Jeremy started grabbing up stuff.
“Just let it go!” Fletcher said
“We have to get the hard stuff!” Jeremy cried, and grabbed up the cup he’d thrown, the toiletry kit, the kind of things that would fly about in a disaster. Fletcher snatched them from him, shoved them into the nearest locker and slammed the door.
Then he flung himself down on the sheetless bed and grabbed the belts. Jeremy did the same on his side of the room.
The intercom started the countdown. He lay there staring at the ceiling, telling himself calm down, but he wasn’t interested in listening.
They’d gotten him, all right. Good and proper. They’d probably been sniggering after he left the bar.
Maybe not. Maybe Chad had. Chad and Connor and Sue, he’d damn well bet. They’d cleared the cabins and the senior- juniors were still running around the ship, well able to get into any cabin they liked, with no locks on any door.
“I’m real sorry!” Jeremy said as the burn started.
He didn’t answer. The bunks swiveled so that he was looking at the bottomside of Jeremy’s, and so that he had a good view of the empty drawers and the underside of the bunk carriage, and Satin’s stick wasn’t there, either. He even undid the safety belts and stuck his head over one side of the bunk and the other, trying to see the underside. He held on until acceleration sent the blood to his head and, no, it wasn’t stuck to the bottom of the bunk carriage, wasn’t stuck to the head of the bunk—wasn’t stuck to the foot, which cost him a struggle to search. He lay back, panting, and then snapped at Jeremy:
“Look down to your right, see whether it’s down in the framework.”
A moment. “It’s not there. Fletcher, I’m sorry…”
He didn’t answer. He didn’t feel like talking. Jeremy tried to engage him about it, and when he didn’t answer that, tried to talk about Mariner, but he wasn’t interested in that, either.
“I’m kind of sick,” Jeremy said, last ploy.
“That’s too bad,” he said. “Next time don’t stuff yourself.”
There was quiet from the upper bunk, then.
Chad. Or Vince. And he’d lean the odds to it being Chad.
He replayed everything JR had said, every expression, every nuance of body language, and about JR he wasn’t sure. He didn’t think so. He didn’t read JR as somebody who’d enjoy that kind of game, standing and talking to him about how well he’d done, and all the while knowing what he was walking into.
He didn’t think JR would do it, but he wanted to talk to JR face to face when he told him. He wanted to see the reactions, read the eyes, and see if he could spot a liar: he hadn’t been damn good at it so far in his life.
It hurt. Bottom line, it hurt, and until he talked to the senior-junior in charge, he didn’t know where he stood or what the game was.
Chapter 17
Boreale was also out of dock, likewise running light, about fifteen minutes behind them. That made for, in JR’s estimation, a far better feeling than it would have been if they’d had to chase Champlain into jump alone.
It also made their situation better, courtesy of the station administration, for Finity to have had access to Champlain’s entry data, data on that ship’s behavior and handling characteristics gathered before they’d known they were under close observation. They had that information to weigh against its exit behavior and its acceleration away from Mariner, when Champlain knew they were carefully observed.
That let them and Boreale both form at least some good guesses both about Champlain’s capabilities and the content of its holds. And at his jump seat post on the bridge, JR ran his own calculations on that past-behavior record, keeping their realtime position and Boreal’s as a display on the corner of the screen, and calling on a large library of such records.
Finity’s End , in its military capacity, stored hundreds of such profiles of other ships of shady character, files that ordinary traders couldn’t access and which (he knew the Old Man’s sense of honor) they would never use in competing against other ships in trade. The data included observations of acceleration, estimates of engine output, maneuvering capacity, loading and trade information not alone from Mariner, but black-boxed information that came in from every port in the shared system—and they had that on Champlain .
He was very glad to have confirmation of what common sense told him Champlain had done—which was exactly what they had done. She’d offloaded, hadn’t taken in much, had most of her hauling mass invested in fueclass="underline" she’d taken on enough to replace what she’d spent getting to Mariner, but no one inspected the total load. She was possibly even able to go past Voyager without refueling.
Finity had to fuel at Voyager. If they delayed to offload cargo and take on more fuel, they’d lose their tag on Champlain even if Champlain did put into that port. But Finity ’s unladed mass relative to their over-sized engines meant they’d still handle like an empty can compared to Champlain , unless Champlain’s hold structure camouflaged more engine strength than the estimate persistently turning up in the figures he was running.
Boreale was likewise high in engine capacity, and she was also far more maneuverable than Champlain , if the figures they had on their ally of convenience were right. They’d been hearing about these new Union warrior-merchanters. Now they had their chance to observe one in action, and Boreale couldn’t help but be aware of their interest and who they reported to…
The com light blinked on his screen. Somebody wanted him. He reached idly and thumbed a go-ahead for his earpiece.
Fletcher. A restrainedly upset Fletcher, who wanted to talk.
“I’m on duty,” he said to Fletcher. “I’m on the bridge.”
“That’s all right,” Fletcher said. “I’ll wait as long as I have to.”
The quiet anger in the tone, considering Fletcher’s nature, said to him that it might be a good idea to see about it now.
“I’ll come down,” he told Fletcher. “Where are you?”
“My quarters.”
“I’ll be there in a moment.” He signaled temporarily off duty , and stored and disconnected on his way out of the seat
Fletcher sat on the bed, in the center of the debris. And waited.
Jeremy had left to report to Jeff, in the galley, for both of them.
Fletcher sat, imagining the time it took to leave the bridge, walk to the lift and take it down to A deck…
To walk the corridor.
He waited. And waited, telling himself sometimes the lift took a moment. People might stop JR on the way…
The light by the door flashed, signaling presence outside.
Fletcher got up quietly and opened the door.
JR’s face said volumes, in the fast, startled pass of the eyes about the room, the evident dismay.
JR hadn’t expected what he saw. And on that sole evidence Fletcher held on to his temper, controlling the anger that had him wound tight.
“Jeremy went on to duty,” he said to JR in exaggerated, careful calm. “This is what we came back to.”