Trial by Fire - eARC (7 page)

“Colorful?”

“Stosh Witkowski. Never cusses, but he has a rare talent for inventing the most elegant insults that I have ever heard. And of course, I got a particularly rich share of his attention.”

“Why?”

“Why?” Trevor looked at Caine as if he was yet another new species of exosapient. “I was an officer, an Annapolis legacy, and the child of a celebrity father.” The last word threatened to catch in his throat; Trevor rose and exited their stateroom briskly, waved for Caine to follow. “Let’s get something to eat before they make us strap in.”

Caine followed Trevor into the small galley that was opposite the module’s combination entry hatch/docking ring. The small observation port—still unsealed—offered a memorable view: framed by the top-and-bottom gridwork of the cutter’s module-laden trusses, the system’s second gas giant loomed as a great black arc, backlit by the dim red glow of the occulted Barnard’s Star. A blood-washed white dot winked near the shoulder of the dark planetary curve.

Trevor nodded at the speck. “Say goodbye to The Pearl. They’ll be shutting the viewport any minute now.”

“Why?”

“Meteorology detected a flare, just as we came on board. Nothing too rough, but in addition to the rads kicked off by the gas giant, you’ll want more than a layer of sunscreen between you and the Great Out There.”

“Has The Pearl changed much since the last time you were here?”

“Does a ’Force base
ever
change?”

Caine snagged a cube of water, unfolded the integral straw. “You tell me. It seemed—well, almost deserted.”

Trevor nodded, perching on the countertop across from Caine in the excessively cozy space. “Yeah, and I had expected the opposite. Given all the traffic that’s been through here, and all the carriers and combat craft that the rosters say are in-system, I was sure the place would be overflowing, not a ghost town.”

Caine looked at him directly. “Galley scuttlebutt says that it’s because almost all the combat hulls are already deployed and double-crewed. Waiting.”

Trevor sipped his water, waved a dismissive hand. “Yeah, yeah, the Defcon Three that no one mentions and everyone knows about. Great cover-up, too: lots of threadbare bullshit about ‘routine maneuvers.’ Meanwhile, it’s common knowledge that assets are being dispersed to undisclosed groupment points or are shifting out-system to the ‘training reserve’ at Ross 154. Some secret.”

“And all that precautionary activity wouldn’t clear the bleachers?”

“Not like this, no. It wasn’t just the lack of shipside ratings cycling through the base. It was the constant reduction of dirtside techs. Do you know that there were fifteen hundred cryocelled maintenance and construction personnel sent back on the last carrier that went out?”

“Are replacements on the way?”

Trevor shook his head. “I went down to the slips, asked around. Nada.”

“So what do you think the brass is up to, and why aren’t they telling us?”

“They’re not telling us because we’re not in the need-to-know loop.” Trevor grinned ruefully. “And since no one here is aware that we’re IRIS operatives, no one is aware that we have the clearance to hear the secrets they’re not going to tell us, anyway. On the up side, we also never had to use those goofy, Odyssey-based code names my father hung on us.”

“Admiral Perduro knows about our clearance levels.”

“Yeah, but I’m not so sure she’s fully in the loop herself. Look how she reacted to your commissioning orders: an official posting to Naval Intelligence but with a track for unrestricted line promotions. I don’t think she saw that coming, judging from the way she frowned when she read it out to you.”

Caine nodded. “I think you’re right. Downing cut the orders; she just cut the ribbon.”

“Thereby authorizing you to wreak havoc amongst genuine military personnel.”

“Smile when you say that, Captain.”

“I was.”

“Didn’t look like it.”

“I was smiling inside.”

“Uh huh.”

Trevor did smile now. “Look, nothing against you, Caine, but Uncle Richard seems to be making this stuff up as he goes along. My promotion, your commission and ‘training,’ our immediate conversion to reserve status: this is so nonregulation, that I’m past being surprised. For all I know, he might try to appoint someone as Grand Fez-Wearing Poo-Bah of the God-Emperor’s Armada. What he’s been doing with ranks and titles and clearances—hell, it’s just not done.”

“Well, maybe not, but Downing had sign-offs from the president and the Joint Chiefs.”

“Yeah, but just because it comes from so high up the chain of command that no one dares question it doesn’t mean that it’s in trim with the regs. And I’m telling you, based on eighteen years of first-hand experience, that it is all non-reg. Sooner or later, someone’s going to insist upon an explanation.”

