Battlecruiser Alamo - 7 - Battlecruiser Alamo: Sacred Honor (13 page)

 “It’s me, Danny,” Caine said. “I came up when the alarm sounded.”

 “I think you know what we need to do about Cooper.”

 “Already under-way. I’ve had a word with Lieutenant Bailey, and the security precautions are all in effect.”

 “Meanwhile,” Marshall sighed, “we’ve got Lieutenant Lane and her Merry Men running around the lower decks. Any idea where they might be?”

 “Somewhere in the sensor section, probably. Cooper was last seen heading for the central core.”

 “The central core? That guy’s got guts, I’ll give him that.”

 “Do you want me to postpone jump until we know he’s clear?”

 Pausing for a moment, Marshall shook his head, “We can’t risk it. Jump as soon as
you are
ready.”

 “Right. Are you coming up?”

 “No, I’m heading down to the lower levels.”

 “That’s a bit of a risk. Want me to whistle up some assistance for you?”

 “That won’t be necessary, Deadeye.”

 “Perhaps I should put it a little more clear. If you are going to head out into harm’s way, you need someone watching your ba
ck
. I just paged Zebrova and she’s on her way to you now.”

 “Thank you, Captain Caine.”

 “Don’t swear, it doesn’t suit you. Be careful.”

 “Will do. Marshall out.”

 When he walked into the corridor, Zebrova was waiting for him, pistol prominently in the holster at her hip. They turned down towards the elevator, not exchanging words until they were safely out of everyone’s earshot.

 “Captain,” she began, but Marshall interrupted her.

 “I didn’t break him out. I didn’t ever contemplate it, and even if I had, I would have informed you first.”

 Nodding, she replied, “Thank you, sir.”

 Pulling out his communicator, he said, “I suppose I might as well give this a try.” Punching a button, he said, “Marshall to Lane. Come in.” After a moment waiting in vain for
a response
, he replaced it at his belt. “She isn’t answering.”

 “There could be any number of reasons. Some of them legitimate.”

 “I’m sure there will be some plausible excuse.”

 “
No doubt,” she replied.

 The elevator opened at the sensor decks and they walked out, trying not to look dangerous. Marshall’s eye was immediately drawn to a patch of red near one of the lower hatches; kneeling down at it, he looked up at Zebrova.

 “Looks like she’s serious about bringing him down.”

 “To be fair, sir, we are talking about a dangerous felon who has already killed, and has close-quarters combat training. I can see why taking additional care might appear justified.”

 “Come on,” Marshall said. “I just hope she hasn’t killed him.”

 They ran down the corridor, and the crack of a bullet sent Marshall flying to the ground, instinct sending him rolling into cover. Zebrova was just behind him, her gun in her hand ready to return fire.

 “Stand down!” Lane’s voice yelled. “It’s the Captain.”

 “What the hell do you think you are doing?” Marshall said. “Consider yourself on report!”

 “We’re hunting down a dangerous felon, Captain,” she replied. “Cooper has escaped…”

 “I know, but that doesn’t mean I want gangs of vigilantes roaming around the lower decks looking for him. Who’s with you?”

 “Privates Duggan and Duvalier, sir, and I must report that I will be preferring charges against them both for insubordination.”

 “Duggan, Duvalier, all charges are summarily dismissed as of now. Get back to your barracks and stay there unless I personally send for you. Is that understood?”

 Duggan replied, “Yes, sir.”

 “You’re acting Lance-Corporal for the moment, Duggan. Run along.”

 Climbing to his feet, brushing the dust from his trousers, Marshall walked over to the resentful Lane, standing at attention by the wall, her pistol back in its holster. She turned her head to face him.

 “Do you want Cooper captured, sir?”

 “Captured, yes. Killed, no. Effective right now, he is no longer your responsibility. He never was; this is the province of Lieutenant Bailey.”

 “Who I must confess I suspect of being Cooper’s confederate. As well as Spaceman Bradley and Lieutenant Caine.”

 Eyes widened, Zebrova said, “Are you suggesting a conspiracy involving two senior officers, both of whom have received several citations for gallantry – against, among others, the Cabal?”

 “I can only make my judgments based on the available evidence, sir, and I insist that an investigation is undertaken immediately. I am willing to place that request in writing.”

