Rascal’s scan officer, lacking Koutsoudas’ personal additions to standard equipment, identified an arriving ship minutes after Koutsoudas did. “Something coming in, Captain,” he said.
Esmay looked at the scan and saw the familiar pattern of a badly tuned FTL drive just skip-jumping through. Was it even bound for this system? It didn’t come in like she thought Serrano would, a clean downjump.
It could be a Benignity ship, come to lead Livadhi away. She had to do something. “Bring us to red,” she said to the bridge. Alarms rang out. Those sitting first at the positions raced to put on p-suits, while their seconds acted. She heard lockers opening, and Chief Humberly held her p-suit ready; she stepped backwards into it. The firsts, suited now, returned to their places and the seconds went to suit up. “Weapons, ready.” That would light up Vigilance’s scan displays. At least their shields were already active. She turned to her comm officer.
“Get me a tightbeam to Vigilance.”
Koutsoudas, trying desperately to dissect the fluttery scan signal into something he could identify—he hoped very much it was not a Benignity ship—was shocked when the warning red flashers showed live weapons in close proximity, where scan showed no ship at all.
“What—?!” He and Livadhi said it almost together. Too close for the injumping ship, too close, and no ship icon—Suiza. It had to be Suiza, bringing her weapons live. But why?
“What have you—” began Livadhi, but the Comm officer signalled him.
“Commodore—there’s a tightbeam message from R.S.S. Rascal, Suiza commanding.”
“Suiza!” Livadhi was white to the lips, his red hair in stark contrast to his face. “That stupid—what does she think she’s doing?” Then, in a furious hiss to Koutsoudas, “You are relieved—I don’t know if you’re just exhausted, or a liar, but you let a pissant lieutenant crawl up our tail! Get to your quarters; I’ll deal with you later.” And to the comm officer, “Pipe it to my office.”
Koutsoudas, more shaken than he’d ever been, shook his head at the second—luckily one of the old crew—who came to relieve him. “I didn’t see it,” he said. “I swear I didn’t see a thing. It’s not there . . . .”
“Go on, ’Steban, you’re exhausted. It’ll be all right.”
Livadhi, on the communications screen in Esmay’s bridge, looked thoroughly disgusted and angry.
“Lieutenant Suiza, you are in big trouble. Just what do you mean by disobeying orders and gallivanting around the universe?”
Esmay had thought about what to say that might take suspicion away from the Vigilance crew.
“Sir, may I ask if the admiral’s bridge crew had detected Rascal prior to the tightbeam message?”
“No, you may not ask. Answer my question, dammit!” This was not the suave, pleasant commander she’d met at dinner aboard.
“Sir, the admiral is aware that Rascal has been fitted out with a new suite of weapons—”
“Yes, what of it?”
“And a new suite of stealth gear, sir. Which I was told you were not aware of, and which I am under orders—secret orders—to test in a realistic situation. A ship-on-ship pursuit, in fact. So when the admiral left, I executed my other orders, and followed. Since the admiral has not commented before, I presume we were not detected.”
“You weren’t,” Livadhi said, now in a growl. “Not until you brought your weapons live. Care to explain why?”
“Sir, we’re out near the border with the Benignity. I’m assuming the admiral is aware of another ship entering the system. On the possibility that it might be hostile, I brought the weapons live, and contacted you so that you would not worry about us when we seemed to jump out of nowhere.”
“I didn’t know about any such stealth capability,” Livadhi said.
“Of course not, sir. It was all highly secret—” So secret it didn’t exist; she put that thought rapidly aside.
“And they gave it to a jumped-up captain with a checkered past, an Altiplanan? Somehow I doubt that, Landbride Suiza . . .”
“I’m not the Landbride anymore,” Esmay said. “I renounced it officially, before witnesses—I told you that, sir, at the dinner.”
“So you did. Still, I could as easily believe you somehow suborned someone in my crew to conceal your presence . . . Suiza, you are meddling in something you do not understand.”
“You’re right, Admiral,” Esmay said. “I don’t understand what you’re doing, and I am concerned that you are out here alone, on the border—”
“You’re not the only one who can have secret orders, Suiza. I’m not here because I decided to go for a joyride. If we end up in a full-scale war because of you—”
“Not because of me, Admiral,” Esmay said. She dared not glance aside to see if her scan officer had identified the incoming ship. If she could just keep Livadhi engaged, keep him busy, so he didn’t jump Vigilance out . . .
“Back off, Suiza. That’s an order. Back off, go home, and if I were you I’d keep my mouth shut—” With every word he spoke, she became more convinced that he was, in fact, a traitor.
“No, sir.” Esmay took a deep breath. “I don’t entirely trust you, sir.”
“You flaming idiot! Are you trying to get yourself and your crew killed? You do realize Vigilance could blow you apart like tissue paper, don’t you?” Out of the corner of her eye she could see a sort of ripple of dismay go through her bridge crew. But she herself felt steadier, now that he’d openly threatened her.
“Sir, I’ve been yelled at by admirals senior to you—with all due respect, sir, yelling at me isn’t going to work. Tell me what you’re doing, and why, or I will sit right here watching you until I figure it out for myself.”
“No, you won’t, because I will run right over you and jump out of here. Dammit, Suiza, haven’t you caused enough trouble in this organization? Back off or else do exactly what I tell you.” He took a deep breath. “You want to know what I’m doing? I’m under orders to make an illicit jump into Benignity space to pick up a very important defector. I’ve been told it’s of utmost importance. Now that you’ve stuck your nose in, you can guard my back.”
Heris Serrano was asleep in her cabin when the comm officer buzzed her. “Captain—there’s an urgent message, ansible relayed, from a Captain Suiza.”
“In code?”
“Yes, sir, in code.”
Heris frowned as she shoved her feet into her boots and headed to the bridge and the decryption desk. Esmay Suiza was back in Fleet and a captain? That was good, but now what had happened?
She sat at the desk, inserted her command wand, entered the authorization numbers, and watched the message wriggle into clear. urgent urgent urgent . . . All right, she’d got that. petris kenvinnard aboard vigilance reports suspicious activity by admiral minor livadhi. requests rascal relay messages to you and shadow vigilance. will report via ansible.
“Captain, there’s another from the same source, by a different relay . . . I was just downloading all messages for this ship . . .”
“See how many there are,” Heris said. “Forward them all to this desk. We have a situation.”
The next message gave a set of navigation coordinates. vigilance taking this course. will follow and report.
The third, fourth, and fifth were the same. Heris could almost see the big cruiser trailed by the little patrol, through one jump point after another, zigzagging through Familias Space. What was Livadhi up to? And why didn’t he realize Suiza was back there reporting on him?