The Thirteenth Man (18 page)

Charlie wrote another note, carefully explaining how he'd mistaken her motives on Tachaann and apologizing for the mistake. He got another page and sent him along with instructions to say the note was from Rierma. The page returned in short order with another note from Delilah. It had one sentence on it. He read it and had to rack his brain for a moment to remember that the last sentence on his note had been,
I was a fool
, because it was clearly that which Del's one-­sentence reply was in response to:

Yes, you are
.

Charlie went to see her. Two pretty young women met him at the entrance to her apartments. He was relieved when they offered him a seat in an elegant sitting room, and told him that the princess would be with him shortly. So he sat there and waited—­for two hours he sat there and waited—­while a constant parade of pretty, young women came to him at regular intervals to offer him a drink, or a pastry, or
anything Your Grace might desire
, and to tell him that
Her Highness will be with you shortly
. It took him all afternoon to realize she wasn't going to
be with him shortly
, or any time soon, for that matter. He left, calling himself an idiot, realizing he'd gotten what he deserved.

I
t was a reception for the Ten, all of whom were finally present. There were perhaps two hundred ­people, sipping at glasses of wine and nibbling on finger food, jockeying for royal position, cutting deals, and cutting political throats. The one-­hundred-­day waiting period was now over, and the first meeting of the Ten would occur on the following day.

Charlie, Telka, Harrimo, and Rierma were discussing the unrest on Aagerbanne when Chelko joined them. Chelko was Faggan's son and heir, newly occupying the de Jupttar ducal seat. Rierma had warned Charlie that, because of Lucius and Goutain's involvement in the death of his father, Chelko impatiently wanted action now. Chelko was young, and ready to start a war that moment, though being the head of a minor house he didn't have the resources to do so. In a sense he was merely an extreme example of the rest of them. Lucius's stupidity and Goutain's desire to rule the Realm had hurt Telka, Harrimo, and Rierma as much as Charlie, and that gave them common cause.

“What about you, de Lunis?” Chelko asked. “Don't you want to kill that bastard?”

It was plump little Telka who answered for Charlie. “Chelko,” the small woman said, “I think there is no doubt what Charlie would
like
to do, but he's not fool enough to speak it aloud. And since he can do nothing at this time, especially since Theode has aligned with Nadama, I'd guess he's smart enough to bite his tongue and bide his time.”

Cesare had once warned him that Telka liked to play the plump little scatterbrained woman, twittering and chattering, sometimes aimlessly. Cesare had also pointed out that when Telka had inherited the de Vena ducal seat, it had been a minor house, and through her leadership had grown into one of the three most powerful houses in the Realm.

“You haven't answered my question, de Lunis,” Chelko demanded.

“I think Telka answered for me rather nicely,” Charlie said. “Combine the de Satarna, the de Maris, and the Syndonese forces, and we don't stand a chance. What I wish to know is why we allowed Theode to usurp the de Maris ducal seat.”

Chelko said, “I wasn't even seated.”

Tall, thin Harrimo reminded Charlie of Winston when she spoke. “Charlie, you know we cannot intervene in a matter that's internal to House de Maris. It would give Lucius and Goutain the precedent they need to intervene in all our houses.”

Telka said, “There's a good cause for you, Chelko. Get Arthur reinstated. We all know who he'd support.”

Charlie hadn't realized Theode was behind him until he spoke in that nasally, whining voice of his. “What did you say? What did you say?”

Charlie turned slowly, and Theode stepped into the small circle of ­people with Gaida on his arm. While Gaida stared daggers at Charlie, Theode said, “You said something about Arthur, and reinstatement.”

Charlie looked at Telka, and realized that with her standing there facing him, she had known the two were behind him. He said, “I said nothing of the kind.”

“Yes you did. No one else would care about him. He's a murderer.”

“Calm down, Theode,” Gaida said. She didn't change the expression on her face. “It didn't sound like Charlie's voice.” She looked at each of them in turn, but got nothing.

Theode leaned close to Charlie and spit words in his face. “Don't even think about it, because it's never going to happen.”

He spun and practically dragged Gaida away.