 Marshall turned to Zebrova, frowning. She actually had a point; all three of them were involved in a ‘conspiracy’ along with Cooper, and that the conspiracy’s goal was to unmask the saboteur was irrelevant. Not for a second did he consider bringing her in on the secret. Instead he nodded at Zebrova.

 “Very well. I must admit that, on circumstantial evidence at least, an investigation is warranted. Lieutenant Zebrova will undertake it during the jump. Until then I will take personal charge of the search for Corporal Cooper.”

 “Sir, I…”

 “Lieutenant, you’ve already decided there is a conspiracy. Unless you intend to accuse Lieutenant Zebrova and I of being involved, then you are not the choice for the job.”

 She looked between the two of them as if about to do just that, but decided against it at the last minute, replying, “Aye, sir.”

 “Return to your quarters, Lane.”

 “I’d rather help with the search, sir.”

 “And I’d rather you went and cooled off for a while. Try the observation lounge if you want. I need my officers to be sharp and ready for action, not flying off in all directions.”

 Nodding, she started to walk down the corridor. As she drew level with Marshall, she paused, saying, “I’m sorry I shot at you, sir.”

 “You missed, Lieutenant. That’s the main thing.”

 With a hurt expression on her face, she replied, “It was just a warning shot, Captain,” as she walked into the elevator. Shaking his head, Marshall looked after her.

 “Was she excusing herself for missing, do you think?” he asked Zebrova.

 “Maybe she’s eager for a promotion. Do you think she’s the saboteur?”

 “If she is, then she’s the best actor I’ve ever seen. She’s making herself such an obvious suspect that it would be the biggest double-bluff of all time.”

 “I agree, but we can’t bring her into the loop.”

 “Not until all this is over, anyway. Too many people know already. At least Cooper is back on the case again, and with the two of us in charge of finding him, I think we can assume that he’ll be on the run for a while. I wish there was some way would help the man more directly, though.”

 Running a hand through her short hair, she replied, “I don’t think we need to worry about that, Captain. Someone’s obviously already doing that for us.”

 “Which is an excellent question in itself.”

 “I was looking at the sensor logs of the detention area before we left. At least, I was trying to; those records have been encrypted. And not with any form of encryption I’m familiar with.”

 “Cabal?”

 “I thought of that, but no. It doesn’t match what we’ve learned of their code, either.”

 “So as well as having a saboteur on board, we’ve also got some secretive person who is helping us to track him down, someone with a worrying knowledge of our security protocols. This situation is getting better by the minute.”

 They walked back down the corridor towards the elevator, stepping over the drips of Cooper’s blood; Zebrova made some notes on her datapad for a clean-up crew to head down to deal with it. She paused in her work and looked back up at Marshall.

 “Have you decided whether or not to follow the saboteur’s lead?”

 “Not yet,” he said. “I want to catch them a little more by surprise than that, and if we played along too much, he’d get suspicious. Besides, I don’t want to go to battle with empty fuel tanks. We’ve got to top up.”

 “Agreed. I still think you are taking a big risk.”

 “Bigger if we let that fleet run loose.”

 Looking around the deck, she replied, “If we can’t get the information home, then taking out the fleet
is
the next best thing?”

 “We’ve taken a lot of risks to get as far as we have. One more, one more big risk, and we win everything.” 

 “Or lose everything.”

 “Sometimes, Lieutenant, that’s the risk you have to take.”

Chapter 13

 Price’s face resolved itself on the viewscreen as Carpenter watched from the command chair – Orlova’s chair. All her composure was focused on looking comfortable in the position, looking as though she was meant to be there, and the rest of the crew, whatever they might have thought about her surprise promotion, were going along with the idea.

 “Commander Forster is hours overdue,” she said, trying for as menacing a tone as she could muster. “Have you any explanation? Is there a problem with the shuttle?”

 “I’ve spoken to the personnel at Crashlander, Lieutenant, and all I can tell you is that she went off with a guide into the outback in one of our heavy-transport cars, and she hasn’t come back. We sent out a helicopter to look for her, but it hasn’t returned either.”

 “Is that all you can do?”

 “We’re a small outpost here, Lieutenant, and our facilities are limited. There’s only so much we can do. I’ve instituted an orbital search, but there’s a lot of wildlife out there and from that sort of range it is next to impossible to find anything.”

