Hope's Folly (20 page)

Or else—and Rya's warnings echoed in his head— the two systems failures were designed to look that way.

“I need to know how close we can get,” he told Adney, synching her datapad to his deskscreen and downloading yet more reports. “Tell Sparks to concentrate on what needs to be done in dock. If there are less-critical repairs we can make under way, push those back.” He wanted to move on his timetable, not dance like a puppet for the Imperials or the Farosians.

He handed her the datapad, his mind still processing the data as Adney turned toward the bridge.

“Commander,” he said, calling her back from the double doorway. “One more thing.” He motioned her over. He lowered his voice. “For security reasons, Sparks, you, and I are the only ones who will know our exact departure time until thirty minutes before departure.”

“Mather … ?”

“I know you worked with him, and I know you trust him, but I'm not willing to discount anything at this point. The three of us, Dina. That's it. If anyone else asks, tell them we're still working on it. Half hour's notice is all I'm going to give anyone. Fifteen minutes would be preferable.”

“You think Samling and Mirrow weren't the only moles.” It wasn't a question.

“I don't discount anything,” he repeated.

He could tell by the stiff set of her shoulders that Dina Adney wasn't happy as she headed back to the bridge, again. But happy no longer was an option. Doing everything he could to guarantee the safety of everyone on board was.

Even the moles.

In spite of Rya's assertion that neither the Imperials nor the Farosians were amateurs, there was always a chance that individual agents might panic, or at least try something stupid if things went awry. He needed to force them out into the open, now.

The
Folly's
shakedown cruise was going to be a shakedown in more ways than one.

He grabbed Con Welford about an hour later and walked each deck on an unofficial inspection tour of the ship, limping a bit less noticeably, he hoped. The
Folly
was eighty-five percent the old
Stockwell,
but there had been changes, including new temporary walls in cargo bays and a couple of new access tunnels. Much of the ship's intraship system had been disconnected. Cargo haulers carried less crew than a military heavy cruiser. Some of the equipment, he suspected, had been stripped out and sold to raise funds. Farosian or fruit, he didn't know.

Rya popped in and out of his peripheral vision—and other senses—during the trek. He assumed they were simply on a complementary orbit, but he didn't discount that Adney had assigned him a bodyguard. But he didn't need a bodyguard, and especially not one so distracting. He'd have to talk to Adney about that—after he cleared the other three hundred critical things off his plate first.

Like dinner. Somehow lunch had slipped by him. He realized that as he stood in the general mess hall on Deck 3 and watched Con try to cadge a protein tube out of a recalcitrant dispenser. Philip had told Adney he'd help with galley duties before he'd realized the
Folly's
menu was the least of her problems.

But now … Actually, there was little else for him to be doing. He'd read all the reports, authorized what needed to be done. He'd met with Adney and his command staff. There might be three hundred critical things to finish yet, but at least two hundred eighty-eight of them were under way. The other dozen he couldn't do one damned thing about.

He hadn't read himself on board. Without a working intraship system, it didn't seem right. But if he gathered most everyone in the mess hall for dinner … A plan formed.

Philip Guthrie felt useful again.

He grabbed Con's wrist, stopping the man from shoving something brown, tubular, and disgusting in his mouth. “Don't do that.”

“Sir?”

He tugged the lieutenant toward the galley doors. “I put an order through for supplies a few hours ago. Let's see what's come in.”

Quite a bit. Three crew were unpacking, shelving, and securing. They straightened, saluting. He returned the gesture, then poked through the open dull-gray plastic duro-hards. He checked perishables. Not bad, he thought, picking up a large yellow roasting pepper and sniffing it. Though if he had access to those incoming funds Sullivan had snagged for him … but they were two shipweeks away yet. A gala dinner, then, when they arrived.

Con was eyeing him strangely.

Philip put down the pepper and smiled. “Do me a favor,” he asked, pointing to a workstation against the wall. “Find out from the personnel rosters who's admitted to a talent for cooking, and if they're not critical elsewhere, get four or five down here in the next half hour.” He plucked a few boxes and bags from a duro-hard. “We're going to have ourselves a decent dinner.”

