CHAPTER SEVEN
The data stream flowed past Captain Barrington Moreau’s eyes, bringing him the latest news on the status of the Dorian’s repair work, the state of health of his crew, the conditions on the planet below, and the short-range and long-range data on the greater solar system around him. Anything Barrington wanted was there at his fingertips.
And he couldn’t focus on a single bit of it.
Three days. That was how long it had been since Jody Moreau Broom and her companions took the Squire and headed out into Troft space, searching for clues as to the fate of Broom’s brother Merrick. During every one of those days Barrington had thought about the flicker-mine net the Hermes had run into and wondered if Broom and the Squire had run into another of those deadly traps. If she had, she was already dead.
And even if she made it to her target coordinates unscathed, what then? A single Dominion courier ship against a Troft planet with even moderate defense capabilities was a recipe for quick and certain annihilation. She needed him and the Dorian, and she needed them to be waiting at her back when she arrived.
But the window for coordinating their efforts was rapidly closing. With Commander Kusari and ten other officers and crewmen still on the ground, Barrington had no choice but to stay here at Qasama.
“Captain?”
Barrington blinked away the data stream and turned. Commander Ling Garrett, the Dorian’s first officer, was standing beside the command station, a troubled look on his face. “Yes, Commander?” Barrington said.
“A question, sir,” Garrett said. “I wonder if I might have a word with you in private.”
“Of course.” Barrington glanced around CoNCH, spotted Commander Castenello conversing with some of his staff at the tactical command station. “Commander Castenello, you have CoNCH,” he called as he stood up.
Castenello looked back, a slight frown on his face. But he merely nodded. “I have CoNCH, aye, Captain,” he called back.
The Duty Officer’s room was only a few meters away from the command station, tucked along the side of CoNCH’s upper level. Barrington led the way inside, eased through the cramped space around the small desk, and sat down. “Go ahead,” he invited Garrett, gesturing the other to one of the fold-down seats.
“Thank you, Captain,” Garrett said as he sat down. “I have concerns about Jody Broom and the others of her expedition.”
“As do I,” Barrington said. “What do you suggest we do about them?”
Garrett visibly braced himself. “I respectfully suggest, sir, that we go after them. Right now.”
“With some of our crew still recuperating on Qasama?” Barrington shook his head. “You know we can’t do that.”
“We may have to risk it, sir,” Garrett said doggedly. “I’ve been looking through the report the Hermes brought this morning. If Commodore Santores leaves Aventine according to his current plan, the Megalith could be here before our injured would be ready to rejoin the Dorian.”
Barrington pursed his lips. Santores might head out immediately. But there was a good chance he wouldn’t. Hermes’ report had detailed rapidly deteriorating relations between the Cobra Worlds and the Dominion task force. Santores might decide to let Barrington handle the initial prep work on Qasama while he stayed to try to smooth things over.
He pulled up the data stream. Still, Garrett was right. The Qasamans’ projected recovery time for the rest of the Dorian’s injured crewmen did indeed overlap the Megalith’s possible arrival time.
“Right now, you’re the commander on the scene,” Garrett continued. “You can modify or even ignore orders as you deem necessary for unanticipated situations. But once Commodore Santores arrives, you won’t have that luxury.”
Or the legal protection, Barrington thought cynically. But it was how military officers had to think these days. “What about the Dorian? We’re still not back to full fighting capability.”
“I’ve checked the repair logs, sir,” Garrett said. “Most of the remaining work should be finished in six or seven days, well short of the ten it’ll take to reach Broom’s coordinates.”
“And if we run into another flicker-mine net along the way?”
“Whoever owns that system probably won’t expect traffic to arrive from Qasama,” Garrett said. “The chances that they would set up a trap along that vector seem unlikely.”
“That still leaves Commander Kusari and the other ten men in Qasaman hospitals,” Barrington said. “We’d have to bring them back aboard to finish their recuperation.”
“I think we’d do better to leave them where they are, sir,” Garrett said. “There might be complications from their surgery we wouldn’t know how to deal with.”
Barrington felt a frown crease his forehead. Pressing for action was one thing. Pressing for action without the Dorian’s engineering officer was something else entirely. “What aren’t you telling me, Commander?” he asked carefully.
