The lack of weapons didn’t. He missed the familiar pressure of needler and stunner, knocknab and gutstab. Familias troops carried weapons only into battle . . . and DSRs didn’t fight.
The helpful enemy had leapfrogged them over the first two phases of the plan, handing them the chance to disperse throughout the ship. With any luck at all—and the gods definitely seemed to be loading luck upon them—no one from Wraith would notice that the men wearing the uniforms of shipmates were not shipmates at all.
Vokrais followed the route displayed on the palm-sized mapcom, sure that he could deal with whatever he found when he arrived.
“No, I’m not going to send anyone from Wraith back over there—not after they’ve been knocked out for a week or so with sleepygas. Their cogs won’t be meshing for another two shifts, and we don’t want accidents.” Vokrais heard the end of that and wondered whether feigning mental illness would do anything useful. Probably not. They might send him back to the medical area, where he could end up in bed with no pants on. Better to seem dutiful but slightly confused—the confusion at least was honest enough.
Familias technology impressed him as it had before—so much of it, and it worked so well. No familiar stench of sweat and gutbreath. Clean air emerged from one grille, and vanished into another; the lights never flickered; the artificial gravity felt as solid as a planet. The little communications device and the data wand he’d been given were smaller and worked better than their analogs on the Bloodhorde ships.
This was what they had come for, after all. The technology they had not been able to buy or steal or (last and least efficient ploy) invent. Bigger ships, better ships, ships that could take on Familias and Compassionate Hand cruisers and win. The technicians to keep the technology working . . . Vokrais eyed the others around him. They didn’t look like much, but he had somewhat overcome the prejudice of his upbringing; he knew that smart minds could hide in bodies of all shapes. But hardly one in fifty looked like any kind of warrior.
Meanwhile . . . meanwhile his pack was dispersed throughout the DSR, very handily. Probably several supervisors would decide, as his had, to assign them simple duties. Eventually a meal would come, and they’d have access to eating utensils, so easily converted to effective hand weapons.
An hour . . . two. Vokrais worked on, willing enough to sort parts, package them in trays, stack them on automatic carriers. There was no hurry; they had gained time by being put to sleep and admitted as casualties, an irony he hoped to be able to share at the victory feast with his commander. Once he caught a glimpse of another pack member, carrying something he didn’t recognize; for an instant their gazes crossed, then the other man looked away. Yes. Huge as this ship might be, they would locate one another, and their plan would work. And the longer they had to explore it, to learn its capabilities, the easier to slit its guts open when the time came.
Esmay glanced up as a shadow crossed her screen. camajo, the nametag said, clipped to a uniform that fit its wearer like a new saddle . . . technically fitting, but uneasy in some way. The insignia of a petty-light had been applied recently, and not quite straight, to his sleeve.
“I was told to report here,” the man said. “To Major . . . Major Pitak.” His eyes roved the compartment as if scanning it for hidden weapons; his glance at Esmay had been dismissive. Her skin prickled. He reminded her of something—someone—her mind, suddenly alert, scrabbled frantically in memory to figure out what. She looked back at the screen before she answered.
“She’s in with Commander Seveche. Are you from Wraith?” She couldn’t imagine anyone from Koskiusko giving her quite that look. It wasn’t the “you’re not really Fleet are you?” look, or the “you’re that kid who commanded Despite, aren’t you?” look, or any of the others she’d have recognized.
“Yes . . . sir.” The pause snagged her attention away from the screen graphics again. “We were . . . in the forward compartment . . . the sleepygas . . .”
“You’re lucky to be alive,” Esmay said, instantly forgiving the man’s odd behavior. If he’d been through all that, he could still be affected by the drug. “We’ve got Wraith in now; work’s already started. You can wait here for Major Pitak, or at Commander Seveche’s office.”
“Where’s Commander Seveche’s office?” the man asked. The shipchip in his pocket bleeped, and he peered cross-eyed at a space between him and Esmay. She knew what that meant—the shipchip was projecting a route.
“Just follow your shipchip,” she said. He turned, without the proper acknowledgement; Esmay started to say something, but . . . he had been gassed, and might be still a bit hazy. Something wasn’t quite right . . .
“Petty-light . . .” she said. He stopped in mid-stride, then turned jerkily. Something not right at all. His eyes were not the eyes of someone dazed by drugs . . . his eyes had a bright gleam half-hidden behind lowered lids.
“Yes . . . Lieutenant?”
She could not define what was wrong . . . it was not anything so positive as disrespect, which she had experienced often enough. Respect and disrespect occurred in a relationship, a connection. Here she felt no connection at all, as if Petty-light Camajo were not Fleet at all, but a civilian.
“When you do see Major Pitak, tell her that the simulations for fabrication have arrived from SpecMat.”
“The simulations have arrived . . . yes . . . m . . . sir.” Camajo turned, moving more decisively than someone fogged on sleepygas, and was gone before Esmay could say more. She scowled at the screen. Yes . . . m . . . sir? What had he been about to say?
She felt uneasy. Had Wraith had traitors on its crew? Was that why it had suffered such damage? Why was Camajo alive, uninjured, after such a hull breach between him and the rest of the ship?
This was ridiculous. She had not noticed anything amiss in Despite, had not recognized that any of the traitors were traitors. She had not been uneasy this way then. Perhaps that experience had made her paranoid, willing to interpret every discrepancy as ominous. Camajo had been lucky, that was all, and now he was disoriented, on a strange ship with none of his familiar companions.
That didn’t work out. The casualties on Despite, traitor or loyal, had none of them stumbled over the familiar Fleet greetings and honorifics. With blood in his mouth, as he died, Chief Major Barscott had answered “Yes, sir . . .” to Esmay. How many of the survivors in those forward compartments had been lucky? How lucky? And was it luck?
Camajo’s eyes . . . his gaze . . . reminded her of her father’s soldiers. Groundpounders’ eyes . . . commandos’ eyes . . . roving, assessing, looking for the weaknesses in a position, thinking how to take over . . . Take over what?
Scolding herself, Esmay flicked to the next screen, but her mind wandered anyway. In the civil wars—she called it that now, though to her family it was still the Califer Uprising—both sides had tried infiltrating the others’ defensive positions with troops wearing stolen uniforms, using stolen ID. It had worked a few times, even though both knew it was possible. She’d never heard of such a thing happening in Fleet. Ships weren’t infiltrated by individuals . . . they were attacked by ships. Very rarely in Fleet history were attempts at hostile boarding mentioned; battle zones were too dangerous for EVA maneuvers. Pirates sometimes boarded individual commercial vessels . . . but that wasn’t the military. It would take . . . it would take a single badly damaged Fleet ship, one that could not detect the movement of individuals in EVA gear . . . a hull breach that let them in . . . a way to get the right uniforms . . . no. She was being silly.