Caine nodded, watched as the incandescent crimson edge of the planet’s terminator rotated into view. “Yeah, there are a whole
lot
of explanations that would be pretty welcome right now.”

Trevor glanced at Caine. “You mean, explanations for all the attacks on you?”

“Yeah, and on your dad and Tarasenko. And Elena’s abduction on Mars. Every time I try to make sense of the incidents, the unanswered questions come hammering down like I’m hatless in a hailstorm.”

Trevor smiled ruefully. “Judging from your tone of voice, you’re getting pelted by those questions right now.”

“Not all of them, but there’s one incident that has started to trouble me more than the others,” Caine admitted.

“Which one?”

“Remember those two Russians who broke into my room on Mars and tried to kill me? That attack just doesn’t make any sense at all.”

Trevor’s voice was mildly incredulous. “You mean, it makes
less
sense than the others?”

Caine nodded. “Yeah. Actually, almost all the others were conducted by faceless assassins, people who—like the guy today—don’t officially exist. But the Russian I killed on Mars not only had an identity, he was part of their consulate’s security force. And Russians, Trevor?
Russians?
That makes almost as little sense as my living through the attack.”

“You mean because the second guy left you alive when you were out cold?”

“Damned right. What the hell was that about? He had at least three minutes to kill me while I was senseless on the floor, before the police showed up. But all he does is cut my left arm?” Caine stared at the now almost-invisible four-inch scar, and shook his head. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yeah, well, at least you’ll be able to get some updates on the investigation, now that we’re heading back to Earth—”

Their habitation module’s main access portal rammed shut with a metallic slap. Blood-red emergency flashers strobed in syncopation with the alarm klaxon.

“—Or maybe not,” Trevor finished. “We’ve gotta move. That’s an automated call to general quarters.”

Caine rose to follow Trevor—and crashed into the right side of doorjamb face-first. The cutter had ceased acceleration, and without the thrust to hold Caine in place, the world had tilted out from under him in mid step. Drifting backward, Riordan struggled to remember his zero-gee training, flailed his arms, caught the left side of the jamb, steadied himself. From the hatchway coaming, Trevor’s voice was sharp. “Goddamnit, Caine: move! We’ve got to get out of this can.”

“Wha—?”

“Just shut up and follow me to the module access tube.”

“And then?”

“Just follow me for now.”

Small drops of his own blood swimming up past his eyes, Caine grabbed a handhold, propelled himself through the combination hatchway and docking ring—and stopped himself just before crashing into Trevor’s extremely broad back. “What gives?”

Trevor was squinting up the cutter’s spinal access corridor, to which all its modules were attached like ribs to a sternum. He shook his head and started pulling himself hand over hand in the opposite direction. “Follow me. Fast as you can go.”

Caine trailed Trevor inexpertly, but noticed that it became rapidly easier to use the handholds. Sort of like crossing monkey-bars underwater. But the arm-over-arm half-swim, half-climb rhythm was broken when Trevor turned ninety degrees “down,” plunging through a hole in what Caine was still thinking of as the “deck.” Caine followed awkwardly, looked around as he came through the docking-ring coaming and then the hatchway: the Auxiliary Command module. “Why are we here?” Caine asked.

Trevor was already activating various systems, bringing up monitors, screens, relays. “From here we can tap into bridge comms, sensor data and—”

“—and run the ship if something happens to the bridge crew.”

Trevor glanced at Caine, who was watching his actions closely. “I guess you were paying attention in some of those classes.”

“Well, yeah.” Caine dogged the hatch, which doubled as an outer-airlock door when the module was in free space. “But I wasn’t thinking about access to auxiliary’s redundant controls.”

Trevor spun open the inner airlock hatchway. “No? So what
were
you thinking about?”

“Er…I was thinking that it’s the only module really capable of autonomous operations.”

Trevor stopped in the hatchway. His look of surprise quickly became one of grim affirmation. “You’re right. Auxiliary command is the best lifeboat on this barge. Certainly the only one with any sustained maneuver capabilities.” Trevor moved to the command console, powered it up, moved his hand toward the fusion plant’s initiation switch.

Caine caught Trevor’s hand before he could light it up. “Not a good idea.”