Garrett hesitated. “I think you should talk to Commander Kusari yourself, Captain,” he said, his eyes not quite meeting Barrington’s. “Perhaps you could ask for his thoughts on the subject.”
“Yes,” Barrington said, studying Garrett’s face. “All right.” Reaching to the desk’s small control panel, he keyed the comm.
He’d set up a secure radio link to Kusari as soon as the engineering officer came out of surgery, but at this point he wouldn’t put it past Omnathi to have figured a way through the encryption. He’d have to make sure he didn’t say anything he wouldn’t want the Qasamans to hear.
There was the soft tone of a connection. “Commander Kusari,” Kusari’s voice came briskly. “Good morning, Captain.”
“Good morning, Commander,” Barrington said, tapping briefly back into the data stream. It was indeed mid-morning in the Qasaman city of Azras. “I was calling for a status report. How soon do you think you’ll be ready to return to duty?”
There was just the briefest pause. “Are you planning to head off after Jody Broom, sir?” he asked.
Barrington frowned. How in the world had Kusari gotten that from Barrington’s question? “Let’s talk about your leg.”
“It’s much improved,” Kusari said. “Thank you for asking. Sir, I’d like to request permission to stay here for the immediate future.”
“In the hospital?”
“Or just on Qasama in general,” Kusari said. “I’d like to help them design defenses for their planet.”
Barrington shot a look at Garrett, noting the stiffness in the first officer’s face. Creating actual weapons and defenses had never been part of the plan. “They have their own people for that, Commander.”
“People who have never faced an orbital bombardment, sir,” Kusari reminded him. “They don’t even know the parameters of the weapons they’d be facing.”
“If we do our jobs right, we’ll stop the Trofts before they get that close.”
“And if we don’t?” Kusari countered. “If something gets through, people will die. A lot of people.”
“That’s not our concern.”
“With all due respect, Captain, I believe it is.”
Barrington fought down a sudden flash of anger. “Are you fit for duty or not, Commander?” he asked. “Do I have to order you to answer?”
There was a half second’s pause. “I would ask you not to give me such an order, sir.”
Barrington stared at the speaker, his anger disappearing into a sudden hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. What the hell was going on?
The Qasamans had saved Paul Broom’s leg after the Trofts had been thrown off the planet. He’d repaid them with unshakable loyalty, to the point of going under Lij Tulu’s MindsEye brain sifter rather than give up Qasama’s location. They’d saved Kusari’s leg—and probably his life—and suddenly he was hinting that he would disobey orders rather than leave them helpless against the coming assault.
Was this just natural gratitude toward their rescuers? Or was there something more sinister going on? Some drug or hypnotic associated with the Qasamans’ medical technique that bent their patients’ mind that direction?
If so, had Kusari been the only target? Or had all of his men undergone the same conditioning? And if so, was that going to be a problem down the line?
Specifically, was it going to be a problem if and when the Trofts started bombarding surface targets and the Dorian’s crew was ordered to ignore the destruction?
And suddenly, the idea of taking his ship on a rescue mission far away from Qasama and the possibility of confused loyalties was looking better and better.
He tapped the mute button and looked up at Garrett. “Personnel check,” he murmured. “See if we can do without the men still down there.”
“We can, sir,” Garrett said quickly. Too quickly. “Minus those ten men, we’ll still be running at ninety-six percent efficiency.”
“Without them and Commander Kusari?”
Garrett’s lip twitched. “Eighty-nine percent.”
Barrington scowled. Eighty-nine percent after a major battle was acceptable. Eighty-nine percent after the damage had been mostly repaired and the crewmen healed wasn’t.
But the thought of those ten men—plus the other ninety who’d been healed, plus the Dorian’s engineering officer—all thinking more about Qasama’s safety instead of concentrating on their jobs wasn’t much better.
With a final glare at the speaker, he unmuted the radio. “Very well, Commander,” he said, striving to keep his voice cool and emotionless. “Our orders are to prepare Qasama for combat, and guiding the preliminary work is a legitimate part of that. Will you need the assistance of the ten men still down there with you?”