 “Another ground search?”

 “We’ve only got two other cars, Lieutenant, and if we’ve got something out there that is eating cars and copters, I’m not willing to risk them. I’ve already lost four men on this, and I don’t believe in placing more lives at risk. Of course, you are free to do whatever you think best; I can’t stop you.”

 Nelyubov said from his station, “You’d place your equipment at our disposal?”

 “You can requisition whatever you want. Except the landing shuttle, that is; it’s the only way we’ve got to get down there at the moment. Our back-up is down for its annual servicing.”

 “Convenient,” Nelyubov muttered.

 “Thank you, Mr. Price, that will be all for now,” Carpenter said. “Hercules out.”

 Standing from his console, Nelyubov said, “We’ve got to go down there.”

 “Are you asking me or telling me?”

 “Someone needs to take some positive action around here. I’ll take Mathis, Jenkins and Scott. They’ve had the most ground forces experience.” He began to walk to the elevator, continuing, “Curry, you need to coordinate the search from orbit, try and track us into the last location. I’ll keep you informed.”

 Carpenter quietly counted to ten, took a deep breath, and said, “Mr. Nelyubov, return to your station.”

 “What? We need to get our Captain back. You are only in command because of an oversight in regulations…”

 “Nevertheless, I am in command, and my judgment is that we should wait.”

 “She’s your friend,” Curry said. “How can you just sit there?”

 “Do you want to take the landing team yourself?” Nelyubov said. “I could run the search from up here.”

 “No, Lieutenant. There will be no landing team. Before she left, Ma...Acting Captain Orlova made it quite clear that there were too few of us already to risk anyone else in rescue efforts. She indicated that there was to be no attempt to retrieve her if the mission went bad.”

 “You can’t take that seriously.”

 “I take my orders very seriously. Do you?”

 Nelyubov looked around the bridge, but no-one else met his gaze. Balling his fists, he turned around and walked up to the command chair, his eyes flashing.

 “Damn it, you’re just a scientist with an honorary rank.”

 “Nonetheless, I’m in command and I mean to follow the orders of my commanding officer to the letter.”

 “It could be a trap,” Curry said. “For all we know, Price has had her captured.”

 “In which case,” Carpenter said, “throwing more people into the fire is stupid.”

 Taking short, measured paces, Nelyubov returned to his station, throwing up a search grid of the planet below on his screen. His hands began to work the controls, targeting Hercules’ sensors on the planet.

 “I’m going to conduct an orbital search. If you have no objection, Lieutenant.”

 “Not at all.” Carpenter looked around the bridge, trying to find a neutral direction to vent her nerves, and finding none. Everywhere she looked was another crew-member working their stations, testing systems. She looked up at the office door, but somehow it didn’t seem like a good idea to leave the bridge.

 Tapping a button on her armrest, she said, “Sergeant Wilson, this is Carpenter on the bridge.”

 “Go ahead.”

 “Can I get a status report?”

 “It’s going slowly, ma’am, even with the repair teams from Hydra Station helping out. We’re making progress, though. We can maneuver at speed again, and the communications systems are back on line, sensors should be fully functional by the end of the day.”

 “Weapons systems?”

 “I’ve got the combat fabricators working, at least after a fashion, but we’re having trouble with the launch systems. Four days at most.”

 “So four days until we’re fully operational?”

 “Ma’am, we’re papering over the cracks here. If we were going to get this ship back into full working spec, we would be looking at months, not days. All we can do is fix the major systems and hope Hercules holds together through whatever we end up putting her through.” He paused, “Having said that, we can jump whenever the word is given. Oh, and we’ve just about finished fueling, as well. Those systems weren’t badly damaged.”

 Musing for a moment, she said, “What about the saboteur? Any sign of his handiwork?”

 “Once I got the damage to the combat replicators and the fueling system fixed, I didn’t find anything else, and I have been looking. I’m not saying we might not have some surprises left buried in the system
s
, but nothing critical.”

 “Anything else I need to know?”

 “Life support systems are all fine, and we’ve got stores prepared for an extended voyage if we need to make one. I’m getting the spares deposits built up a little, but Hydra doesn’t have much of what we need. Fabricators are working again, though. Just spending a few days at a repair facility makes a real difference.”