“Finally,” Martoni said. “This should be the last one.” Rya saw the reflections of the conveyor freight-loader's flashing red lights as they strobed the wide cargo passageway. She stepped closer to the cargo bay's airlock, where Martoni leaned against a pylon, one of the coveted working datapads in hand. With intraship and comm links still not functioning reliably, the datapads were the only way officers could com municate with one another when they weren't at a deskscreen.

Martoni tilted the pad's screen toward her. “All the supplies Commander Sparkington ordered are here. Eight duro-hards. Same routine as the others.”

“Not a problem.” She, Martoni, and four other crew had spent the past two hours clearing incoming supplies. Nothing got on the ship unless it was thoroughly inspected, counted, and verified.

He handed her the pad. “Log everything here, then patch it to a workstation to upload the data to Commander Adney's files.” He hesitated. “Sorry I can't give you the comm-link codes for it, but this is Commander Adney's.”

That meant she was locked out of all the pad's functions except for data input and transmittal.

“I'll either be in Adney's office or in divisionals,” he continued. “You can leave it with the commander when you're done.”

She waved him on. She and Martoni had been running from one assignment to the next the entire day. Now he was off again for another meeting. She'd finish up here.

She met the loader's driver at the base of the cargo ramp, synched the loader's manifest datapad with hers, and, by the impatient tapping of the stocky woman's boot, could tell she was taking far longer than the driver liked in double-checking everything. Too bad.

“Heard you had some mechanical problems on board,” the woman said.

Rya's scrutiny hesitated, but only for a second. There was no way the
Folly's
problems should have made it to dock. “Just came on shift,” she lied. “Woke up late.” She yawned, then grinned self-consciously. “Did I miss something exciting?”

“Something about a lift dropping four decks, crashing in one of your shuttle bays, I think.” The woman shrugged.

“You serious? Anyone get hurt?”

“Not that I heard.”

“Well, damn!” Rya disengaged the two units, her mind parsing the woman's story while she continued her role as cargohand. “Everything looks perfect. You people make my job easier. I appreciate that, you know?”

Another shrug, but the woman was smiling now, thawing a bit. Which was what Rya wanted.
Trust me. Talk to me.
There hadn'd been any lift crashes, or she'd have heard. Problems with the lights, yes. Blast doors, yes. Maybe it was an error in the story, or maybe not. If something was supposed to have happened to the lifts, she wanted to know.

“No problem,” the woman said in response to Rya's appreciative words. “We're all in this together, right? I'll get the belt going.”

Rya watched the belt extend up the ramp. Then the first gray duro-hard appeared, a good ten feet in length and half that in width.

“So I guess I should avoid the lifts,” Rya said as she walked toward the driver. “This is my first shipboard assignment.” She put a nervous tone in her voice. “My boyfriend talked me into it.”

“It was probably just jumpjockey talk.” The woman patted Rya's arm. “The two guys I overheard talking about it, they didn't seem real worried. They said your guy was just glad the supply depot had the parts he needed.”

“A crew member from here?” Rya knew that was impossible. The ship was under security lockdown since the Kirro and shuttle incidents. No leaves had been authorized. All communications to the shipyard had been through Adney's office. No one should be off ship getting supplies, and especially not without a security bodyguard.

The woman shook her head. “Don't know if your guy in the depot was officer or crew. The ones talking about him were yardworkers. Tugs, 'cause one had the black and gold wings.” She touched the space above her right pocket where the double-S of her Seth Shipyard insignia was. “You know those tuggies love to gossip. And not a one ever sets foot in a ship. I've been in more than they have!”

“The red-haired tuggy with a beard that was here earlier?” Rya lied again.

“Don't know that one. This one's pale, had dark hair pulled in a tail. He was tall. The other was shorter, pale too. But he had a cap on.”

“Well, they haven't come to cargo or I'd have seen them. So you're probably right. Just talk.”

The woman pointed her pad at the large duro-hard. “That's the last one. You doing the verifications too?”

“I am,” Rya said, suddenly wishing Martoni were here, suddenly wishing she wasn't doing verifications. She wanted to find the tall tuggy with the dark hair pulled back, and his shorter friend, and find out just what they knew about what purportedly happened on the
Folly.
And who they talked to in the supply depot.