“They could be very helpful, sir, yes,” Kusari said. “At least four of them need to stay for medical reasons anyway. Fortunately, the Qasamans should have enough manpower to do the job. What they need is information and guidance, and we can supply that.”
“Understood,” Barrington said, gesturing to Garrett. “Under the circumstances, I think we’ll head out after Ms. Broom, after all.”
“I believe that would be the best use of the Dorian, sir,” Kusari said.
“I’m glad you agree,” Barrington said. “Before we go, I’ll transmit some messages for you to relay to Commodore Santores when the Megalith arrives.”
“Yes, sir,” Kusari said. “Thank you, Captain. I’ll try to have some preliminary concept plans ready before you go. Give you some idea what Shahni Omnathi and I are thinking about.”
Barrington scowled again. Omnathi. He should have known the Shahni would be right there on top of this.
In fact, maybe he was a little too much on top of it. “Good,” he said, doing a quick search of a particular section of the data stream. There it was. “As they say, if you set the queen upon the ramparts…”
“The bishop will bow to the knight,” Kusari said without hesitation. “With your permission, Captain, I’ll get to work on those plans.”
“Go ahead, Commander,” Barrington said. “Moreau out.”
He keyed off the comm. “I presume that was his proper countersign?” Garrett asked.
“It was,” Barrington said, eyeing the other closely. “You already knew about this, didn’t you?”
Garrett’s lip twitched. “I’d seen some signs,” he admitted. “Nothing I could put my finger on. I thought it would be best if you talked to him directly. Maybe forced the issue of staying.”
“And forced it in private, without any of my other officers able to put in their own thoughts or suggestions?”
“Especially those who would vehemently oppose this decision,” Garrett said. “They would have insisted Kusari be brought aboard and that we stay here until the Megalith arrives.” He nodded toward the comm. “If the Qasamans are playing with their drugs again, that could have been a problem down the line.”
“It still might,” Barrington said heavily. “But whatever Omnathi’s playing at under the table, he can hardly have any objections to our backstopping Jody Broom.” He took a deep breath. “Let’s give some orders, Commander. I want the Dorian ready in three hours.”
“Yes, sir,” Garrett said, standing up briskly. He sidled to the door and left.
And with that, Barrington knew, the die was cast. The minute Garrett’s orders hit the data stream it would be an official part of the Dorian’s log, open to scrutiny and speculation by everyone aboard.
As well as by people who would never be aboard his ship. Hard-eyed men in the future, perhaps, who Barrington might face across a table at a Board of Enquiry.
But there was no point in worrying about that now. His new mission was to go to Jody Broom’s aid, ideally stirring up the Trofts in the process, while at the same time fending off those of his officers who would see this as an opportunity to damage the captain’s reputation in favor of their own glory and that of their patrons.
And speaking of Commander Castenello, it was time Barrington went back into CoNCH and resumed his watch. Castenello’s expression as he saw the new orders would be priceless. Almost worth the fallout that was sure to follow.
Barrington could hardly wait.
* * *
“…then just key off the safety lock—” Plaine flipped up a transparent cover on the Squire’s portside gunbay control board and pressed the button beneath it “—and you’re good to go. Autofire here; manual here; passive and active sensors here and here.”
Leaning over Jody’s shoulder as they stood just inside the gunbay door, Kemp gave a low whistle. “Wow,” he said. “As easy as that, huh?”
Plaine swiveled around in his seat, a look of strained patience in his eye. “Yes, it’s that easy,” he said. “You—what do you call yourselves, anyway? Cobra Worldians?—you haven’t had much experience with sophisticated tech, have you?”
“We’re Aventinians,” Kemp told him. “People from Caelian are Caelians. It’s pretty easy once you get the hang of it. And, yes, we have plenty of tech.” He paused, and Jody could visualize a slightly brittle twinkle in his eye. “It’s just that most of it is Troft.”
Plaine’s face hardened, just noticeably. Then, the tension cleared and he smiled. “Of course it is,” he said. “I guess none of you got the notice about trading with the enemy.” He swiveled back to the board. “Okay, let’s go through it again. We shut it down like this—”
“Kemp?” Smitty’s voice came from the intercom speaker. “Where are you?”
