Curse of the Iris (31 page)

“Good afternoon, Mr. Hohenfauer,” said Diocletia. It took a couple of seconds for the transmission to make its way to distant Ceres and back.

“Captain Hashoone,” Hohenfauer said, face turning hard. “You lied to me—you're no friend of Sir Armistead-Kabila's.”

“I did lie to you, Mr. Hohenfauer. Poor customer service makes a woman do crazy things. But I'm not here to talk about the past.”

“We have nothing to talk about whatsoever, Captain Hashoone,” Hohenfauer said.

“The balance in my family's account would indicate otherwise. Don't waste my time pretending it won't. I am authorizing a transfer of 1.68 million livres from that account to Captain Mox here. He'll be in your records as Thaddeus Moxley.”

“My name is Thoadbone!” roared Mox.

“Antifraud systems verify that the man onscreen is Thaddeus Moxley,” Hohenfauer said.

“THOADBONE!” Mox screeched.

“But this is highly irregular, Captain Hashoone,” Hohenfauer said. “Transfers of this size between personal accounts are approved only in person. I won't authorize a remote transfer, no matter how big your balance is. And don't try to threaten me with tall tales about Sir Armistead-Kabila either, since we both know you can't back them up.”

Diocletia glanced back at the ladderwell.

“Dad, come up here for a moment?”

Huff clanked slowly across the quarterdeck until he stood by the captain's chair, glaring at the viewscreen.

“I believe you've met my father,” Diocletia said.

Hohenfauer stared at the half-metal pirate, his eyes jumping from Huff's blazing artificial eye and blackened face to his pistols and cutlass. One hand went reflexively to his throat.

“Have to be there in person, eh?” Huff rumbled. “Jus' how personal do you want it? I don't know this Armistead-Kabila either. But I do know you, Hohenfauer. I know where you work. An' I can find out where you live.”

“I suppose I could allow a one-time exception to our policies,” Hohenfauer stammered.

“That's the spirit,” Diocletia said. “You'll be employee of the month before you know it.”

“An' this way, you get to stay alive,” Huff said.

18
THE FAMILY IS THE SHIP

A
ttached to her long-range tanks once more, the battered
Comet
limped in the direction of Jupiter. Before she was an hour out of Saturn, the life-support systems had been restored and the damaged linkages to the engines reknit. Far more was needed—the ugly rents and melted gunports in her portside would remain isolated by bulkheads until she reached dry dock, and the damage to her propulsion systems had robbed her of much of her speed. And nothing could replace the nine retainers and crewers who had died in battle. But little by little over that first day, the ship came to feel like her old self again.

Tycho found those hours oddly comforting—all of the Hashoones were busy in the fire room and at their consoles, prioritizing repairs and performing diagnostics to check that those repairs had been successful. It was dull, but it let them delay facing the questions he knew they couldn't escape for much longer.

With the major repairs complete, Diocletia called for a meeting. Fortifying themselves with tea and coffee and a carton of jump-pop Yana had squirreled away somewhere, the Hashoones sat quietly at their consoles on the quarterdeck, waiting to hear what their captain would say.

“The important thing, to state the obvious, is that we're alive,” Diocletia said, leaning on the back of the captain's chair. “We've lost people, but you kept your heads when a poor decision might have meant the end of all our lives. And that's more important than the Log, our letter of marque, or anything else.”

“And what's going to happen to our letter of marque?” Yana asked. “I can't imagine the Jovian Union will be pleased when they find out how we bought our freedom.”

Diocletia looked evenly at her daughter, refusing to take the bait.

“We settled a financial matter between associates in a legal business venture. Besides, I suspect the Jovian Union will be more concerned with having sent an incompetent admiral into the field, one who lost two destroyers and a privateer in a battle he was warned not to fight.”

“Arrr, Badawi will be lucky if his next command is the Ganymede ferry,” Huff said from his usual spot alongside the ladder.

“And what about the Ice Wolves?” Yana asked. “We didn't exactly put an end to their rebellion.”

“No, we didn't,” Diocletia said. “There will be a great deal of talk about that, I'm sure. And about other things as well. Apparently the Jovian Defense Force located six of Earth's secret automated deep-space listening posts while we were away. They destroyed them all. His Majesty is calling it an unwarranted provocation.”

The data disk
, Tycho thought.
That was the information the Securitat wanted.

“So we're at war on two fronts?” Carlo asked.

“I wouldn't go that far. But clearly matters are worse.”

“So what are we going to do?” Tycho said.

Diocletia sighed. “Well, for starters, we'll get Vesuvia's data to the Defense Force so they can figure out a better way to counteract Mox's jammer.”

“About that . . . ,” Yana muttered, so quietly that Tycho could barely hear her.

“About what?” Diocletia asked.

“The jamming. There's something you need to know, since you'll find out eventually.”

“Is that how you decide whether or not to tell me things?” Diocletia asked.

“No . . . I mean . . . just listen, okay? I took a closer look at my board, and my countermeasures didn't do anything. The jamming just stopped.”

“What do you mean it just stopped?”

“Two minutes and thirty-seven seconds in, it stopped. So I took another look at what happened back at P/2. It was the same thing—two minutes and thirty-seven seconds of jamming, then it cleared. It had nothing to do with the PKB band or harmonic oscillations or anything else. And it had nothing to do with me.”

“But that doesn't make any sense,” Tycho said. “We know the jammer kept working, because the other Jovian ships were still blind.”

“That's what I'm telling you,” Yana said. “Some system aboard the
Comet
broke the jamming on its own.”

