Command Decision (37 page)

“Will he do what I tell him?” Ky asked. She had still not met the man who had been so negative about her in the beginning.

“Oh, yes,” Argelos said. “He’s admitted he misjudged you, based on biased reports after you…left the Academy. He was there only one term before being yanked away to be an adviser to privateers. His name’s Yamini.”

The name meant nothing to Ky. “I’d still like to meet him—at least see his face on the screen.”

“Of course,” Argelos said. “Bistaf, come over here. Captain Vatta wants to talk to you face-to-face.”

The face on the screen was only vaguely familiar. Ky’s father’s implant had no catalog of Spaceforce Academy’s faculty; she finally remembered that he had been a new tactics instructor her last term. No wonder he’d had a negative view of her. “I’m Major Yamini,” he said. “You won’t remember me—I didn’t have you in class.”

“You taught junior tactics, didn’t you?” Ky asked. “You were in the catalog…”

“Yes. I need to apologize for my attitude, Captain Vatta. When Captain Argelos first told me you were trying to get an organization of privateers together, I thought—well, I thought you were as wild and irresponsible as they’d said when you were asked to resign.”

“My question now is whether you feel able to follow my orders, if you are chosen to captain the stealthed ship we found,” Ky said.

“Absolutely, Captain Vatta. I have no qualms at all now. And I do have skills you might find useful: that ship’s computer may well contain information about the pirates’ tactical capacity. I know that so far we have seen them use only fairly simple—but effective—attacks, but if they have something else in their arsenal, I might be able to find and analyze it.”

“Very well,” Ky said. She was glad not to have to give up any of her own bridge personnel except a pilot. “When we’ve completed this medical transfer,
Vanguard
will jump to your position; we’ll pick you up. Then we’ll go get Lattin, Pettygrew’s talented communications tech, and the environmental tech he’s offered me, and we’ll take you all out to the ship. I expect to be making your transfer within the hour; I look forward to meeting you in person.”

“And I you, Captain Vatta,” he said.

Ky went on to set up the transfer time with Captain Pettygrew; he offered instead to jump out to the stealthed ship and transfer Lattin directly.

“I worry about clustering our ships like that,” Ky said. “But if you want to do it now, that’s a good idea. Just be sure to tell Ransome that you’re coming in, so he can alert his skeleton crew.”

“I’ll do that,” Pettygrew said. “Then you want me back on station, I presume?”

“Yes,” Ky said. “I know nothing seems to be happening, but that’s when things do.”

CHAPTER

NINETEEN

Aboard Vanguard

Even with precision microjumps and the shipboard ansibles, it took the rest of that day to complete all the transfers and get everyone back on station. But Lattin reported that the enemy prize had a complete suite of advanced scan, passive, active, longscan, and nearscan. “Everything you could want,” she said. “All wavelengths—I’d say they spent a fortune on it, except that it’s clearly stolen from somewhere. There’s a lot of physical damage to what were probably the serial numbers.”

“What about the ship herself?” Ky asked.

“They did something screwy to the beacon,” Lattin said. “Of course it’s damped—all stealth tech does that—but I don’t believe the current ID as it shows in the onboard is correct. There’s a…it’s kind of technical—”

“Never mind,” Ky said. “But you think it’s not the real ID?”

“No. But I can’t tell if it’s a stolen ship chip or one they programmed themselves. Most beacon readers won’t pick up what I’m talking about, but you really should have it re-registered with a new chip somewhere.”

“I intend to,” Ky said. “Can you tell if the rest of the AI is reliable?”

“I’m running checks on it now, Captain Vatta. Captain…er…Yamini…he asked the same thing. He said he wanted to be sure the ship didn’t do something weird on its own. Oh—do you want me to check the stealth function?”

“Not at present,” Ky said. “It’s working now; let’s leave it alone. Just get that ansible rigged to our frequencies so we can use it without the pirates finding out.”

“Yes, Captain,” Lattin said.

Ky looked at the arrangement of the ships in the system plot again before she went back to her cabin. The stealthed ship had moved, on her orders, and now was far from where the pirates had stationed it—and where they would presumably expect to find it if they invaded. No single attack, however lucky, could take out all her ships at once.
Metaire
was still in danger, but Ky had persuaded Colonel Kalin to keep the shields up constantly.

Once in her cabin, she fell asleep almost at once, only to wake in the middle of that shift to a terrible stench that almost made her gag. “Light!” she said; the bedlamp came on. She looked at the bed, half expecting to see a piece of spoiled fruit, but nothing…the inside of her head seemed to tingle and itch, the smell was so strong.

Her implant popped up a message:
CONTACT Y
/
N
?