She headed back up the ramp and with a start saw Mr. Nice Ass standing near the top, watching her, arms folded across his chest.
Dillon,
she reminded herself. She didn't even know his rank or first name.

He nodded as she approached. “This is for Sparks, yes?” His voice held that light accent.

“Looks like it. Martoni send you?”

“Sparks did.” He curved part of his mouth in a grin. A sexy grin. “Old man likes his toys, you know?”

“I'm not releasing anything until I've done verifications.” That came out sharper than she intended, but something about Mr. Nice Ass rankled her. Because he was Mr. Nice Ass? Another good-looking hard-body, like Matt? Amazing how they could be so enjoyable and annoying at the same time.

She broke the security seals on the first container, angled the datapad to read the embedded datapeg, then did a visual.

“I can help,” Dillon offered.

“This won't take long.” The second read as clean as the first. The third container wasn't as cooperative. Dozens of small parts.

“Here.” Dillon pulled a portable reader from his tool belt.

“Where'd you get that?”

“My job.” The grin widened, then he leaned over and whispered in her ear. “The old man isn't the only one who likes his toys.”

His tone was playful, suggestive. Definitely enjoyable and annoying. And not her problem at the moment.

She synched the pad to his reader, verifying the data as he sent it to her. This was going faster than she expected. That might give her time to get up to Adney's office, tell her what the driver said. Get permission to—

“That's it?”

She looked up from the pad. Dillion looked at her, one dark eyebrow raised. She glanced at the pad again. “That's it. Eight. Everything looks good.” She turned and trotted to the middle of the ramp. “I'll sign off on the shipment,” she told the driver.

“Your boyfriend's not bad at all,” the driver said as Rya tapped in her code on the pad. “Understand why you followed him on the ship.”

Boyfriend? She shot a glance over her shoulder, seeing only Dillon. He grinned. “He's not—”

But the driver was already trudging down the ramp toward the chugging loader.

Rya shrugged it off and hurried back to the cargo bay. “Spare servopallets are there,” she told Dillon, pointing to a wide locker in the bulkhead as she walked past him. “Thanks for your help.” She keyed in the locking codes, closing the bay doors behind her. Damn it all! If only she had her own datapad or a comm link. She had to talk to Adney. Or Welford, if Adney wasn't around. Philip trusted Con Welford.

Dillon caught up with her. “Leaving?”

“Things to do. Thanks,” she said again.

He was still trotting next to her. “You play cards?”

She slowed, his question catching her unaware. “Sure, but—”

“When all this craziness dies down, a couple of us, we thought we'd get a game going. Get to know one another a little better. Yes?”

“Look, Dillon—”

“Alek.” He ducked his head shyly for a moment.

Shyly? Well, fancy that. “Look, Alek, I have no idea when this craziness is going to stop. But sure, at some point, if you've got a card game going, I'm interested. Okay?”

“That's really good. Yes.”

She nodded, suddenly feeling awkward with the way he was looking at her. She was rarely awkward around men, but Dillon was looking at her as if her answer really mattered. “I have to find Commander Adney.”

His hand on her arm stopped her. “Lieutenant Bennton?”

“Yes?”

“I don't … What's your first name?”

She was on a ship with no functional crew locator, insufficient datapads, and no name tags for their nonexistent uniforms. First names were definitely a problem. “Rya.”

“Rya.” His voice dropped to a rumble. “I look forward to seeing you again, Rya.”

Well, fancy that. She felt like she was back in the pubs on Calth 9 with Lyza, flirting with the hard-bodies. Why had she assumed shipboard would be any different?

She found a functioning workstation about twenty feet from the cargo-hold exterior hatchlock and linked the datapad in, sending a ping to Commander Adney with the data:
Cargo complete. I have some information that might be important. Would like to discuss. Lt. R. Bennton.

She waited about thirty seconds with no answer, then decided she might as well start climbing. She was on the
Folly's
lowest deck, Deck 6. At the very least Adney would be on Deck 3, the largest deck, encompassing most of the crew's quarters as well as the general mess. More likely, Adney was in one of the divisional offices in Deck 2 Aft or on the bridge.