“I can,” Arhos said. “In anticipation of immortality, I can pretend any number of impossible things.”
“But if the Bloodhorde shows up . . .”
“Here? Where our very efficient escorts will chase them into the arms of the neighboring cruisers? I refuse to worry; there’s nothing we can do. As far as I’m concerned, there’s a dangerously paranoid captain on this ship, who might at any time see a dust spot on a vidscan and decide it’s an enemy fleet—and then decide it’s his duty to blow us all away. While I’m on this ship I particularly want that device out of his control, lest I lose my chance at a long happy life because of some knotheaded captain’s mental quirk.”
“You’re not happy about it either,” Losa said with satisfaction.
“Yes, I am.”
“No . . . every time you get flowery like that it means you have doubts. Serious doubts. I think we ought to put the controls in our own hands.”
Arhos considered. “Not a bad idea, that. If nothing else, it will keep you satisfied. Gori?”
“I like it. What time tomorrow?”
“Well—the easiest access will be through the inventory bay on Deck Ten, the one across from T-4. And there are weapons components in that bay.”
“How fortunate,” Losa said.
“Especially since the computer indicates they’re located in exactly the right place . . .”
“You fiddled, Arhos.”
He grinned. “What use to have the ability, if no use is made of it? It’s true that I . . . transposed some numbers in the database, but . . . it was in a good cause.”
“I hope so,” Losa said soberly. “I do hope so.”
With their most advanced equipment, they were able to locate and fox the scan which supposedly kept anyone from tampering with the device. It took a day or so to create the blind loops they’d insert while they worked. Another day or so to create a convincing errand in that bay again.
Then they were in, and the device in its casing looked just as they’d expected.
“The tricky bit,” Arhos said, but he didn’t sound worried. Rapidly the case came open, the controls yielded to their intrusion, the codes changed . . . and the telltales stayed a friendly green.
“Might as well run the test,” Gori said.
“Might as well—we’ve got ten minutes.” Arhos nodded to Losa, who pricked her intercept into the captain’s control line and then inserted a two-layer code. The telltales changed, in sequence, from green to yellow. She inserted another code, and they went back to green.
“Lovely,” Gori said. “I really do like it when we’re right the first time.”
“If we were right,” Losa murmured.
Arhos grinned. “Three rejuvs, Lo. Three, first-class, guaranteed with the best drugs. We were right.” He finished cleaning up, putting everything back as they’d found it, even to the tiny piece of metal filing that just happened to have lain a half a centimeter in from the right front corner of the case. “We’re going to live forever,” he said, backing out, wiping the deck behind him. “Forever, and be very, very rich.”
That night they brought out one of their treats from home, and toasted each other. For the benefit of the ship’s scan, they congratulated themselves on their progress so far in getting the weapons rekeyed. It made a delicious joke. Arhos sank into sleep and dreamed of the future, when he would be so rich, and so well known, that he’d never have to take a Bloodhorde contract again.
Chapter Twelve
Esmay was asleep, having a different dream for once, when the alarm bleeped, bringing her upright even before she woke. All down the passage she could hear voices; her heart stammered and she felt cold sweat break out. But when even as she dressed, the nature of the emergency became clear: ships coming in for repair. Not a mutiny. Not combat. Not—she told herself firmly—as bad. For her.
Even as she dressed and scampered along the passage and up ladders to her section, she felt the gut-twisting lurch of a ship overpowering its way through a jump point. Fear crawled back up her spine, vertebra by vertebra. DSRs were not built for racing and jumping; DSRs moved at the leisurely pace appropriate to their mass and internal architecture. She understood now, after the time in Hull & Architecture, why it wasn’t a matter of adding more power—what the trade-offs were, in making Koskiusko so big and so massive. What had happened? Where were they going? And more important, were they fleeing with trouble on their tail, or running toward it?
Hull & Architecture, like every other section, swarmed like a kicked anthill. In the departmental briefing room, Commander Seveche was putting a cube in the display. “Ah . . . Suiza. Hook up your compad, this is going to be interesting.” Esmay plugged in her compad, and made sure it was set to record the display directly. Most of H&A was in the room when Seveche started his briefing; the rest straggled in within a few minutes.
“This is what we know—and we all know that it will be worse. Wraith is a patrol ship, commissioned ten years ago, out of the Dalverie Yards—one of the SLP Series 30 hulls—” A couple of low groans, which Esmay now understood. The SLP Series 30 had well earned the nickname “slippery,” meaning its architecture lent itself to unauthorized and possibly damaging revisions. “She’s been in combat against the Bloodhorde, and despite their technological inferiority, they managed to wipe most of her scan systems and then bludgeon her with heavy explosive. There was shield failure of the starboard arc, forward of frame 19—” Esmay now knew exactly where frame 19 was on that class and series. “—with resulting damage to the forward weapons pods, and a hull breach here—” Seveche’s pointer circled the intersection of frame 19 with truss 7.
“And she’s coming in?” Someone less inhibited than Esmay had voiced her surprise exactly.
“She was lucky,” Seveche said. “They knocked out her scans, but not the scans of her hunting partners. Sting and Justice were in the system, and they blindsided the Bloodhorde ships, drove them off. Wraith had heavy casualties of course, but they were able to patch things up enough to make it through one jump point. They couldn’t manage two: the hull patch was leaking again, and they had nothing more to use on it. So—as you all no doubt felt—we’re jumping out to meet them.”
No one said it this time, but the tense faces around Esmay revealed their thoughts. DSRs stayed well behind any line of war for a very good reason . . . they couldn’t fight, maneuver, or get away. If they were attacked . . .
“I did remind our captain that old Kos isn’t an escort,” Seveche said wryly. “But we should be fine. Half our protection jumped ahead of us, and the rest with us. We’ll have Sting and Justice as well. And it looks like all the experimental stuff on Justice worked.”
“How long do we have?” asked Pitak.
“We expect to come into the same system in—” Seveche looked at the chronometer. “Seventy-eight hours and eighteen minutes. We’ll be making a series of fast-insertion jumps, coming out of the last at a slow relative vee; they’ll tow Wraith out to us.”
Seveche went on with the briefing. “We won’t know more about the hull damage until we come out of the last jump: we’re pushing this ship to its max, and not hanging around anywhere to pick up messages. For all we know, Wraith won’t make it until we arrive.”
By the time Koskiusko came out of its last jump, Esmay had been all over the ship on errands for Major Pitak. “Don’t be insulted, but you still don’t know enough to be really useful—and I need someone to keep up with all the other departments. Ship’s comm is overloaded, or will be.”