Loyalty to the Cause (TCOTU, Book 4) (This Corner of the Universe) (16 page)

“Hitting
all the popular Brevic sights, I see,” Lombardi commented sardonically.

“If
we’re running to the Federation, why not dive to Thalassa, Captain?” Vernay
questioned.  “It’s faster.”  She sighed longingly and added, “It sure would be
nice to get a message home.”

Heskan
looked at his first officer with empathy. 
That’s right, Stacy’s family
lives in that system.
  “I’m sorry, but we can’t.  There are no habitable
systems after Thalassa for at least four more dives in the direction we’d have
to run,” Heskan explained.  “You said yourself that our life support systems
will collapse before that.”  He traced the remainder of the route.  “No, we
dive to New London, then a Type B jump to Carme, then Kalyke before finally
reaching Terra Mater and the Federation.”

“Fifteen
days,” Vernay estimated.  “Life support for fourteen of them.”

“We’ll
just hold our breath for the last day,” Heskan joked while looking around the
room.  “That’s the plan so far.  Isabella, I want you to send it down channels
so your people know what’s in store for them.  It’s going to be cramped, we’re
going to be hungry and hunted, but if we can hold out for two weeks, we should
be safe inside the Federation and the Commonwealth is only three dives from
Terra Mater.”

Lombardi’s
brilliant white teeth shone with her smile as she exaggerated, “A veritable
vacation for us compared to the last two weeks, Garrett.  My people will do
whatever is necessary to support you.”  A sideways glance at Romano encouraged
his agreement.

“Yes,”
the engineer said, ‘I was out of line earlier regarding those ‘Vic troopers. 
Captain, you and your crew have acted with honor.”  Romano finished his
proclamation but looked pensive.

“What
is it, Kapitan?” Heskan asked.

“I
am hesitant to bring this up but I must ask what my position on the ship is.”  Romano
shrugged and added, “That engineer, Mr.
Müller, will
hardly let me near the chief’s panel in the Engine Room.  I told him of my
experience but his ‘Vic prejudices keep him from letting me perform my duties.”

“He’s not a ‘Vic—er, Brevic citizen, Kapitan,” Vernay corrected. 
“He was the original engineer when the ship was a legitimate freighter in a
corporate system.”

“Nonetheless,”
Romano persisted, “how can I perform my job if the man refuses to accept my authority? 
What is the chain of command on this ship?”

“The
Captain is the captain,” Vernay declared and then screwed her eyebrows together
at the inanity of the statement.

“Is
Komandor Lombardi the first officer?” Romano asked innocently.

Heskan
saw Vernay’s back stiffen at the suggestion. 
Stacy still doesn’t trust them,
or is it something personal against Isabella?  How do I proceed without wrecking
the faith both of them have in me?
  “There’s merit to that, Kapitan, but I
think Lieutenant Vernay needs to remain the first officer.”  He looked at
Lombardi and explained hastily, “It’s not that I don’t trust you, Isabella, but
that Stacy knows these systems better than you.”

Lombardi
waved her hand dismissively.  “Garrett, I understand—”

Heskan
continued to mollify, “She’s also familiar with the protocol of civilian
traffic lanes and so forth.  She’s had two years of experience in system
defense—”

“Garrett,”
Lombardi interrupted, “it is all right.  She is the right woman for the job.”

Heskan
exhaled noticeably and turned toward Romano.  “Kapitan, I also think Mr.
Müller should keep his position on Hussy.”  He noted that
Vernay was nodding emphatically.  “However, I want you to monitor his actions
and make suggestions as you see fit.  If you see any suspicious activity from
him, bring it to the komandor’s immediate attention.”

Romano nodded silently.

Heskan looked at the chronometer integrated into the wardroom’s
wall.  “Finally, we need to agree to the disposition of Agent Jennings.”

“Snake,” Lombardi spat.

“Agreed, but there will be no killing,” Heskan said adamantly. 
“It wouldn’t even serve a purpose.  With any luck, we’ll dive from Anthe before
Brewer notices that we’re missing but he
will
eventually miss us.  It
won’t be hard to review the tower logs on the orbital and see Hussy loading the
containers.  Tracking our course to the tunnel point won’t be problematic
either.”