Adsin took their place. “What was that about, Your Graces?”

Harrimo said, “Theode's just feeling a bit insecure.”

Adsin turned to Charlie and looked him up and down. “Your Grace, it's amazing how one's circumstances can change in so short a time.”

Harrimo came to Charlie's defense. “Yes, Adsin,” she said, snubbing him by not granting him any title, something he dared not do to one of them. “Many of us have had our circumstances change in a short time.”

Adsin ignored her and addressed Charlie with a smirk. “Tell me, Your Grace. How is our dear Admiral Santieff?”

Charlie had prepared for that question, though not necessarily from Adsin. Still, the fact that it came from Adsin told him how deeply the little snake was in Goutain's pocket. It also told him that they had yet to realize that Santieff and his ship were missing. “Admiral whom?” Charlie asked.

Adsin frowned. “Santieff. Admiral Santieff, a high-­ranking Syndonese officer.”

Charlie pretended to think for a moment, then shook his head. “I don't believe I've met him.”

“But he was sent to pay you a visit.”

“Was he now? Well, I've had no visitors.”

Adsin turned and scurried across the room to Goutain.

“What was that about?” Telka demanded.

Charlie grinned at her. “I wouldn't know. But I suspect that our dear Admiral Santieff, and his ship, and his crew, are all going to turn up missing, lost with all hands, as it were.”

A little later Charlie and Rierma were alone when an older woman, who happened to be passing by, leaned toward Charlie and whispered, “Don't give up, Your Grace. She is angry with you, but her anger stems purely from her pride, not her heart. And she's being watched closely, which limits what she can say and do.” Without another word, she walked on.

“Rierma,” Charlie asked, following her with his eyes. “Who's that woman?”

Rierma followed Charlie's gaze. “Ah, that's Lady Carristan, lady-­in-­waiting to Delilah. It's said she was more of a mother to the princess than Adan.”

I
n the hope of getting Arthur reinstated, Charlie wanted to propose at the meeting of the Ten that they open an inquiry into Cesare's death. Both Rierma and Winston vehemently opposed that on the grounds that Charlie's ducal estates were too weak to force the issue, he'd accomplish nothing, and might open up a precedent that would allow Theode and Gaida to interfere in de Lunis internal affairs. So Charlie swallowed his pride, tried not to think of his brother's predicament, and kept his mouth shut.

The meeting of the Ten went off with only a few minor incidents. Chelko angrily opposed everything that Lucius proposed, and Charlie was pretty sure he'd say black if the king said white. There was nothing of significance on the agenda, though, so on Winston's advice Charlie adopted a low profile and didn't speak out on any issues. He voted his conscience on a few, voted with the majority on the rest, and tried to avoid establishing any visible pattern.

After the meeting, a page delivered a message that Lady Carristan wished to speak with him. Charlie followed the page to a sitting room and found Delilah there alone, though she stood looking the other way and was not immediately aware of his presence. But as the page closed the door she turned toward him, and he watched the look on her face slowly transform from a pleasant smile to a cold, expressionless stare.

“Your Highness,” he said.

With only the slightest movement of her lips she said, “Your Grace. I wasn't expecting you.”

“I was told to come here. I didn't know you'd be here, and I don't mean to upset you. That said,” he went on, moving a bit closer, “I'm not going to waste this opportunity. I've wanted to speak with you, to apologize for our last meeting. I erred badly.”

The look she gave him could have cut him in two. “Yes you did. And my schedule doesn't allow me time to speak with you now.”

She walked toward him, toward the door actually, for he stood just within the threshold. She started to step around him, but he back-­stepped and put his back to the door, blocking her.

“Do you detain me against my will?” she asked quietly, and he noticed her eyes glance upward right and left, a very cautious, furtive action.

“No,” he said, realizing she wouldn't listen to him regardless of what he said or did. He stepped aside. She opened the door and left.

The next morning he departed Almsburg.

 

CHAPTER 18

SHAKEDOWN

“H
ow's our bogie now?” Charlie asked, seated at
Turmoil
's command console.

