In Fire Forged: Worlds of Honor V-ARC (15 page)

Weiss felt his forehead crease as he eyed the new marker, then looked over at the sensor display. “That doesn’t look like a normal alpha transition,” he said.

“No, it doesn’t,” Ibo agreed sounding as puzzled as Weiss felt. “Definitely a spike of gravitic energy, though. Maybe he’s having some trouble with his nodes.” He bent over his instruments. “Let me see what I can coax out of the readings.”

“Got a reaction,” Forman said tightly. “The
Winter Vixen
’s…looks like he’s veering off.”

Weiss chewed at his lip. The gravitic energy from the newcomer’s wedge traveled instantaneously, but the radio signal from its beacon awasn’t nearly so quick. Even if the
Hase
sent out an inquiry right now, it would be nearly half an hour before the newcomer’s transponder gave them an ID on him. “Can we tell from the wedge what kind of ship it is?” he asked.

“It’s definitely a warship,” Forman said grimly. “The wedge strength alone shows that. A heavy cruiser, I’d say, or possibly a battlecruiser.”

“But no way to know whose?”

“Not at this distance and with a courier boat’s sensors,” Forman said. “But from the Solly’s response, I’m guessing it’s
not
a Peep.”

“Speaking of Peeps, there goes the freighter,” Ibo said, pointing. “Veering off. And in roughly the same direction as the Solly, interestingly.”

“Trying to rearrange their rendezvous before the bogie can reach them?” Weiss hazarded.

“If they are, it’s a fool’s hope,” Forman said. “They’d both have to redo their entire acceleration profiles, which isn’t exactly practical with a warship bearing down on you.”

“And of course there’s nowhere for them to go with the warship between them and the hyper limit,” Weiss murmured.

The words were barely out of his mouth when the numbers floating beside the Solly’s position abruptly changed as he angled even farther away from the warship and doubled his acceleration. “Uh-oh,” Forman said grimly. “Looks like the Solly’s gotten a positive ID. And he does
not
like it.”

“Like that’s going to help him any,” Ibo muttered. “He’s already inside the bogie’s missile range.”

“Unless the bogie’s plan is to run him down and get whatever he’s carrying for himself,” Weiss said. “Or is that even possible at this point?”

“The bogie can certainly catch him,” Forman said doubtfully. “Whether he can disable him without destroying the cargo is a different question.”

“He’s not even going to try,” Ibo said, his voice grim as he hunched over his displays. “More wedges—fast ones. The bogie’s launched a full missile salvo.” He looked up at Weiss. “He’s targeting the Solly, sir.”

Weiss curled his hands into helpless fists. The League was officially neutral in this war, which among other things meant that its ships were to be left strictly alone. As a representative of another neutral power, it was Weiss’s duty to do whatever he could to make sure that neutrality was respected.

But if the
Winter Vixen
was carrying interdicted cargo, it couldn’t hide behind either Solly neutrality or Solly protection. Regardless, with the
Hase
sitting here at the station with cold nodes, there was nothing Weiss could do even if he wanted to. Even a challenge and warning-off would take over eleven minutes to get to the combatants.

“Make the best recording you can of the incident,” he told Ibo. “At this point, that’s all we can do.”

The seconds ticked by in silence. Weiss watched in horror-edged fascination as the markers indicating the missiles steadily closed on the Solly freighter. The Peep, meanwhile, was gunning away for all he was worth on his own chosen vector. So far, at least, the bogie was ignoring him.

Or maybe he was just waiting until after he’d dealt with the
Winter Vixen
.

There was a chime from the com. Stepping to Ibo’s side, Weiss touched the key. “Weiss,” he said.

“It’s Citizen Fisher,” the chief engineer’s taut voice boomed from the speaker. “I’ve just been informed there’s an unidentified ship in the system that appears to be firing on a pair of incoming freighters.”

“That’s correct, Citizen Fisher,” Weiss said. “Though for whatever comfort it might be, the bogie so far hasn’t attacked your own ore freighter.”

“Never mind our freighter,” Fisher said, a terrified bewilderment in his voice. “Who
is
it?”

Weiss looked at Ibo. The navigator had a grim set to his jaw. “I don’t know,” Weiss told Fisher. “I’ll look into that and get back to you.”

“Yes, but—”

“I have to go now,” Weiss said. “I’ll get back to you.”

He cut off the signal before Fisher could reply. “How are we doing?” he asked.

“Ninety seconds to impact,” Ibo said. “And you were right—that was
not
a normal translation footprint.” He looked up at Weiss, his expression dark. “Because I don’t think it was a normal translation.”

Weiss grimaced. There it was, out in the open. The thought all three of them were undoubtedly thinking, and undoubtedly trying to avoid. “Are you suggesting there’s a wormhole terminus in this system?” he demanded.

He hadn’t intended the words to come out nearly so harshly. But Ibo didn’t flinch. “I know it seems unbelievable that something like that could exist in an inhabited system without anyone having spotted it,” he said evenly. “But that was definitely not a normal translation footprint, and it definitely
was
consistent with a wormhole transit spike.”

