from here, if that's where he's going."

  "We can't just let him cross," Jig Turner said, looking horrified. "That's handing them one of our newest cruisers, and the crew—"

  "We don't know for sure that's what he's up to," Esmay said. "Right now he's not doing anything. But that's a possibility."

  "Is this what it's been all along, Captain?" the nav officer said. "Did you suspect something?"

  "I wouldn't have," Esmay said, "but for Heris Serrano's old crew aboard Vigilance. They tightbeamed me that he was acting oddly; they didn't understand, but they were worried."

  "Worried enough to risk court-martial—I hope you're right, Captain."

  "I hope I'm not," Esmay said. "I'd much rather be wrong, and in trouble, than faced with a traitor admiral in command of a ship like that."

  "So what are we going to do?" She noticed the change from "you" to "we." "If he jumps and we follow him over the border—"

  "It could start a war. I know that." Esmay turned. "Weapons, tell me what we have that could take Vigilance."

  "Take a cruiser? That cruiser? And survive a fight? We couldn't, Captain. If they really don't know we're here, we might get some shots up the bustle, just as you did at Xavier. Stern shields have been beefed up since then, though—we might not get through in one salvo. In which case, Vigilance would blow us away and go skipping off where she liked."

  "Mmm. And slipping in to docking distance and trying to hold if she was running up to a jump would also blow us all. Keep working on it—we're going to stop that ship somehow and I'd prefer to defend my actions in court rather than have one convened on a lot of debris and corpses."

  "You could contact him directly . . ."

  "I don't think so. If I had another ship to box him with, I'd try it. But he's an admiral minor. Suppose he decided to come back—he could do it as an admiral dragging in a subordinate who had disobeyed orders. And then run another time, with another ship." Esmay shook her head. "No, if he starts running to jump, I'll challenge and fire on him if I have to."

  "What if he builds speed by microjumping?"

  "We're more agile, and faster," Esmay said. "The problem's not going to be catching him, but how to hold him when we have. I just hope he's not waiting for reinforcements, for some Benignity ship to arrive and give him an escort. We should be able to do enough damage to one ship to prevent its taking off, but two—that will be harder."

  The hours passed. Esmay tried to stay calm, tried to think, but felt her nerves drawing tighter with every minute that passed. He could just jump: unlike a civilian ship, Vigilance could make a blind jump this far from a jump point and hope to come out in realspace somewhere near its intended destination. Livadhi had to be worrying about pursuit, had to feel, with that commander's instinct, that he was in danger. What if he wasn't waiting for a contact? What if he was waiting a specified number of hours, and might hop out again at any moment?

  Her eyes felt gritty with sleeplessness, but she dared not leave the bridge and try to nap. Whenever he did something, she would have to act instantly. What should she do?

  * * *

  Commodore Admiral Minor Livadhi leaned close to the scan desks; Koutsoudas could smell the faint odor of his nervous sweat. "Are you sure there's nothing out there?"

  "Sir, I'm not finding anything," Koutsoudas said. The scan computers had been told that Rascal did not exist; every few hours they kicked up a query, and every few hours he reassured them. Nothing is there, ignore it. He'd just dealt with the query again when Livadhi came on the bridge. He hated direct lying, but evasion didn't bother him.

  "I have a feeling," Livadhi said. "You know that itch you get between your shoulders, when you know someone's looking at you?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "I don't want to fall into any mutineer traps," Livadhi said.

  "No, sir. Me, neither. And I don't see any sign of mutineer ships, or any other ships. System's clean, sir."

  Livadhi sighed. "You're the best, Koutsoudas; if they were there, you'd know." He paused. "How long have you been on duty?"

  "Sir, you said you were worried, so I came on early—I've been coming on at every insertion and downjump, just in case."

  "Ah. Good man." Livadhi turned away.

  Koutsoudas busied himself with the scan system. Suiza was still there, yes, but if Livadhi was making deals with the Benignity, he didn't want a flotilla of Black Scratch ships jumping in on top of them. He'd experienced that in the Xavier system; once was enough.

  The hours passed, and Livadhi did not call for another jump. Instead, he paced back and forth, back and forth. He left the bridge for only moments at a time. Koutsoudas went off for a short nap, but couldn't really sleep. When he came back, he stared at the display, wondering what would happen next. He wished Livadhi would change his mind, be what he'd always thought the man was, a fine Fleet officer, pleasant and competent and thorough.

  Then he stiffened. There, far away from the system's mapped jump point, a curious ripple in the scan, as if someone had dropped a very small pebble into the far edge of a pond. He snatched that input for his station.

  "Sir!" he said.