“We just need to make sure that Jennings can’t alert Brewer before
he discovers the situation for himself,” Vernay said.

“Right,” Heskan agreed.  “Hussy has two lifeboats.  We’ll disable the
drive and communications equipment on one of them and set him adrift right
before we dive.”

“That’s good,” Lombardi admitted.  “He’d still be drifting away
from the system at point one-seven-C so it would take a while for a rescue ship
to catch up to him.”

“Plus,” Heskan said, “any would-be rescuer would have to match his
speed and then spacewalk across to the boat since he wouldn’t be able to dock. 
That will add even more time.”  He looked at Vernay.  “Stacy, make sure we put
that pressure suit I used into the lifeboat for him.”

Vernay acknowledged.  “I’ll disable the comm unit in the suit,
too.”

Heskan
looked around the table, searching for unanswered questions.  Finding none, he
said, “Let’s get to work.”

The
group rose from the table and filtered out of the wardroom and into the tiny
hallway.  Vernay and Romano stopped at the stairwell and began to descend.  Next
in line, Lombardi turned to face Heskan and pushed him back into the wardroom.

She
closed the hatch behind them and looked at Heskan with amused eyes.  Grinning,
she said, “I can see by your expression that you are unsure whether to return
my smile or run for your life.”  She brought a slender hand to his.  Her touch was
electric.  “Garrett, please stop, uh—,” she searched for the correct expression,
“—tiptoeing around me like Trax.”

Heskan
eyed her curiously before she clarified, “Mythical figure who crept in
Jorogumo’s lair and stole eggs.”

Heskan
smiled back at her.  Her caress threatened to push their current predicament
completely from his mind.  “Isabella—”

“The
people close to me say ‘Izzy’, Garrett,” she purred.

Heskan
reflected on the first time he had seen the woman before him.  She had been incensed
at the time, defeated without admitting it, and raging at Admiral Hayes over
his pointless attack on her uncle’s carrier.  Even at the height of her vehemence,
she was remarkable, a person who stirred emotion and whom others naturally
looked to for guidance.  His thoughts turned to the kiss in
Hussy’s
hold.  It was not the first time he had recalled it.  Both brazen and honest,
it hallmarked the woman next to him. 
She’s passionate, Garrett, and she
makes no apologies for it. 
His smile widened.  “Izzy.”  The word rolled
off his tongue, and it felt good to say it.  “I didn’t want to hurt you but
Hussy’s best chance to make it out of the Republic is with Stacy as first
officer.”

Wide, vulnerable
brown eyes peered into his own even as her hand slid up Heskan’s arm to the
back of his head.  Her fingers playfully stroked his hair.  “You
can
hurt me, Garrett,” she confessed, “but no longer like that.”  She dropped her
hand to her side and said, “I was held away from my crew during my time on the
orbital.  Days of solitude interrupted only by brief interrogations.  The only
hope I had was you.”  Her eyes never left his.  “That hope was enough,” she
said as she slipped even closer to him.  She whispered, “Thank you for not
abandoning me.”

*  *  *

Brewer
had finished his outline for the upcoming Lombardi interrogation and was
completing an initial mission summary for the Minister of Intelligence when
Secretary Neal called.  He looked irritably at the distraction.  This would be
the man’s fourth update from
Kite
.  In brief, the situation was well in
hand.  Other than the curious, botched bombing attempt inside Truesworth’s
quarters, the impending attack had yet to happen.  Further, Neal now had a
sufficient force on board to ensure the destroyer escort would remain safely in
the proper hands even if Truesworth’s cohorts attempted to appropriate the
ship.  An hour ago, Neal’s agents had moved to the offensive and were
conducting a thorough search for the renegades.

During
their last conversation, Brewer had tasked Neal with creating a list of
Kite
crewmembers to interview in an attempt to root out any possible sleeper rebels,
but Brewer was now completely confident that any attack on the Anthe orbital
would not come from space.