“Coming in hard, sir,” Seth answered from the scan console. “Driving at just under two thousand lights, ranging at point-­nine light-­years. Closest intercept is four AUs, in a little over three hours.”

Turmoil
was the first of the new hunter-­killers. He'd taken her out previously for a shakedown cruise, and to experiment with new tactics: tracking and targeting on warships and merchantmen alike, attempting close approaches without being detected. They were still at the experimental stage, more playing at war games than anything else. They'd been detected once by a de Satarna cruiser and another time by a Syndonese frigate. Both had challenged them and demanded identity codes, then fired on them when they responded with silence and turned to run;
Turmoil
was good at running. After a month of experimentation he'd returned the hunter-­killer to Sague for certain modifications, then another tenday of shakedown, and now it was time to see if they could do anything useful with her, though it still wasn't yet time to start a war.

Charlie could see from her transition wake the incoming ship was big and fast, too fast to be a freighter. “Is she Syndonese, and is she a warship?”

“Too early to tell, sir. Can't really read her signature at this distance.”

At least he'd gotten them to drop the
Your Graces
when he was commanding a warship. They were sitting about five light-­years off Istanna, in the middle of the shipping lanes to Toellan.

“Can we intercept?”

At the helm, Roger answered, “Yes, sir. Shouldn't be a problem.”

Both Roger and Seth had been enthusiastic about the new hunter-­killers, seeing all sorts of possibilities, where Darmczek and older COs had seen only weakness.

“Then do so.”

Charlie watched his screens as Roger firewalled the sublight drive, accelerating at well over ten thousand gravities. They'd tried this twice now, and both times the incoming ships hadn't been Syndonese. Charlie wanted a Syndonese for a first target—­test really.

“Sir, I've got a transition plan for you.”

Charlie looked at the summary Roger had sent to one of his screens. They'd up-­transit perpendicular to the bogie's vector, hold their velocity at two lights for a little over a quarter of an hour. Two lights should keep their transition wake and flares completely undetectable to a ship in transition, probably even to ships in sublight as long as they weren't close.

“Eighty-­one minutes to up-­transition, sir.”

“It's a good plan, Roger. Do it.”

Most of their time would be spent accelerating to, and decelerating from, transition. But Roger's plan would have them directly ahead of the incoming bogie with time to spare.

Waiting, that was always the hard part, watching the minutes tick by. When they finally up-­transited Charlie felt that little tickle run down his spine, then again when they down-­transited. Then more waiting as they decelerated to kill their perpendicular vector, then more as they accelerated hard to build velocity along the bogie's vector.

“I think I've got a good signature,” Seth said. “High probability she's Syndonese, and a warship. A big one, probably battleship class . . . and . . .” A gravity wave rolled through
Turmoil
's bridge as the bogie's bow wave slammed into her. “ . . . here she comes.”

“Roger,” Charlie said, fighting nausea as his stomach somersaulted. “Remember, let her stern wake pull us into up-­transition. Don't force it.”

“We've got gravitational instability all over the ship, sir. Some pretty sick ­people.”

Charlie should have thought of that, but too late now. The bogie passed within a million klicks, almost a collision course, then Roger shouted, “Up-­transition, sir.”

“Go, go, go,” Charlie shouted. “We've got to keep up with her. Any reaction from her?”

“No reaction, sir.”

More waiting.

“We're stabilizing at two thousand lights, and a little over two AUs behind her.”

Turmoil
's bridge was silent for several seconds. It took them all that long to realize they'd done it. Then Seth and Roger both let out a whoop, and everyone cheered.

“H
e's braking strongly, sir, approaching down-­transition.”

“Helm?” Charlie demanded.

“Three hundred lights, sir, and decelerating.”

“Remember, match his deceleration curve down to fifty lights. Then decelerate as hard as you can. I want us down to two lights before we down-­transit.”

“Two hundred and fifty lights, sir.”

It was almost impossible for two ships in transition to detect one another, as long as they both held a straight, steady course and made only small adjustments: long, slow turns, decelerating or accelerating incrementally. But the captain of the bogie had become peacetime careless, had driven straight for Istanna and was now decelerating hard. And with
Turmoil
's augmented instrumentation, he was handing them an easy targeting signature. She was definitely a big Syndonese warship.