  "What?" Livadhi stayed across the bridge from him, where he'd been listening to some engineering reports, but Keller, the Exec, came over to look.

  "Something coming in, sir, and not at the jump point. At least I think it is; it's too far away. Could be an FTL trace."

  "Direction?" Livadhi asked, coming nearer.

  "Unclear. It's skipping—it's definitely an FTL trace, someone with a badly tuned drive. Just sort of hitting the surface of normal space and bouncing back out."

  "Can you tell anything about mass?"

  "Not yet." Koutsoudas watched the screens; the two other scan techs on watch leaned toward him. He growled at them. "Benally, Vince—watch your own screens. There could always be more than one thing going on. I've got this."

  * * *

  Rascal's scan officer, lacking Koutsoudas' personal additions to standard equipment, identified an arriving ship minutes after Koutsoudas did. "Something coming in, Captain," he said.

  Esmay looked at the scan and saw the familiar pattern of a badly tuned FTL drive just skip-jumping through. Was it even bound for this system? It didn't come in like she thought Serrano would, a clean downjump.

  It could be a Benignity ship, come to lead Livadhi away. She had to do something. "Bring us to red," she said to the bridge. Alarms rang out. Those sitting first at the positions raced to put on p-suits, while their seconds acted. She heard lockers opening, and Chief Humberly held her p-suit ready; she stepped backwards into it. The firsts, suited now, returned to their places and the seconds went to suit up. "Weapons, ready." That would light up Vigilance's scan displays. At least their shields were already active. She turned to her comm officer.

  "Get me a tightbeam to Vigilance."

  * * ** * *

  Koutsoudas, trying desperately to dissect the fluttery scan signal into something he could identify—he hoped very much it was not a Benignity ship—was shocked when the warning red flashers showed live weapons in close proximity, where scan showed no ship at all.

  "What—?!" He and Livadhi said it almost together. Too close for the injumping ship, too close, and no ship icon—Suiza. It had to be Suiza, bringing her weapons live. But why?

  "What have you—" began Livadhi, but the Comm officer signalled him.

  "Commodore—there's a tightbeam message from R.S.S. Rascal, Suiza commanding."

  "Suiza!" Livadhi was white to the lips, his red hair in stark contrast to his face. "That stupid—what does she think she's doing?" Then, in a furious hiss to Koutsoudas, "You are relieved—I don't know if you're just exhausted, or a liar, but you let a pissant lieutenant crawl up our tail! Get to your quarters; I'll deal with you later." And to the comm officer, "Pipe it to my office."

  Koutsoudas, more shaken than he'd ever been, shook his head at the second—luckily on
e of the old crew—who came to relieve him. "I didn't see it," he said. "I swear I didn't see a thing. It's not there . . . ."

  "Go on, 'Steban, you're exhausted. It'll be all right."

  * * *

  Livadhi, on the communications screen in Esmay's bridge, looked thoroughly disgusted and angry.

  "Lieutenant Suiza, you are in big trouble. Just what do you mean by disobeying orders and gallivanting around the universe?"

  Esmay had thought about what to say that might take suspicion away from the Vigilance crew.

  "Sir, may I ask if the admiral's bridge crew had detected Rascal prior to the tightbeam message?"

  "No, you may not ask. Answer my question, dammit!" This was not the suave, pleasant commander she'd met at dinner aboard.

  "Sir, the admiral is aware that Rascal has been fitted out with a new suite of weapons—"

  "Yes, what of it?"

  "And a new suite of stealth gear, sir. Which I was told you were not aware of, and which I am under orders—secret orders—to test in a realistic situation. A ship-on-ship pursuit, in fact. So when the admiral left, I executed my other orders, and followed. Since the admiral has not commented before, I presume we were not detected."

  "You weren't," Livadhi said, now in a growl. "Not until you brought your weapons live. Care to explain why?"

  "Sir, we're out near the border with the Benignity. I'm assuming the admiral is aware of another ship entering the system. On the possibility that it might be hostile, I brought the weapons live, and contacted you so that you would not worry about us when we seemed to jump out of nowhere."

  "I didn't know about any such stealth capability," Livadhi said.

  "Of course not, sir. It was all highly secret—" So secret it didn't exist; she put that thought rapidly aside.

  "And they gave it to a jumped-up captain with a checkered past, an Altiplanan? Somehow I doubt that, Landbride Suiza . . ."

  "I'm not the Landbride anymore," Esmay said. "I renounced it officially, before witnesses—I told you that, sir, at the dinner."

  "So you did. Still, I could as easily believe you somehow suborned someone in my crew to conceal your presence . . . Suiza, you are meddling in something you do not understand."