“New contact!” The technician’s voice rose. “Excuse me, captain, but I’ve got a Churi-class vessel out there: could be extremely dangerous - “
“Specs.” Sassinak glanced around the bridge, pleased with the alert but unfrantic attitudes she saw. They were already on full stealth routine; upgrading to battle status would cost her stealth. Her weapons officer raised a querying finger; Sassinak shook her head, and he relaxed.
“Old-style IFF - no beacon. Built forty years ago in the Zendi yards, commissioned by the - “ He stopped, lowered his voice. “The governor of Diplo, captain.”
Oh great, thought Sass. just what we needed, a little heavyworlder suspicion to complete our confusion.
“Bring up the scan and input,” she said, without commenting on the heavyworlder connection. One display filled with a computer analysis of the IFF output. Sassinak frowned at it. “That’s not right. Look at that carrier wave - “
“Got it.” The technician had keyed in a comparison command, and the display broke into colored bands, blue for the correspondence between the standard signal and the one received, and bright pink for the unmatched portions.
“They’ve diddled with their IFF,” said Sass. “We don’t know what that is, or what it carries - “
“Our passive array says it’s about the size of a patrol craft - “ offered Huron.
“Which means it could carry all sorts of nice things,” said Sass, thinking of them. An illicitly armed patrol craft was not a match for theZaid-Dayan, but it could do them damage. If it noticed them.
Huron was frowning at the displays. “Now… is this a rendezvous, or an ambush?”
“Rendezvous,” said Sassinak quickly. His brows rose.
“You’re sure?”
“It’s the worse possibility for us: it gives us two ships to follow or engage if they notice us. Besides, little colonies like this don’t get visits from unscheduled merchants.”
Judging by the passive scans, which produced data hours old, the two ships matched trajectories and traveled toward the colony world together - certainly close enough to use a tight-beam communication band. TheZaid-Dayan hung in the system’s outer debris, watching with every scanning mode it had. Hour by hour, it became clearer that the destination must be the colony. They’re raiders, Sassinak thought, and Huron said it aloud, adding, “We ought to blow them out of the system!” For an instant, Sassinak let the old fury rise almost out of control, but she forced the memory of her own childhood back. If they blew these two away, they would know nothing about the powers who hired them, protected them, supplied them. She would not let herself wonder if another Fleet commander had made the same decision about her homeworld’s raid.
She shook her head. “We’re on surveillance patrol; you know that.”
“But, captain - our data’s a couple of hours old. If they are raiders, they could be hitting that colony any time… we have to warn them. We can’t let them - “ Huron had paled, and she saw a terrible doubt in his eyes.
“Orders.” She turned away, not trusting herself to meet his gaze. She had exorcised many demons from her past, in the years since her commissioning: she could dine with admirals and high government officials, make polite conversation with aliens, keep her temper and her wits in nearly all circumstances… but deep in her mind she carried the vision of her parents dying, her sister’s body sliding into the water, her best friend changed to a shivering, depressed wreck of the lively girl she’d been. She shook her head, forcing herself to concentrate on the scan. Her voice came out clipped and cold; she could see by their reactions that the bridge crew recognized the strain on her. “We must find the source of this - we must. If we destroy these vermin, and never find their master, it will go on and on, and more will suffer. We have to watch, and follow - “
“But they never meant us to let a colony be raided! We’re - we’re supposed to protect them - it’s in the Charter!” Huron circled until he faced her again. “You’ve got discretion, in any situation where FSP citizens are directly threatened - “
“Discretion!” Sassinak clamped her jaw on the rest of that, and glared at him. It must have been a strong glare, for he backed a step. In a lower voice, she went on. “Discretion, Huron, is not questioning your commanding officer’s orders on the bridge when you don’t know what in flaming gas clouds is going on. Discretion is learning to think before you blow your stack - “
“Did you ever think,” said Huron, white-lipped and angrier than Sassinak had ever seen him, “that someone might have made this decision when you were down there?” He jerked his chin toward the navigation display. She waited a long moment, until the others had decided it would be wise to pay active attention to their own work, and the rigidity went out of Huron’s expression.
“Yes,” she said very quietly. “Yes, I have. I imagine it haunts that person, if someone actually was there, as this is going to haunt me.” At that his face relaxed slightly, the color rising to his cheeks. Before he could speak, Sassinak went on. “You think I don’t care? You think I haven’t imagined myself - some child the age I was, some innocent girl or boy who’s thinking of tomorrow’s test in school? You think I don’t remember, Huron?” She glanced around, seeing that everyone was at least pretending to give them privacy. “You’ve seen my nightmares, Huron; you know I haven’t forgotten.”
His face was as red as it had been pale. “I know. I know that, but how can you - “
“I want them all.” It came out flat, emotionless, but with the power of an impending avalanche… as yet no sound, no excitement… but inexorable movement accelerating to some dread ending. “I want them all, Huron: the ones who do it because it’s fun, the ones who do it because it’s profitable, the ones who do it because it’s easier than hiring honest labor… and above all the ones who do it without thinking about why… who just do it because that’s how it’s done. I want them all.” She turned to him with a smile that just missed pleasantry to become the toothy grin of the striking predator. “And there’s only one way to get them all, and to that I commit this ship, and my command, and any other resource… including, with all regret, those colonists who will die before we can rescue them - “
“But we’re going to try -?”
“Try, hell. I’m going to do it.” The silence on the bridge was eloquent; this time when she turned away from Huron he did not follow.
The scans told the pitiable story of the next hours. The colonists, more alert than Myriad’s, managed to set off their obsolete missiles, which the illicit patrol craft promptly detonated at a safe distance.
“Now we know they’ve got an LDsl4, or equivalent,” said Huron without emphasis. Sassinak glanced at him but made no comment. They had not met, as usual, after dinner, to talk over the day’s work. Huron had explained stiffly that he wanted to review for his next promotion exam, and Sassinak let him go. The ugly thought ran through her mind that a subversive would be just as happy to have the evidence blown to bits. But surely not Huron - from a small colony himself, surely he’d have more sympathy with them… and besides, she was sure she knew him better than any psych profile. Just as he knew her.
Meanwhile, having exhausted the planetary defenses, the two raiders dropped shuttles to the surface. Sassinak shivered, remembering the tough, disciplined (if irregular) troops the raiders had landed on her world. The colonists wouldn’t stand a chance. She found she was breathing faster, and looked up to find Huron watching her. So were the others, though less obviously; she caught more than one quick sideways glance.
Yet she had to wait. Through the agonizing hours, she stayed on the bridge, pushing aside the food and drink that someone handed her. She had to wait, but she could not relax, eat, drink, even talk, while those innocent people were being killed… and captured… and tied into links (did all slavers use links of eight, she wondered suddenly). The two ships orbited the planet, and when this orbit took them out of LOS, theZaid-Dayan eased closer, its advanced technology allowing minute hops of FTL flight with minimal disturbance to the fields.