Plaine reached over and keyed the mike. “Portside gunbay,” he said.
“Tell him I need him in CoNCH,” Smitty said. “Got a rogue electrical glitch to track down that requires two sets of eyes.”
“You want Jody, too?” Kemp called toward the intercom.
“No—the second set of eyes needs infrared capabilities,” Smitty said. “Just at your convenience.”
The intercom clicked off. “Which means right now, I assume?” Plaine suggested.
“Pretty much,” Kemp said reluctantly as he stepped out of the gunbay. “You might want to come anyway, Jody—they might need an extra set of hands. We can finish this later.”
“No, that’s okay,” Jody said as casually as she could manage. To be left alone with a Dominion Marine…“I could use the extra rundown—my memory for this kind of thing is terrible.”
“Well…okay,” Kemp said, even more reluctantly. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
He turned and headed back down the curved corridor. “He’s not happy about leaving you alone with me, is he?” Plaine asked dryly.
“He’s a little overprotective at times,” Jody told him. “He’ll be okay.”
“Because he’s right, you know,” Plaine continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “A Dominion Marine and an average young woman without a scrap of military training.” He cocked an eyebrow at her. “You haven’t had any military training, have you?”
“We just fought a war against the Trofts,” Jody said stiffly. “We all learned a little something about fighting.”
“I’m sure you did,” he said, clearly not believing it. “You hungry? Thirsty?”
Jody blinked at the sudden change in subject. “I’m fine, thanks.”
“Don’t mind if I get myself something, do you?” Plaine asked. Without waiting for her to answer, he swiveled his chair around and got up, the movement forcing Jody to take a quick step backward to avoid being bumped into. “We usually have a pretty good selection in these bays,” he continued, going to a shallow cabinet on the wall beside the hatch. He thumbed the catch and swung the cabinet door open. “You sure you don’t want something?”
Jody leaned toward him to peer around the door. Half of the cabinet’s rows of shelves were empty, probably consumed by the gunbay’s previous occupant. The rest of the space was taken up by orderly rows of meal bars and bottles of a pale red liquid, everything clamped to the back wall. Distantly, Jody wondered what kind of violent maneuvers the ship was capable of making that would require such precautions. “The different packaging indicates different flavors,” Plaine said, pointing at the bars. “That red stuff looks scary, but it’s just water with a broad spectrum of added vitamins and minerals and a little added taste. Want one?”
“I’m fine,” Jody repeated.
“You can see how much longer Herczeg could have held out,” Plaine commented, popping one of the bottles from its clamps. “He’s the Marine you nabbed on the way to Qasama. But we figured that if we distracted you enough we might be able to get the Squire turned around. Didn’t work, but it was worth a try. Hey, you want to see a magic trick?”
Jody frowned. She’d never seen Plaine bounce around so many topics in so short a time before. Had he been dipping into some secret stockpile of drugs or something? “No thanks,” she said. “Can we just get back to—?”
Right in the middle of her sentence he lobbed the bottle gently over her head and out the hatchway.
Automatically, Jody’s eyes flicked to the arcing bottle. An instant later, her brain caught up, belatedly warning her that the bottle was probably a diversion and wrenching her eyes back to Plaine.
Too late. She was still refocusing when he gave the back panel of the cabinet a sharp jab with the heel of his right hand. The panel split down the middle and flew open with spring-loaded speed, revealing another, equally shallow compartment behind it.
Only instead of food and water, this compartment held a row of compact handguns fastened to the back with more of the quick-release clips.
Jody gasped, her brain freezing. Betrayed! Just as Smitty had predicted, Plaine had taken advantage of Kemp’s absence to turn the situation to his advantage.
As Smitty had predicted, and Kemp had warned, and Jody had confidently dismissed. She was a Cobra now, she’d assured them, and she could handle anything Plaine could throw at her.
But in that first second, caught completely by surprise, Jody’s whole mind and body had gone paralyzed. Reflexes that Kemp and Smitty had—reflexes she’d thought she’d mastered, as well—simply weren’t there. She tried to put a target lock on Plaine’s forehead, changed her mind and decided to aim for the weapons instead, then realized that she had no choice but to shoot to kill and tried to focus on Plaine again.