Trevor looked at Caine’s hand restraining his own, then up into his face. “Have a good reason.”

“Survival.”

“What do you mean?”

“Trevor, if we’re at general quarters because some of our interstellar neighbors have decided to come calling with their equivalent of shotguns and machetes, then I think we might not want to be sending out radiant emissions—of any kind—from this module.”

Trevor’s frown subsided slowly. “Christ, you’re probably right. But let’s not guess, let's find out.” Trevor tapped his collarcom. “Bridge.”

A delay, then a babble of background voices—too many of which were rapid and high-pitched—before they got a direct response: “Clear this channel and stay off—”

“Son, this is Mr. Corcoran. Status?”

A pause. “Oh—Captain. Sorry, sir. I—”

“No need to be sorry. I'm just asking for a courtesy sitrep.”

“Yes, sir. We don't have all the info, sir. We're pretty far down the intel food chain from CINCBARCOMCENT. But it looks like something shifted into system. Not running a transponder signal.”

“You mean, not running an Earth transponder signal?”

“No, sir. I mean whatever it is, is dark. Completely dark, except for neutrino emissions.”

“You mean, its shift signature?”

“No sir, I mean its pumping out neutrinos and—well, subparticulate garbage.”

“In a beam?”

Caine got Trevor’s attention, shook his head.

“Stand by.” He turned toward Caine. “What?”

“Trevor, that doesn't sound like a weapon signature. Sounds more like a field effect of some sort.”

“Yeah, like a shift signature.”

“But since it's done shifting, and the signature is never more than a brief pulse, it's got to be something else.”

“Like what?”

“Some kind of engine or power plant. What else would create neutrinos?”

“I don’t know; let’s find out.” Trevor called up the feed from the bridge sensors. Nothing except a red blinking cursor which marked the mystery ship’s real-time location within the star field.

“What’s its range?” Caine asked.

“Tell you in a second.” Trevor reconfigured the screens slightly. “Lying out at one hundred kiloklicks, doing nothing.”

“Yeah, sure. Ten to one it’s running passive sensors and making a list of the active systems we’ve lit up to assess it: what kind of emissions, where from, phased or single arrays.”

Trevor nodded. “Essentially, they’re building a target list. And testing our response, maybe hoping to draw some fire.”

“Which would also be invaluable intel.”

“But it’s too goddamned small to be a shift-carrier.”

“Trevor, who says the Arat Kur—if that’s who’s come calling—have to work on our scale of shift carriers? You saw how small the Dornaani hull was that carried us to the Convocation. What if the Arat Kur can make something that’s only two or three times larger?”

“And so they send it ahead to gather intel. But how do they go home to report? Say ‘pretty please’ and then go tank up at one of the outer gas giants?”

“No. They’re not going back home.”

“What do you mean?”

“Trevor, this is not a ‘scout and withdraw’ mission. This is a probing force that’s also playing Judas goat. It has to be, because in the next few minutes, they must either use, or lose, their tactical surprise.”

“Which means that a follow-up force—”

“Can’t be far behind, particularly if they want to make good use out of the target list they’re compiling. And since their first ship might get a powerfully unfriendly reception—”

“—they had to assume that it might not survive too long if left on its own. And that means—” Trevor tapped his collarcom again. “Bridge.”

A different voice. “Sir, this is Lieutenant Hazawa. I don’t mean to be rude, but—”

“Lieutenant, shoot this message up the chain using my name and reserve rank, marked for Admiral Perduro. Message begins: urgent that we presume enemy fleet inbound—”

And then it was bedlam on the other end of the channel: contact klaxons; shouted orders; a loud, steady recitation of a long string of bearing and range marks. Sensor ops cut in. “Skipper, we’re getting direct feed from The Pearl’s arrays and remote platforms. Major gravitic distortions above the ecliptic, registering at regular intervals, accompanied by bursts of cosmic and gamma rays. High confidence these are multiple shift signatures. Estimating fourteen and still counting—”

Caine felt a fast flush of panic
. Fourteen? Good god—

“Mass scanners and high-end EM emission sensors confirm presence of large spacecraft, apparently in two groups. Range to first group is approximately two hundred kiloklicks. Range to second group is approximately four hundred kiloklicks. Awaiting definitive range estimates from active arrays.”