Stosh nodded. “So is some of the online silence on the sites where the Teams’ spouses congregate. The ones who are talking haven’t heard anything, but you almost get the feeling that’s what they expected. Like when we’re sent on an extended classified deployment: the total lack of information is a kind of information in itself.”
“So you don’t think the missing units are part of the war casualties?”
“I think they’re connected to the equipment shortages. Wherever all the nifty gear went, that’s where you’ll find all the missing boots and butts. And although there are plenty of whispers that they were all on the ships that got pranged by the Arat Kur—well, there are some funny rumors about those, too.”
“Rumors about what? Our ships?”
“Yeah, at least some of the newer ones. About six months back, a few of us got messages from pals in the technical services—machinist’s mates, weapon techs, chief engineers—who were being redeployed to help the industrial corporations as their Lagrangian point shipyards went into overdrive. They were so overwhelmed just laying down the hulls that they relocated the post-assembly finishing processes to one of the secure yards out in the asteroid belt. So once they were done constructing the spinal frame and mounting primary hull modules, they popped in automated controls, a single small engine, and off it went on a three-week glide to the Belt.”
Stosh swerved left onto a steep and irregularly macadamed road. A familiar gutted sugar mill flashed at Trevor through the trees on the right and was gone. “Now,” Witkowski continued, “I have a friend out in the Belt—”
“You have friends everywhere, don’t you, Stosh?”
“A consequence of my winning smile and barroom conviviality. So, my buddy in the Belt relayed this miraculous tale: those ships arriving from the cislunar ways were being finished in five days. Each one went through the same process: into the yard, secure perimeter thrown up around it, and in go construction robots and a few techs. Five days later, out come the techs and most of the ’bots, the secure cordon comes down, and—without a ‘well-done’ or a christening—off she sails.”
“No crew?”
“Skeleton or none. Apparently all these five-day wonders were being ferried out-system.”
Trevor saw the long, low, intersecting roofs of a refurbished plantation house rising up through the trees. “Stosh, I think your friend has been visiting a few too many of those convivial barrooms. A five-day finishing job? How are they doing it?”
“No one knows, because no one was allowed in. The techs were held in isolation during and afterward. Intelligence quarantine, they called it.”
Trevor nodded, wished he had more time to lay out all the pieces of this strange puzzle and play with them. But more immediate concerns called for his attention. “Stosh, are we ready to move?”
Witkowski simply smiled, went speeding past the plantation house’s porch, careened around the embanked driveway to the back—and hit the brakes hard in front of the already-open garage. He flashed the headlights. Bannor Rulaine and Carlos Cruz emerged from the black recesses of the building, wearing fatigues, suppressed liquimix bullpup rifles slung around their necks.
“How did you get them ready so quic—?”
“Our hardened pager/transponders. Cued everyone the moment I saw you step off the boat.”
“And the others?”
“Lieutenant Winfield’s still at the dock. He’s watching for anyone who might have tailed you. Barr is on overwatch in case someone arrived before you and is doubling back to pay us all a visit, or if someone decides to paraglide in for tea, crumpets, and a firefight.”
“You think I might have been foll—?”
“Sir, you’re an officer. Thinking is one of the luxuries of your rank. I just follow procedures and save our lives. And right now, that means taking nothing for granted. In twelve hours, if we haven’t had any visitors, protocol says that—provisionally—you have not been followed, observed, or bugged.”
Trevor shrugged, nodded a greeting to Cruz, who nodded back and moved to help him with his locker. But Stosh shook his head at Cruz—“As you were.”—and led him and Trevor into the garage. “You’re not going to have the opportunity—or reason—to unpack, sir.”
“Why?”
Stosh snapped the light switch. In place of cars, the garage held two six-by-twelve sand tables. One boasted a surprisingly lifelike model of the ferry dock at the Four Season’s Resort. The other depicted Bradshaw airport, twenty-two kilometers away on St. Kitts. On each, target vehicles had been painted day-glo orange. “We’ve been playing with our toys—for three hours every night. From leaving this garage to attainment of all objectives—vehicles seized, aircraft secured to the ferry deck, and underway to next area of ops—we conservatively estimate four hours, twenty minutes. If we wait for cover of night—and therefore, the absence of staff—the time-to-completion expands to almost six hours but with almost zero chance of us needing to fire our weapons. Unless, of course, I can convince you that we have a better option than the ferry and the VTOLs.”
Trevor leaned against the wall, crossed his arms. “Convince me.”
Witkowski strolled to the opposite end of the garage, returned with a black ring-binder, dropped it into Trevor’s hand.
“What’s this?”
“Technical specs for the DS X-198.”
“The what?”
Witkowski couldn’t restrain his smile. “A research sub.”
Trevor opened the binder, couldn’t get past the picture on the first page. “Where did you get it?”
“I decided it was time once again to disobey orders. So I went AWOL to San Juan and caught a Navy transport bound for Charleston. While on board, I liberated a few sheets of Navy letterhead, affixed your name and new rank—provided by Captain Rulaine—and convinced the folks at the NOAA facility to loan us this little fish they had decommissioned a year ago.”
Trevor scanned the sub’s schematics. Not an extreme depth vehicle, but it had external manipulators, a decent amount of space, and two airlocks for deploying multiple divers. But no accommodations.
“Stosh, this is great, but it’s a working sub.”
“Indeed it is. Look here: external racks for storing samples or carrying construction materials. Perfect for the battlefield playthings we’ve still got locked in our cargo container.”
“Yeah, but no place to live.”
“Not a problem. We still take the ferry—or better, a high-weather ship—and keep the sub tethered under us, to be used for final insertion.”
Trevor glanced at Stosh. “Insertion?”
“Yes, sir. In Indonesia, sir. And since you didn’t arrive on an official government tub, I’m betting that the op you have in mind is not in complete regs with any of the ones Mr. Downing has relayed and Captain Rulaine has read. So I figure we need to leave quickly for parts unknown to him.”
Trevor stared into Witkowski’s smiling eyes. So here was Stosh, cheerfully planning how to get them all to the other side of the globe for a rogue mission that was probably collective suicide. He was either one hell of a friend, or one hell of a bonehead. Or both. Aloud: “You might be right about the advantages of having a high-water ship, but then we probably won’t be able to carry and launch the aircraft.”
“Begging the august and accomplished officer’s pardon, but isn’t it likely that, if we try to launch the aircraft at all, that the Arat Kur might just take that amiss?”
“Yes. And that, Stanislaus, is the very lynchpin of my plan.”
“Ah. See? There’s an officer for you. I never understand a thing they say. But you’ve always been that way. That’s how I knew you’d make command grade. So. What’s your plan, sir?”