“Vesuvia,” said Diocletia, “does this make any sense? Can you analyze what Yana's talking about?”

“No analysis is necessary. The statement is correct. The countermeasures suite referenced takes one hundred fifty-seven seconds to initialize and activate.”

“What countermeasures suite?” Diocletia asked, baffled.

“The one installed to counteract the technology deployed at Refueling Station Gamma earlier today.”

“I've never heard of any such program. How long has it existed?”

“The program has resided in memory since September 8, 2883.”

Tycho and Yana looked at each other, eyes wide.

“That's a little over a year after 624 Hektor,” Yana said.

“I never loaded such a program,” Diocletia said. “Who did? And on whose authority?”

And then, one by one, their eyes turned to Huff.

“Arrr,” Huff said. “I did it. And on me own authority.”

Diocletia looked at her father in disbelief.

“I hired someone to do the work an' loaded the program after I recovered. Did it to protect us after what happened that day.”

“I was captain then, not you,” Diocletia said icily. “What else have you done to my ship while no one was looking?”

“Nothin'. Nothin' 'cept that one thing, a long time ago. Which was the thing what saved our lives today.”

Diocletia looked equal parts amazed and furious. “And are you going to tell me why?”

Huff raised his chin defiantly. “That's me own business. An' it'll stay that way.”

And before anyone could say anything else, he turned his back and clambered up the ladder to the top deck.

“Well,” Diocletia said, “that's all, then.”

Tycho looked from Yana to Carlo.

“I'm sorry, Mom, but it isn't,” he said. “It can't be.”

“And why is that?” Diocletia asked.

The words felt like he was forcing them to his lips.

“Oshima Yakata told us Huff helped Mox distribute the program to the Jupiter pirates—the one that had been sabotaged,” he said.

“Yes,” Diocletia said. “He was tricked. Tricked and betrayed.”

“We never knew that,” Yana said. “It was our right to know that.”

“Don't ask me to defend your grandfather right now.”

“Nobody's asking you to,” Carlo said, his face red with anger.

Diocletia shook her head.

“Maybe you deserved to know,” she said. “But what does it change? Your grandfather will carry what happened that day for the rest of his life. Do you imagine he doesn't think about it during the hours he's trapped in his cabin every day? Sometimes I wonder if he thinks of anything else.”

“Then why didn't he tell us?” Yana asked. “Why didn't one of you?”

Diocletia swiveled in her chair and stared out into the darkness beyond the viewports.

“Because he can barely stand to remember it,” she said quietly. “Because of the guilt he feels—about having been fooled by Thoadbone Mox, about getting people killed, about having contributed to the end of the only way of life he'd ever known. Since that day, he's lived mainly for the three of you—watching you grow and learn and carry on the tradition he fears will be lost without you. If you'd known what he'd done . . . well, I don't think he could bear the idea of that.”

All were quiet for a long moment. Mavry stared down at his hands in his lap.

“And what happened before 624 Hektor?” Tycho asked. “Oshima—”

“That witch again,” Diocletia said, turning to glare at Mavry.

Tycho bit his lip, then pressed on. “She said you and Dad were going to join the Gibraltars—to break up the family. Is that true?”

Diocletia seemed to sag in the captain's chair.

“That's our own business.”

“Grandpa just said something like that,” Yana said.

“This is different—”

“Dio,” Mavry said quietly, “they deserve to know this, too.”

Diocletia scrubbed at her eyes with her hand.

“You tell them, then.”

“No,” Mavry said gently. “You're the captain.”

Diocletia raised her eyes and looked at her husband, then away. Finally she nodded.

“Very well. Your grandfather always saw Carina as the perfect pirate—while I . . . well, let's just say I never met his standards. It was obvious from the day I made middie that Carina would be the next captain, and there was nothing I could do to change his mind. Not even Carina defying him and running off with Sims made a difference. He was so angry—he called Carina a traitor and accused Cassius Gibraltar of scheming to take over his ship. But he still wouldn't deny her, or consider me. Rather than accept me as captain, he was willing to see the son of his archrival on his own quarterdeck.”

Diocletia looked up at the deck above their heads.

“So your father and I decided that rather than spend the rest of our lives as dirtsiders on Callisto, we'd find another way. When we went to see him, Cassius was even madder at Sims than Dad was at Carina. But he agreed to our proposal—Sims would marry Carina and serve aboard the
Comet
, while your father and I would become part of Cassius's crew aboard the
Ghostlight
.”

“But the family is the ship,” Tycho said. “And—”

“And the ship is the captain, and the captain is the family,” Diocletia said. “I was taught that as a child too, you know. Just like Dad, and every Hashoone back to Lodovico. But things change. You've learned that by now.”

“But then why did you still teach it to us, Mom? Since you no longer believed it yourself.”

“Because I still
wanted
to believe it. Because I wanted to believe I was the exception, that I was the one who'd failed to make it work.”

“But it
has
worked,” Yana said. “What you taught us was true. Our family didn't break apart. I mean, just look around. The family
is
the ship. It's as true as it's ever been.”

“Our family didn't break apart, true,” Diocletia said. “Because something terrible happened that forced us to stay together.”

She sighed.

“On some level, your grandfather's never forgiven your father and me for what we tried to do then—just like I fear two of you will refuse to forgive the one who becomes captain. And maybe that's just the way it is. But sometimes I think that tradition no longer makes sense and needs to change—just like a lot of things are changing.”

It was Carlo who spoke first.

“I think our family tradition has sustained us for centuries for a reason,” he said. “Maybe 624 Hektor was a blessing in disguise.”