Brun laughed aloud. “Ronnie’s so lucky to have an aunt like you. Well, briefly, our Captain Serrano discovered that the captain of the cruiser and some of the others were traitors, planning to help the Benignity take the Xavier system. And she and Petris figured out that they had to get command of the ships, so they got invited aboard—”
“How?”
“I don’t know. But I know she took Petris, Methlin, Arkady, and Oblo with her, and the next thing we heard, she was in command. Koutsoudas told me, before he transferred to the cruiser, that the traitors were dead. The cruiser’s command computer accepted her—”
“But she’s not in Fleet anymore. How could she—?”
“I don’t know, I said. She and her old crew had their heads together—sent Brig and me away, said we shouldn’t be party to it, so we couldn’t be blamed later. She meant us to go downside and take care of you—” Cecelia snorted and Brig grinned. “I know, that bit was silly. You don’t need taking care of. But that’s why we don’t know what she did, exactly. I think I can find out—there’s a couple of these new people that will let it slip if I hang out with them.”
“I’m sure they will,” Cecelia said. “And meantime I’ll try to be inscrutable.” Inscrutability came easier when she really did know nothing.
Chapter Sixteen
Part of Heris’s strategy needed no explanation. Cecelia could see for herself the advantage in having the yacht able to switch beacon IDs, and the importance of timing was obvious as well. She cut short Faroe’s attempt to explain with a curt, “Yes, I can see that it’s best to change when we’re not in their scan. My question was, are they still clumped up behind their barrage screen?”
“It won’t really screen our change,” he said again.
Cecelia closed her eyes a moment and gave him a stare that had shriveled young men years before this one was born. He gulped and froze in place, as she intended. “I. Know. That.” She had picked it up from the conversations, but he didn’t have to know how new her understanding was. “What I’m interested in is whether we can tell where they are, and whether they’re still clumped. When the prey scatters—”
“But—they’re hunting us,” he said. Cecelia felt sorry for Heris. If this was the best she could find to send back to the yacht, she must be working with a real handicap on the cruiser. She should have let one of her own have it.
“So they think,” she said, and watched Faroe’s face wrap itself around that concept. “I don’t believe Commander Serrano looks at it that way.” She paused again, waiting for his wits to waken. When she saw a glimmer of intelligence, she went on. “You see, in my experience, Commander Serrano considers herself the hunter.”
“Oh.”
“And it is our responsibility, as I see it, to . . . er . . . herd the prey into . . .” Into what? she wondered in midphrase. You herded domestic animals, not hunting prey. She shook her hand, as if it were obvious, and rushed on. “—Or lure them, confuse them—you see my point.”
“But this is a defensive action,” he said. He didn’t sound convinced.
Cecelia gave him another, but less wounding, haughty look. Even aged civilian aunts knew better than that. “Come, Captain Faroe: what does the textbook say about defensive actions?”
He brightened. “Attack on defense . . .”
“Very well. Which makes us—” What could she use as an example. If Heris was the main pack, were they terriers? One terrier? Somehow the image of the yacht as a terrier digging into some vermin’s hole simply didn’t work. Then that ridiculous exhibit of Marcia’s came to her. “Cowhorses,” she said. He looked blank. Damn the boy, didn’t he have any ability to switch metaphors in midstream? “Riding . . .” What was the term now? “Drag,” she said. “Or flank, or something like that. We keep the stragglers from getting away.” She risked a glance around the bridge and intercepted some dubious expressions from the rest of the crew, expressions quickly wiped to blank respect. That would have to change. She grinned at them all, until she got answering smiles, however weak. “I’m a scatty old woman,” she said. “Don’t let my gorgeous red hair fool you—I’m a Rejuvenant, and it’s all fake. And sometimes I lose the words I want . . . the brain’s stuffed too full of too many damn disciplines.”
Cesar chuckled aloud. “It’s all right, sir. It’s just we never heard a spaceship compared to a cowhorse before . . . or the Benignity as cows.”
“I spent the last fifty-eight days at bloodstock farms,” Cecelia said. “Horses are my passion, and I’ve spent all that time with other horse fanciers. Came back up with my head full of bloodlines and genetic analyses, instead of technical data for ships.” As if her head had ever been full of technical data. But they didn’t have to know.
“And you really think Commander Serrano is planning to do more than just hold them off?” asked Cesar, with a quick glance around.
“Yes. And so do you.” That made Faroe straighten up.
“But Commander Garrivay said—”
“Commander Garrivay’s dead. Heris is commanding. It’s a new hunt.”
As the hours passed, Cecelia decided that only inexperience kept Faroe from being a reasonably good young officer. He kept tripping over his former captain’s negatives: “Captain Garrivay said no one could . . .” this and “Captain Garrivay said never . . .” that. She had the impression, from him and the others, that Garrivay had wanted no more initiative in his officers than it took to wipe themselves, and he’d have preferred to have them do that on command. But with Cecelia behind him, Faroe began to think of some things for himself. He would glance at her fearfully each time; she discovered that a smile and nod seemed to increase his intelligence by ten points. Success breeds confidence; she knew that from riding. She still wished Heris had sent Petris or Ginese to command, but she realized that it wouldn’t have worked. The real military—the military she had always avoided, and especially the military as molded by Garrivay’s command—had its own unbreakable rules, and Heris had bent them as far as they would go.
And Faroe’s judgment, when he actually got up his nerve to make decisions, was sound. He accepted Sirkin’s expertise, and they made their FTL hop on her mark. The first switch of beacon IDs went without a hitch, and then they were tucked in behind Oreson’s rings, Sirkin having managed to drop the extra velocity of the FTL jump in some clever way that let them crawl into cover with, as Faroe put it, just enough skirt trailing.
“Which satellite has the mining colony?” Cecelia asked.
“That one.” Faroe pointed it out. “But they’ve got nothing useful.”
“For now.” The image of terriers still danced in her head. “Who knows . . . if we asked them, they might be able to help.”
“I’m not sure I have the authority to talk to civilians at a time like this,” Faroe said, looking worried again.
“I do,” Cecelia said. What that authority was, she wasn’t sure, but her instinct said it was time to form a pack.
Admiral Straosi glared at his subordinate. “What do you mean, Zamfir is out of action? There has been no action.”
It could be the Chairman. It could be the Chairman’s way of punishing him for that foolish jest in the Boardroom, to make sure a problem ship came along. Easy enough to do. Not easy to handle. He could hardly go back and complain. And he wondered if the Chairman had any other surprises for him.
“A drive problem,” the younger man said. He looked nervous, as well he might. “A failure of synchronization in the FTL generator, with resultant surge damage on downshift.”