But it was already too late. With a single smooth motion, the Marine grabbed one of the weapons, swung around toward Jody—
And spun the weapon a hundred eighty degrees around, pointing the muzzle at his own stomach and pressing the grip into her hand.
For a long, painful moment neither of them moved or spoke. “Is this what you were trying to prove?” Plaine asked quietly. “That the minute I had a chance I would grab you as a hostage and force a standoff?”
“There was some thought of that,” Jody conceded, her voice shaking with adrenaline reaction.
“We tried that, remember?” Plaine said. “It got Herczeg hammered and halfway to dead.” He snorted. “Besides, I thought we all agreed that we’re in this together. My life depends on you, and vice versa.” He considered. “Well, maybe not so much the versa. Your Cobras do pretty well for themselves. How does that feel?”
Jody blinked. With so many right-angle turns coming in such rapid-fire she’d completely forgotten that her hand was currently wrapped around the grip of a gun. “Okay,” she said cautiously, consciously relaxing her fingers. “Finger grooves are a little too far apart for my hand.”
“No problem.” Plaine was still gripping the laser’s barrel. Now, he let go. “Hold it up.”
Jody did so. The weapon was heavier than she would have guessed just by looking at it. “There’s a little indentation on the upper curve of the grip, just above the vee of your thumb and forefinger. See it?”
With an effort—was he trying to distract her again?—Jody lowered her eyes from his face to the laser. “Here?” she asked, pointing to the spot with her left forefinger.
“Yes,” Plaine said. “Left thumb on the indentation; left fingers curled around the top of the chamber; right hand with fingers and thumb spaced however feels comfortable; right forefinger alongside the trigger. Got it? Now, press with your left thumb.”
Jody squeezed the indentation. To her surprise, the grip softened beneath her right hand, then reformed to fit the positioning of her fingers. “When it feels good, let go with your left hand,” Plaine instructed.
Jody eased back on the indentation and felt the grip solidifying again. She lifted her right-hand fingers away from the weapon, then tried moving them to different parts of the grip. The grip remained solid. “Nice,” she said, letting her fingers settle back into the newly reshaped grooves. “I guess this one is mine now?”
“Once you learn how to shoot it,” Plaine warned. “I mean that. If you’re not willing to put in the necessary work, I don’t want you carrying it around. I doubt any of your friends do, either. Giving an amateur a gun is about the most stupidly suicidal thing you can do.”
“I’ll remember that,” Jody said. “Speaking of which…?” She hefted the gun, which was still pointed at him.
“No worries—the Dominion teaches stupid-suicide avoidance,” Plaine said. “No pack.”
Jody turned the weapon over. Sure enough, the power pack slot in the grip was indeed open and empty. “Ah,” she said.
“But these do have packs,” he continued, gesturing to two of the other weapons in the hidden arsenal. “So your little catch-release experiment is still valid, since I still could have proved your friends were right about me if I’d wanted to. I just didn’t want to get shot during the demo. You ready to learn how to shoot one of those things?”
“I thought we were going to start with the big guns,” Jody said, nodding toward the gunbay control board.
“What, you think we can’t do both?” Plaine countered. “Lower deck’s probably the best place to set up a range—nice straight corridors, and no one’s down there.” He pursed his lips. “Except me, of course. Lucky for me I can’t accidently walk out of my cabin into the line of fire.”
Jody eyed him closely. Was he hinting that he wanted the lock removed? Because she knew Kemp would never agree to that. “If you’re looking to have that changed—”
“Not at all,” he assured her. “I’ve seen nervous Cobras. I’d rather you keep me tucked away, nice and secure, where you won’t always be jumping at shadows.” He leaned back to the control board and tapped the intercom switch. “Whoever was waiting to jump me once I proved how dangerous and stupid I am, you can relax—we’re done here. Ms. Broom now has a request.” He gestured toward the mike. “Ms. Broom?”
Jody took a deep breath. She didn’t need to learn how to use any of these Dominion hand weapons, of course—she already had plenty of her own firepower at hand. But it couldn’t hurt to have another string to her bow. “We need to find something we can use as a laser target,” she said. “Sergeant Plaine is going to teach me how to shoot.”