Implant. Implanted ansible. Rafe…he’d said he wouldn’t ever use it, but who else could it be? A quick fumble through that folder in the implant and she knew what she should do. But not before securing the ship.

“Hugh,” she said, when she had him on the intercom. “I need you to meet me in my office.”

“What’s up, Captain?”

“I can’t discuss it. I’ll be there momentarily.”

By the time Hugh arrived, she was dressed and had splashed cold water on her face. Hugh looked worried, unsurprisingly. “Are you sick, Captain? Has anyone…done anything?”

“I’m not sick. But I will be…unavailable for a time, and you needed to know that. I can’t explain it…not now, anyway. You will need to take over until I am…back. I’ll let you know. I’m sorry, that’s all I can say, and I need to hurry—”

“Are you going to try to change implants or something? You really should have medical assis—”

“It’s not that. I can’t say. I could have done this without telling you but that wouldn’t have been right…”

“All right, Captain. I won’t press you further, but…I get the strong feeling someone should know what’s going on.” With that he left.

Ky secured the door, retrieved the power cables Rafe had given her, and followed the implant’s directions. She did not like the idea of plugging into the ship’s power supply—it took an effort of will to make herself close the connection.

And he was there, as if he were standing beside her. The stench faded, replaced by a smell rather like wet leaves. As before, the urgency of his transmission felt like a shout inside her head.

“Ky! Are you there? Answer me!”

“Not so loud!”

“Sorry. You do have volume control…”

She found that and brought the volume down to a manageable level. “I thought you said you wouldn’t ever use this thing,” she said.

“Except in a dire emergency,” he said. “Which this may well be. Are you alone?”

“Yes. Hugh’s in command; I told him—”

“About the ansible?” Rafe’s voice sharpened.

“No. That he was in charge and I was unavailable; he’s puzzled but coping. What is it?”

“A long and miserable story, and I’m afraid you’re going to have to listen to quite a bit of it.”

“The story of your life,” Ky murmured.

“Something like that, yes,” Rafe said. “I’ll try to keep it as short as I can. When I got to Nexus, I found that my family was missing, and someone had a great interest in anyone who inquired about them. It took me an unfortunate length of time to figure out what had happened, find them, and arrange a hostage rescue.”

“Hostage!”

“Yes. My parents and my remaining sister had been abducted; her husband had been killed. My delay in reaching them…resulted in the loss of my sister’s baby. Killed by the abductors in front of her and my parents.”

Ky could think of nothing to say. After a moment, Rafe went on.

“My father was badly injured; he suffered neurological damage and is in rehab. He wanted me to take over as CEO of ISC; the Board agreed, though some of them probably wish they hadn’t. You need to know that the person who instigated the abduction of my family was Lew Parmina—I believe you knew him.”

“Lew—but he came to visit us. My father brought him home; he liked him—”

“So did my father, to his cost. I don’t know whether he was involved in what happened to your family, but I know what he did to mine. Unfortunately, my father got it into his head that Parmina’s friendship with your family made your family suspect. He has drawn a line from Osman Vatta’s possession of shipboard ansibles, through your insistence on using them, your aunt’s repair of the Slotter Key ansible—”

“She didn’t—”

“Our sources say she authorized it; that’s enough for him. And then there’s Stella’s pursuit—now successful—of patent rights to the improved version of shipboard ansibles. He’s convinced himself that Vattas were involved in Parmina’s treachery. I’m hoping that as his recovery proceeds, he’ll think more clearly and understand you had nothing to do with it, but right now—he is a problem, and the people in ISC who were his people are a problem. More immediately, there’s an ISC fleet—fourteen ships—headed for the system you’re in, with intent to kill or capture you.”

“But…we got a message saying—”

“I know. I told them to send it, though my wording was different; the idiots in Enforcement changed it. But they’d already dispatched the fleet, on their own initiative, and I didn’t find out about it until now. I’ve put an urgent message for them on the system ansible, but they may not stop for it before they start shooting. You’ve got to get out of there now. They’re less than sixteen hours out, and that’s if Enforcement told me the truth. Since I just arrested their head, they may not.”

“We can’t leave, Rafe. We’re guarding a Mackensee ship full of wounded and our supply ship; the pirates might come back.”

“Pirates might; ISC will. Ky, listen—fourteen ships. Including two full-size battle cruisers. I know you’ve just fought a battle; you can’t have a full munitions load. You haven’t got a chance—”

“I’m not leaving helpless ships behind for your goons to shoot up,” Ky said.

“They’re after you, not Mackensee,” Rafe said. “I didn’t realize—my father’s not supposed to be interfering with my management but he called someone in the department, told them about his suspicions, and they’ve picked
you
as the primary target.” No need to explain his father’s dementia or the internal politics at ISC. “You and that Space Defense Force you’ve put together. It’s all a mistake; I can call them back once we’re in contact, but they could blow you away before that.”