The
situation inside the orbital was less satisfactory.  Jennings had updated him two
hours ago to confirm his arrival at the cargo bay and that the prisoners were still
secure.  Brewer had been in contact with Agent Dunn three times since he had
taken over the search for Truesworth on the station.  The man still eluded
capture.  Dunn’s prevailing theory was that Truesworth had discarded his bisht
and
keffiyeh
into the lavatory trash tube and exited the bathroom wearing an alternate
disguise.  Facial recognition software had not detected his exit, demonstrating
once again that low-tech solutions could still counter high-tech protocols.  Finally,
the security chief at the orbital confinement facility troubled Brewer twice to
announce that he had still not come under the anticipated attack.

Brewer’s
datapad chirped impatiently again.  This would be the eleventh interruption in
three hours.  He accepted Neal’s comm request and said sharply, “What.”

“Mr.
Secretary, none of the traitors are here.  I recommend we station guards at Kite’s
docking tubes and move the rest of the agents to supplement the effort on the
orbital.”

“Fine,”
Brewer responded irritably while backspacing to replace a word in his mission report. 
The phrasing of reports to the minister required meticulous care.

“Mr.
Secretary, I’m starting to think it’s not scheduled for today or that once
Truesworth realized he got identified on the commercial deck, he panicked and
called everything off.”

“Fine,”
Brewer repeated.  He finished typing his sentence and reread it.  After a few
moments of thought, he said, “Once you have Kite’s guards in place and you’re
certain the ship will remain secure, return to the orbital.”  He copied a chart
of Lombardi’s last
physiological indices taken during
her interview into his document and aligned it with his summation.

“Where do you want me to report, sir?”

The
transcript of the interview failed to attach to the report correctly.  Brewer
felt his anger rise at the failings of technology.  After several attempts, he
went through the procedure step by step and attached the file successfully.  Somehow,
Lombardi’s chart had become unaligned with the summation again.  Brewer exhaled
deeply.  “Mr. Neal, you are an assistant to the Secretary of the Bureau of
Internal Security.”  Instead of rising, his voice grew quieter.  “You hold position
over thousands of agents charged with the safety of this Republic.”  He was nearly
whispering now.  “Stop wasting my time and start demonstrating the capability
to make decisions befitting of your status or seek employment elsewhere.”  He
terminated the connection with a swipe of his hand.

*  *  *

Heskan
walked onto
Hussy’s
bridge and reached the captain’s console.  The chair
creaked ominously under his weight, enough for him to examine the bolts at its
base with concern.  Satisfied the chair would not collapse, he looked to the
console.  It felt strange to sit behind a panel after his time on
Anelace
and
Kite
.
 Even though the console status screens were larger
than on his old captain’s chair arms, there seemed to be a lot of dead space
between the displays.

To
his right, Lieutenant Truesworth was halfway inside the open console of his
station.  Heskan’s briefcase rested nearby and various cables ran between the
stolen IFF unit and the station panel.  Tools and equipment were strewn about
Truesworth’s feet.

The
system plot on Heskan’s console indicated
Hussy
was cruising at .17
c
,
though at a price.  The engineering summary screen displayed gauges that were
all in a yellow zone, bordering on red.  It was obvious the CT-B20 drives and
accompanying inertial dampers were operating at maximum. 
Hussy’s
tiny
power core was also flirting with overload. 
We’ll drop back to standard
cruise after the dive,
Heskan promised himself.  Also alarming was the rate
at which the core was burning through her power cells to feed the increasing
hunger of the freighter’s inertial dampers.  He glanced at the dormant
Phot0-Sail status display. 
When those cells give out, we won’t be able to
use the Allison drives at all.  We’ll be stuck with only her sail for
propulsion.

Heskan
looked over his console to his navigator.  “Diane, we can’t run the Allisons
forever at this rate.”

Her
head bobbed as she said, “I know, Captain.  I’ve been studying very hard on the
sail’s operation.  It’s going to be touch and go for a while though; I’ve never
used this type of sail before.  The masts are horizontal instead of vertical, the
smartlines rotate…”  Selvaggio shook her head with uncertainty.