“I’ll work on it,” he said.
Heris felt a prickle of excitement down her spine. What could trigger an ansible besides a signal? And why would someone start to signal and then fail to carry it out?
Because someone stopped them. They changed their minds. Someone stopped them.
“If a loyalist Fleet vessel . . . or a civilian ship . . . found itself in trouble with mutineers, they might try to signal, and be blown away before they could,” Heris said softly.
“Yes, and a flying rock could have hit it,” de Fries said.
“We need to go look.” She was as sure of that as of two plus two.
“We’re on picket duty. The admiral said we’re to interdict mutineer travel, watch the jump points—” Seabolt, naturally, would take that view.
“I am watching a jump point,” Heris said. “I’m watching a jump point around which suspicious activity has taken place.”
“I don’t think you can call a malfunctioning ansible suspicious activity.”
“Commander, do you have any idea how reliable those things are? How rarely they malfunction? And when they do, it’s something like sending a string of gibberish, not turning themselves on for no reason.”
“But—”
“I say it’s suspicious, and I’m the captain . . . and the commodore.” And the great panjandrum with the little round button on top, too, she thought to herself. “I’m going to inform HQ, of course—only an idiot rushes off without leaving word behind—and the next question is whether to go in with all the force available—or send in a scout.”
“A scout would be safer,” Seabolt said.
“For us, right now, maybe. But just supposing there is a mutineer force in that system, and someone tried to tell us and failed. All a scout could do is alert them that someone knows their location. Similarly, if I take in one ship and it’s not enough to defeat them . . . that’s worse than not going at all.”
“You wouldn’t take all—everything—” Seabolt sounded like a supply sergeant, she decided.
“They didn’t give me this many ships to just sit here being a target,” Heris said. “I want a tightbeam to the ansible and a secure code for transmission to headquarters.”
Cecelia swallowed against the rise of sour bile in her throat. It had seemed like a good plan; it was a good plan. It was the only plan . . . but she felt more tension than before the start of a big event. Worse than riding down to a huge fence on a headstrong horse.
It was just the same. She could be hurt, she could die, but she’d rather die doing this than live without doing it—right?
Talking firmly to her fluttering stomach, she went on mopping the guards’ latrine; Miranda was behind her with the brushes, the bottles of spray cleaner. She felt for the bucket with her heel, without looking. On the next forward stroke with the mop, she pushed too hard, stumbled forward, lurched back, and knocked the bucket over.
“Nooo!” she cried, whirling around and grabbing for it. “No, I didn’t mean to—I’m sorry—” The end of the mop almost hit Miranda, who fended it off by grabbing it one-handed; Cecelia scrabbled for the bucket and picked up the bottle of spray cleaner Miranda had dropped.
“You idiot!” the guard said, starting to laugh. “I knew you were clumsy, but—”
The end of the mop caught him in the solar plexus; Miranda’s lunge with a mop was as perfect as with a foil, and he folded around it with a whoof of outrushing breath. Cecelia gave him a spray of ammonia-based cleaner in the face as he tried to gasp for his next breath. He gasped, choked, wheezed—and she had smashed his trachea with the handle of the glass scraper. Behind her, she heard sounds she interpreted as Miranda taking down the guard in the kiosk—a potent thud, another gasp and gurgle. She grabbed her guard by the arm and dragged him toward the cells—they needed his fingerprint for the cell locks—while Miranda inserted the other guard’s keycard and used his fingerprint to hold the brig access open.
“That was fast,” Chief Jones said, as Cecelia panted around the corner, yanking at the dead weight of the guard.
“Nothing ventured, nothing gained,” Cecelia said. She pushed the body up to the bars. “Here, help me lift him—he must be wearing lead.” Arms reached through the bars to lift the dead weight up, until she could insert his finger in the ID slot.
The bolts slid back with a solid clunk, and Cecelia pulled the cell door open.
“Donaldson, you and Kouras get the other cells open. Tiraki and Dirac, go help Miranda at the kiosk—see if you can set overrides. If not, we’re going to have to take their fingers. Send Miranda back to help Markham.”
Cecelia swallowed and tried not to look shocked. She understood the problem but the very thought of cutting parts off the dead revolted her.
“Cecelia, you brief the other cells on the chemicals stored in this section.”
She almost said “yes, sir.” Already, other prisoners were emerging cautiously from the other cells around the corner—men with straggly beards under their shaven heads, women whose hair was just growing out.
“This is our mission,” Chief Jones said. “First, we get word out to Fleet about this ship in this location. Second, we do our best to disable this ship, by going EVA to damage or destroy its scan domes, its communications masts, and its FTL nodes. Third, we try to escape. We need an EVA party, a communications party, and a decoy/distraction party who will run around making as much noise and trouble as possible while heading for plausible targets. I’ve had EVA experience and so has Petty Major Sifa—who else?” Hands raised, and she nodded.
“Fine—I’ll take all of you. We already have Tiraki, Dirac, and Donaldson on the communications party—any other senior com techs?” No one answered. “I want two or three good scrappers with them—who—good, you and you.” She glanced around. “The rest of you, divide into two groups, one with Petty Light Kouras, and the other with Petty Light Hartung. They’ll brief you on the run—we don’t want to sit here jawing until they figure out something’s wrong.”
“What about the civs?” one of the men asked, staring at Cecelia and Miranda.
“We wouldn’t be loose if it weren’t for them,” Jones said. “They’ve already chosen which party they’ll be in.” She grinned at Cecelia. “Cecelia here wants to see the stars from outside, and Miranda’s going to keep an eye on Anseli with one of the distraction groups.” She paused a moment, but no one asked another question. “All right, people. Let’s move.”
The brig area was at one end of the barracks area, with only one exit to the rest of Troop Deck. On their way out, the escapees emptied the shelves of the lockers available: three bottles of spray cleaner, two mops, two brooms, and a squeegee. One stuck the canister of toilet bowl cleaner in his pocket. They had the guards’ weapons, the canister of riot spray from the kiosk, and the guards’ gas masks and filters—a total of four. They had the little repair kit from under the desk and the damage control locker contents. Hammers, prybars with one end pointed and one flat, tubes of adhesive and dispensers that looked, to Cecelia, very much like something builders used to caulk windows. Chief Jones had explained how they’d use them—and they’d ransack every damage control locker they passed. Rope, wedges . . . soon they looked, Cecelia thought, like a combination of mountain climbers and repairmen.
At this time of day, the four nearest squad bays were always empty. Cecelia and Miranda went out to scout, carrying mops, buckets, and cleaning supplies as usual, with two of the men pretending to guard them. They made it to the first lavatory, where they could see down another empty corridor and wave the rest forward.