“Do you have their IDs?” Ky asked.

“Yes, but it won’t do for you to blow them away, either. That would prove that you’re the enemy. You have to get out of there.”

“Send me their IDs—and I presume you know something about what armament they carry?”

“Yes, but I can’t tell you that. Ky, if you’ll just listen to me and get out—”

“Or you could listen to me, when I say I’m not going anywhere.”

“Ky—”

“No, listen. The Mackensee ship has had some damage, and it’s stuffed with casualties. They’re waiting for their relief convoy, which is due in…I forget how many days, but several. It’s in transit; they can’t contact it. The pirates not only attacked Mackensee—we happened to arrive in the midst of that fight—but they had a stealthed observation ship in the system. We captured that, but not before it reported on the battle, and I’m not sure there’s not another one. If I leave, and there
is
another one, then the Mackensee ship could be a prime target for another attack—and so might the relief convoy.”

“Protecting mercs is not your job!”

She felt a wave of heat rush up to her head. “
You
do not define my job,” Ky said. “The way I see it, my job is to protect those who need protection. And this ship does, and I’m doing it.”

“You are the most stubborn, idiotic—”

For some reason, that quenched the anger. She made her voice calm. “Rafe. We’re wasting time. I need the data on those ships, if only to evade them. Send me the data first. Then we can try to figure some way to ensure that neither my people nor your people end up splattered across space.”

“Ky—all right.” A moment later, a datastream spit out in the implant. Ky was able to route it to the regular ship interface of her implant, and thence to the bridge.

“Now just a moment,” she said to Rafe. “I’m going to try to talk on an external channel.” The pervasive smell of wet leaves changed to something peppery—whatever that meant—as she used the implant’s interface to the ship intercom.

“Yes, Captain?” Hugh said. “Are you available again? What’s this datastream about?”

“I believe those are the ship IDs of fourteen ISC ships that are believed to be on the way here,” Ky said. “If the data are correct, someone may have the ship specs in their implant databases. Please check that.”

“On the way here to…deal with us?”

“I believe that’s the understanding,” Ky said. “I have to go now; I’ll be back with you shortly.” She disconnected the in-ship channel.

“I wish you’d change your mind,” Rafe said. He sounded tired, now, tired and worried.

“I can’t,” Ky said. “Now—quit arguing and tell me everything you know about those ships…and if you need more time, why not contact Stella and relay through her so we can use the shipboard units? It’s a lot more convenient.”

“She wasn’t there,” Rafe said. “I did think of that, but she was en route from Cascadia Station down to planetside to inspect manufacturing facilities. And the watchdog at her office wouldn’t let me talk to Toby.” He sighed; his voice was rough at the edges, as if he were exhausted. “I can’t send you much more anyway—it’s proprietary; it would be a breach of company security—”

“And talking to me on the ansible I’m not supposed to know about, let alone have, isn’t? Rafe, be reasonable: I’m not out to destroy ISC. I have no desire to blow up your ships. But the best way to ensure I don’t is to tell me what their performance capacity is, so I can evade them until they’ve had time to get your messages via ansible.”

“All right. All right, here—”

Another datastream flowed into Ky’s implant. Range, insystem maximum velocity, FTL engine type, weapons types and numbers, munitions types, range…She blinked. Surely a lot of those data had to be wrong. “Rafe…some of these ships look…a little outdated.”

“They are,” Rafe said.

“I don’t see a minimum-radius microjump listed—”

“It’s not in their specs that I could find.”

Ky felt her spirits lifting. “When is the last time this fleet went on live-fire maneuvers?”

“I’d rather not say,” Rafe said.

That wasn’t surprising, if her surmise was correct. “Are their munitions…have they been stored in the ships all this time?”

“All what time?”

“Rafe, those Model R-ZM-200s haven’t been manufactured anyplace I know of for over thirty years. And they’re incompatible with current guidance systems.” And, she did not add, the warheads deteriorated over time…probably half those things wouldn’t detonate at all, and the rest might detonate anywhere, any time, once they were unlocked.

“They still outnumber and outgun you,” Rafe said. “Numbers count.”

“It’s true that enough ants can eat a camel,” Ky said. “But a camel can walk away before they do.” It was too early to feel what she felt—but she couldn’t help it. Fourteen ships, yes, but…not particularly dangerous ships.

“You think you can evade them?”

“It’s a possibility,” Ky said. “Thank you for warning me, Rafe, but I think I need to disconnect now and get busy with my officers.”

“I still think—”