“I know,” Michael conceded, “and if Admiral Jaruzelska had a hand in their selection, I’m sure you’re right.”
“We’ll see. Oh, yes, one more thing. They both know your parents.”
Michael groaned out loud. Was there anyone-human or AI-in the Federated Worlds Space Fleet who did not know his parents?
“Get me another beer before I have you turned off,” he said to Mother even though it was not her job to summon the drinkbot.
“Yes, Michael,” Mother said meekly.
Tuesday, October 3, 2400, UD
Section 51 Interrogation Center, McNair
Cruelly lit by the glare from banks of overhead lights, the interrogation room was a bleak and unforgiving place, its fittings limited to three chairs and a simple metal table, all bolted to a stained plascrete floor pierced by a small drain.
The sole occupant of the room sat facing the door, her hands cuffed to the metal table. Professor Saadak was a pitiful sight: dirty blond hair hanging in matted strands, forehead slashed by an angry cut, its crust of dried blood black in the harsh light, eyelids puffy over half-closed eyes, skin gray and stretched tight. Unmoving, she stared into the distance.
The woman started in shock when the door crashed open, head snapping back, hands twisting in a desperate, futile attempt to push her body away from the table. A man in dark gray coveralls came in and sat down; he ignored her. The woman gave up her struggle; without a word she watched the man arrange his data pad on the table.
The silence dragged on and on; still the man just sat.
Without warning, he stood and reached across the table. Working quickly, he pulled her sleeve back, ignoring her frantic efforts to stop him. He pulled a small gas-powered hypo gun from a coverall pocket; Saadak flinched when he fired it into her arm.
“You bastard, Balluci,” she said, her voice a harsh croak, “bastard, bastard, bastard …” Her voice trailed off. For a minute she sat motionless. She sat up with a start, her pupils closing to pinpoints and her hands steadying as the drug seeped into her system. She whimpered, soft moans of agony, eyes casting left and right in a frantic search for a way out of her suffering.
“All right, Professor Saadak, I think we’re ready to talk,” Interrogator First Class Balluci said, “so let’s get started. Remember, you can finish this by telling me the truth, first time, every time. I can give you something to ease the pain. I know that drug’s a real bitch.”
“I’ve told you everything,” Saadak said, trembling, “everything I know.”
“Not true, Professor. You still refuse to give me access to your neuronics.”
“I can’t,” she cried, “I can’t. I’ve told you over and over. I can’t give you access. My neuronics are blocked, and you aren’t authorized to-”
Balluci moved so fast that Saadak had no time to react. He lunged across the table, and his open hand smacked her head savagely to one side, a scream of drug-enhanced agony racketing off the wall of the room. She slumped forward, head shaking from side to side, tears dripping onto her jumpsuit, hands clawing uselessly at the metal tabletop.
Balluci waited until she lifted her head, peering at him from pain-filled eyes. “You know what, Professor?” he said.
“No,” Saadak croaked, “what?”
“I think we believe you on the neuronics thing. So let’s move on. Tell me about your defense research and development programs. Did you have oversight of their budgets?”
“Yes, I did,” Saadak said, utterly beaten.
“Okay. Let me ask you …”
Four hours later, the man behind the one-way mirror allowed himself to be convinced. The woman had nothing more to tell them. If it was in her brain-pity they had not cracked her neuronics-Balluci would have dug it out. He was one of the best, even if he was beginning to get too fond of the physical side of the business; the woman was a mess. Everything Saadak said confirmed that the Feds were conducting the basic research; she knew of no funding for antimatter warhead production. All of that meant the Feds had a long way to go before they managed to weaponize antimatter. It would be even longer before any antimatter weapons made it into frontline service in useful numbers.
He put a holovid call through to his boss. His masters would be happy to hear what he had to say.
Thursday, October 12, 2400, UD
Federated Worlds Warship
Tufayl,
Comdur Fleet Base nearspace
With a lurch, the universe turned itself inside out and Tufayl dropped into normalspace, back where she belonged. With one eye on the navigation AI while it computed the vector for Comdur, Michael heaved a sigh of relief. It had been a hard seven days. Shakedown cruise, my ass, he said to himself. Shakedown it certainly had been, cruise it had not. The pressure was relentless, crisis after crisis thrown at them to test the ability of the Tufayl’s tiny crew to react to and contain the problems deepspace operations might toss at them.
All the time, standing back in the shadows, ship riders from the staff of the flag officer for space training watched everything and missed nothing; at times, their postexercise debriefings verged on the brutal as they dissected the mistakes made by Michael and his team. It was an unforgiving process, not least because any failure by one of Tufayl’s crew was his failure. He might be in command of the most advanced warship ever produced by humans, but some things never changed.
He was glad it was over, happy to know he would soon see the back of the last of the ship riders.
“Command, sensors. Threat plot is confirmed. Plot is green.”
“Command, roger. Warfare, weapons tight. I have command authority.”
“Warfare, roger.”
“All stations, command. Stand down from general quarters. Revert to cruising stations, ship state 3, airtight integrity condition x-ray. Engineering, restore artificial gravity. Jayla, you can stand down. I’ll take the ship in.”
“You sure, sir?” Ferreira asked.
“Yup. Just get those ship riders off my ship the instant we’re in orbit.”
“Yes, sir,” Ferreira replied with a huge grin. “I’ll see to it.”
Michael sat alone in the combat information center, asking himself the same question over and over again: Had Tufayl done well enough? Did she have her precious Operational Readiness Certificate?
“Command, navigation. Confirmed vector is nominal for Comdur parking orbit.”
“Command, roger,” he replied. He triple-checked the navigation AI’s vector calculations. Comdur’s defenses were formidable; they tolerated no mistakes. To stray off vector risked an encounter of the terminal kind: If space mines missed them, autonomous defensive platforms armed with ASSMs and antiship lasers came next. If they did not get them, space battle stations-newly commissioned and nervous after the Hammers wiped out most of their predecessors-would. Michael knew he was justified in keeping a close eye on his navigation AI.
Satisfied all was well, Michael allowed himself to settle back while he watched Tufayl’s painstaking transit through Comdur’s defenses.
“Tufayl, Space Training Control.”
“Space Training Control, Tufayl,” the navigation AI responded.
Now what? Michael wondered.
“Tufayl, Space Training Control. Stand by to receive shuttle with one pax for you. Chop vidcomm channel 36, contact shuttle Mike Romeo 4466.”
Michael overrode the AI. “Space Training Control, Tufayl. Authenticate Kilo Mike Alfa Quebec.” After a week suffering at the hands of vindictive ship riders, Michael did not trust the people who managed the minutiae of space training. Who knew what stunt the bastards might try to pull even at this late stage? He would not put it past them to have packed the shuttle with marines for a last-minute boarding exercise.