“Two hundred lights, sir.”

They'd ridden inside the stern wake of the big ship for a little under a day. That had been hard on the crew, so early on they'd backed off to a distance of five AUs. But now, approaching Istannan nearspace, they needed to correct that.

“One hundred and fifty lights, sir.”

Charlie said, “Now hold on to a little extra velocity and start closing the gap. I want to be inside one AU when she down-­transits.”

“One hundred lights, sir.”

“Fire control—­status?”

Roacka was at fire control. “As you instructed, lad, a one-­megaton transition torpedo armed and targeted for detonation two hundred meters off their bow. Forward and rear transition launchers charged and green-­lighted.”

Turmoil
's hull groaned as a big gravity wave rolled through her, and no one needed to hear Roger say, “We're just under one AU behind her, sir.”

“Fifty lights, sir.”

Charlie said, “Stay on his tail. Match him exactly.”

“Forty lights . . .”

“Hold us at forty, let him decelerate. If he stays in character he'll down-­transit at thirty.”

With the bogie continuing to decelerate, and
Turmoil
holding steady, they quickly closed with the Syndonese and passed him. This was the critical moment. To keep their transition flare small enough to remain undetected they had to get
Turmoil
down to four or five lights before down-­transiting. But if they started decelerating too soon, the bogie would retake them, and for this maneuver that wouldn't work.

“He's at thirty-­five lights . . .”

“Start dumping lights,” Charlie said. On his screens he watched the readings for
Turmoil
's power plant approach redline. Now well out in front of the bogie, they began to decelerate, and with
Turmoil
's drive-­to-­weight ratio they decelerated much faster than the bogie, which meant the Syndonese were rapidly overtaking them.

“We're at thirty lights, sir . . . twenty . . . ten. He's just approaching thirty.”

“Remember, hold on to as much sublight velocity as you can. And fire control, launch without my command as soon as you have a targeting solution.”

“Five lights, sir, and she's getting unstable. And here comes that bogie.”

Charlie's stomach churned as a gravity wave washed through
Turmoil
. Then the bogie roared past them, and as her transition wake flooded the ship it slammed them into down-­transition.

“All stop,” Charlie shouted. “Rig for silent running.”

“There she goes, sir.”

The bogie down-­transited, and almost simultaneously Roacka growled, “Targeted. Torpedo away.”

Turmoil
's hull thrummed with the characteristic sound of a transition launch. Then only a second later Charlie's navigational screens went blank as the warhead detonated, the power plant readings dropped off scale, lights dimmed, and shipboard gravity disappeared as all noncritical systems shut down.

“Seth,” Charlie said. “What have you got?”

“Detonation was exactly on target, sir, two hundred meters off their bow. They've cut drive and are coasting, don't appear to be taking any action, don't appear to have noticed us. We're coasting at point-­nine lights. They're coasting at point-­two. I think it worked, sir.”

The entire crew breathed a collective sigh of relief. Then someone let out a whoop, and a contagious round of backslapping and cheering followed. It had worked, at least so far. They'd gotten their transition velocity as close to one light as they could before down-­transiting, and they'd retained almost one light of sublight velocity, all of which helped minimize their transition flare. They'd also down-­transited close to the bogie, and at almost the same moment, so the bogie's much greater flare masked their own. It also masked the launch of the torpedo. Any ships in the vicinity, or any station or planet based monitoring systems, might spot what appeared to be a faint echo of the larger ship's flare. But that wasn't uncommon, and would in all probability raise no concerns. Now, Charlie would have to wait to see if the second part of his plan worked.

