"It's a ship!" The others stared at her.
"It can't be," Erdra said. "It's underground."
"Silo construction." From the blank looks, none of diem knew what that meant. "Look," and Sassinak pointed to her proof, "the stuff on top's designed to look like real buildings, but it's just shell. Probably even folds back. Down here, this is a lot more than self-contained habitat for a planet… this, and this," her finger stabbed at the plans. "Framing of a standard midsize personal yacht. My guess would be Bollanger Yards, maybe a hundred-fifty years ago. When was that section of the city built up?"
Erdra scowled, fiddled on the keyboard she now carried, and said, "Eighty-two years ago, subdivided for light industry. Before that, nothing but a single warehouse and… a derelict shuttle station, from back when private shuttles were legal."
"But a ship couldn't last that long, could it?" asked Gerstan.
"Easily, protected like that. They've maintained it. They'll have replaced obsolete equipment with new. No problem to them. And nothing wrong with the hull design. The question is, do they keep it fitted to launch?"
"Launch? From underground?"
Civilians. Did they not even know that most planetary defenses used some silo-sited missiles, often placed on moons or asteroids in the system, safe from random bombardment by stray rocks?
"Launch. As in, escape. If things get too hot. Which is precisely what we were planning to make them."
"How could we tell? And what will it do if it does launch? Will it start a fire?"
"Erdra, do you have a hardcopy of all the connection data?"
Wide-eyed, the girl handed over a sheaf of them. Sassinak began paging through as she talked.
"If it's the hull I think it is, and if it's got the engines it should have, then it will do more than start a fire if it launches. They won't have intended that silo to be used more than once. Its lining will combust to produce part of the initial lift and since they would only do it in an emergency, it's probably set to backblast down any communicating tunnels. Even though that wastes thrust, I doubt they'll care."
Her eyes scanned the sheets, translating into Fleet terms the different civilian notation. Yes. There. Solid chemical fuel, far more efficient than any in the dawn of the human space exploration, but still unstable and requiring replacement at intervals. So the hardened access tunnel for that alone, in case anything went wrong, would have blast hatches at both ends. He could still get away.
The old rage burned behind her eyes. So close, and he could still get away. She could almost see them getting near, breaking through one defense after another, only to be met by the blazing flare of the engines as the yacht lifted away from trouble to some luxurious hidey-hole in another system.
"Sassinak!"
Her heart caught, then went on. A Weft - one of her Wefts - in range. She sent back an urgent query.
"Ten marines, two of us, Timran piloting the shuttle."
The shuttle! Virtually helpless against real fighting craft, even a shuttle could take an unarmed yacht. Sassinak felt a rush of excitement. Now she had them trapped; The Parchandri and whoever his main conspirators were. She could block their escape. She could push them into it, make them commit themselves, show themselves. And then destroy them. She realized the others were looking at her oddly.
"Don't worry," she said. "That's not the disaster it seems like. In fact, when you know an enemy's bolthole, it becomes a trap."
"But if the ship goes up, how can we.. "
Sassinak waved for quiet, and the babble died. "My cruiser dropped a shuttle, remember?" Heads nodded. She went on. "So if I get where I can contact them," and she waved her little comunit, "they can intercept it." She was not about to tell them she could talk to her Wefts. She'd heard enough racial slurs down here to convince her of that. "But there's plenty of work for the rest of you."
It would take pressure to make them run, pressure in the Grand Council, pressure underground. They must feel threatened every way but that. And she could not use these civilian lives freely. They were not hers to throw away, not even in such a cause.
Chapter Nineteen
FSP Escort Brightfang, FedCentral Docking Station
On the bridge of the escort vessel Brightfang by the courtesy of his old classmate Killin, Fordeliton had a startling view of the Zaid-Dayaris departure as the escort approached the FedCentral Main Station. First he noticed that the Flight Bay was open, then he could see the elevator rising with a shuttle poised on its narrow surface. He wondered briefly if Sassinak were letting Timran run an errand as the shuttle lifted away, the Flight Bay closing in behind it. A few seconds later, the ship itself eased off the docking probe. He felt a great hollow open in his middle. He had counted on reporting to Sassinak the moment he arrived. He was in time for the trial. Why was she leaving? What would he do now?
"What's going on?" he asked.
No one answered. Killin looked angry as he spoke into his comset, but Ford could not quite hear what he said. The little ship shivered. Someone's tractor beam had swept it. He knew better than to ask anything more, and made himself as invisible as he could. Then Killin turned to him.
"They won't let us dock! They're holding us in position with the tractors and they're threatening worse."
"What's happened?"
"Your captain. According to them, she killed an admiral onplanet and whoever she left in charge of the Zaid-Dayan has gone completely bonkers, ghost-hunting. They think it's something catching, probably from Ireta."
"Arly! It'd be Arly if Sassinak left the ship. And Arly's not crazy. Patch me over to "em."
Killin shook his head. "Can't. They've jammed us just in case. So far as they're concerned, Fleet personnel are all crazy until proven otherwise. They're not about to let us spread our damaging lies."
"They said that?" With astonishment came the sudden piercing loss. Where was Sassinak? In prison? Surely not dead! He realized that he did not want to deal with a world that had no Sassinak in it, not anywhere.
"They said it's worse than that. The Insystem Security officer I spoke to had been thrown off the Zaid-Dayan. By Wefts."
"But I've got orders. I've got to get this information down there in time for Tanegli's trial."
Killin shrugged. "Feel like space-swimming the last kilometer? And then I doubt they'll let you go down in a shuttle like a nice, harmless civilian."
"Why are they scared of you? They don't know you've got a deadly Iretan survivor with you."
Killin looked startled. "I forgot. You were there, weren't you? Snarks, if they figure that out…"
"We don't tell them. We don't tell them I have any connection to the Zaid-Dayan or Sassinak. I'm just a humble courier, carrying a sealed satchel from Sector HQ to FedCentral's Justice Center."
"I didn't pick you up at Sector HQ."
"And who knows that? Got a good reason for turning me over to these idiots?"
Killin shrugged. "No. But that still doesn't get you into the Station. If they relent…" He broke off as his comunit blinked at him and he cut the volume onto the cabin speakers.
"… assurances that no member of your crew was at any time on the proscribed planet Ireta, which is believed to be the source of a plague affecting mental capacity, you will be allowed to dock and proceed with normal business."
Killin winked at Ford and spoke into the com. "Sir, this ship has never even been in the same sector as Ireta. We're a scheduled courier run between Sector Eight HQ and the capitol. We have a courier onboard, with urgent sealed messages from Sector to the Justice Center, as I believe your stripsheet will show."
A long pause, then another voice. "Right, Captain. You are on the sheet, listed as courier, with one passenger carrying papers under diplomatic seal. Is that right?"