Turmoil
was coasting at point-­nine lights into the gravitational well of the Istannan system, and since
Turmoil
wasn't supposed to exist, they were going to coast right through the system and out the other side before powering back up. During such routine hours Charlie spent a lot of time thinking about Starfall and the
overlord key
. He'd even visited Finalsa recently, to speak to his bankers there, in hopes that they might have a package for him from Cesare. Sague, Aziz, and Ethallan all regularly funneled funds into the same numbered investment account on Finalsa, though none of them had access to those funds or even information on the state of the account. Charlie learned that the money had been carefully invested. There was enough there for him to build a few more hunter-­killers, but that was it. Perhaps, now that Andyne-­Borregga was coming online, he could expand the shipyard there to something more than repair-­and-­supply. But that would take months, and in any case, he still had to come up with a way of funding larger hulls if he wanted to oppose Goutain and Lucius with any kind of effectiveness.

The bankers on Finalsa did have a package for him: actually just a sealed envelope, with a chromosome lock keyed to his DNA. And it held the strangest gift of all, a signed document granting Cesare the right to select the husband of Lucius's firstborn daughter, another document willing those rights to the de Lunis, and another certifying registry of both with the church. From the dates on the documents, Cesare had purchased those rights long before Delilah had even been conceived. And with canonical registry, the granting of such rights was a matter of public record. Anyone could dig them up, but only if one knew to look for them buried in the church archives more than thirty years ago. Winston told Charlie it was one of those times, shortly after Martino was born, when Lucius had squandered his personal assets and needed the money. And since he had a male heir, he had little concern for a girl not yet conceived and who might never be born. Charlie would bet that even Lucius, being Lucius, had forgotten this transaction.

To Charlie it was a useless document. He'd never exercise such an option. Nadama and Dieter would probably have him assassinated if he did. And even if that weren't an issue, he would never force Del to be his, and that's what it would amount to.

“Sir, we've just received a coded message from Mr. Sague, for your eyes only.”

“Send it down to my cabin.”

With no gravity, Charlie unstrapped and pulled his way down to the tiny captain's cabin. Oddly enough, he was more comfortable there than in the big suite of rooms at Starfall. The message was waiting on his personal console. He decoded it, then watched Sague's image report.

Apparently the warship they'd fired on was a Syndonese battleship christened the
Kiralov
. “They believe they triggered a mine, Your Grace. When their captain told me that, I decided to improvise. I told them this system was rather extensively mined during the Kealth incursion about a hundred years ago, and that while we've cleaned out most of the old mines, one does turn up every now and then. He seemed satisfied with that explanation.

“As we hoped, they sustained minor damage and he's demanded immediate ser­vice from our shipyard. All is going as planned. Also, we were watching closely and were unable to detect your transition flare. It was wholly masked by that of the larger ship.”

Charlie and Sague had hatched their little plot together. Without an atmosphere to carry the shock wave, and with fully operational shielding, a warship should easily survive a small, one-­megaton detonation at two hundred meters. But even with only minor damage, the commander of a warship would want to have her systems checked out thoroughly after such a near miss. And with a major shipyard conveniently close at hand, why not have her checked out immediately? As soon as the
Kiralov
docked at Istanna Prime, Sague's ­people would be all over her, but a special team would be assigned to her core computer system. They'd have to work under the watchful eyes of
Kiralov
's crew, but Charlie hoped they could learn something useful, though even if they learned nothing, the experiment had been a success.

O
nce
Turmoil
and her sister ship
Chaos
were completed, Charlie decided to reoccupy Starfall. With his new personal ship
The Thirteenth Man
, the two hunter-­killers, the converted Syndonese warship
The Headsman
, and the converted freighter, which he had named
Retribution
, he could always keep two of the ships in close orbit around Luna, providing the estate with a reasonably effective defense. He'd also decided to maintain the image of being near destitute, and so
The Thirteenth Man
, which appeared on the surface to be little better than a poor man's scow, was the only ship he allowed anyone outside his ser­vice to know about. Any of the other ships, when in orbit about Luna, would run silent, maintaining the secret of their existence and ready to deliver a nasty surprise should they receive another visit from a marauding bully like Santieff, or a pirate looking for easy pickings. And as a matter of security, the crews of
Turmoil
,
Chaos
,
Retribution
, and
The Headsman
were aware of only their own ship's existence, and not that of the others. Furthermore, none of the staff of Starfall were privy to the existence of any of Charlie's “shadow fleet,” as Roacka had dubbed it.