“Was
consistent
with a transit spike?” Weiss asked. “You can’t tell for sure?”

Ibo shrugged helplessly. “Our sensor suite isn’t exactly warship-class,” he said. “But there
are
only two options. If it wasn’t an alpha transition, a wormhole is the only other possibility.”

“We’ll try doing an analysis of the recording later,” Forman said, his voice suddenly quiet. “There it goes.”

And as Weiss looked at the main display, the missiles reached the
Winter Vixen
.

There was no flash, of course. As the bogie’s transponder signal and emission pattern were still crawling toward them, so the light and gamma radiation from the freighter’s burst fusion bottles would be another ten minutes in arriving.

For the moment, at least, all there was to see was the Solly’s wedge disappear.

“One down,” Forman murmured. “Shall we try for two?”

Weiss held his breath. But the attacker seemed uninterested in the Peep freighter still running frantically away from him. Angling course back toward the edge of the system, he instead kicked his acceleration up to four hundred gees and headed for the hyper limit. “It would appear he’s gotten what he came for,” he said.

“Apparently so.” Forman cocked an eyebrow. “The question is, did
we
?” he asked.

Weiss gazed at the fleeing bandit. “Oh, yes,” he said softly. Charles was going to be paid for this one, after all.

In fact, the man might just be in for a bonus.

*
   
*
   
*

The
Ellipsis
was nearly to the hyper limit, and Charles was having a post-action discussion with Mercier in his quarters, when Captain Tyler strode furiously in.

“Look at this!” the captain snarled, jabbing the report practically in Charles’s face. “Look at the damage the alpha nodes took from that damn fool fake transit energy burst you insisted on.”

“What of it?” Charles asked, trying briefly to focus on the waving report. “I warned you that there might be some problems.”

“You didn’t say anything about this much damage,” Tyler bit out. “That one burst probably cost them half their working life.”

“Which is why we have a fully-equipped tender waiting at the rendezvous point,” Charles reminded him.

Tyler snorted. “And did you bother to mention
that
part to Citizen Secretary Saint-Just?” he demanded “Do you have any idea how much this will cost to fix? Or how much it’s going to cost us in acceleration and hyper speed until it is?”

“Yes, I do,” Charles said coolly. “Do
you
have any idea how ridiculous a captain of State Security sounds crying over a little damage to his ship?”

It was, in retrospect, probably not the best thing he could have said. Tyler’s eyes widened in anger or disbelief or both, and an instant later the report that had been waving beneath Charles’s nose had been replaced by the muzzle of the captain’s pulser, pressed against his throat.

“Captain!” Mercier snapped, taking a step forward.

“Keep out of this, Citizen,” Tyler ordered, his voice as crazy as his eyes. “This man is a traitor and an enemy. Why not just kill him here and now?”

“Because if you do, this whole thing will have been for nothing,” Mercier warned him. “Including the destruction of that tech shipment.”

And
that,
Charles knew, was what was really gnawing at Tyler’s gut. He’d given the orders as Charles had instructed, had sent the missiles flying in a calm, controlled voice. But it had been abundantly clear to everyone on the
Ellipsis
’s bridge that he was doing it under protest, and against a simmering lava bed of fury and frustration.

Not that Charles could blame him. The illicit traffic in Solly tech was the only thing that gave Haven even a chance of countering the Manties’ superior equipment. To have blown up one of those shipments—worse yet, to have blown up one of the shipment providers—had probably left Tyler feeling like he’d just cut off one of his own hands.

He was hardly alone in that, either, though Charles wasn’t about to tell him that. The freighter attack had also been Saint-Just’s biggest sticking point when the scheme had first been pitched. Charles had had to talk long, hard, and fast to get him on board with it, and even then the Citizen Secretary hadn’t been very happy about it.

And Saint-Just had just had to sign off on the orders. He hadn’t had to be the one to carry them out.

Which didn’t change the fact that the man who
had
carried out the orders was currently holding a gun to Charles’s throat. “I understand your frustration, Citizen Captain,” Charles said, his voice sounding odd with the pressure of the gun at his throat. At least, that was what he assumed was affecting his voice. “But this entire scheme depends on the Andermani believing there’s a wormhole terminus in the Karavani system that the People’s Republic hasn’t discovered but that the Manties have. We—the
Ellipsis
—have to
be
those Manties, which means we have to do everything a Manty would do under similar circumstances. As to the damage to the Alpha nodes, I do regret that. But the Andermani were watching, and our appearance had to look as much like a wormhole arrival as possible.”

“Fine,” Tyler said bitterly, his finger still pressed on the pulser’s trigger. “We’ve done all that. So tell me why we still need you alive.”

“Because he has to be the one to follow up with the Andermani,” Mercier said. “No one else can point them the right direction and spring the trap on them.”

“And what exactly is this trap?” Tyler demanded.

“The details are in your sealed orders,” Charles told him. “You’ll be able to open them at the rendezvous, after you drop us at our courier boat and the tender gets to work on your nodes.”

For another long moment the pulser muzzle remained pressed against Charles’s throat. Then, slowly, the pressure eased. “Any surprises in those orders?” the captain growled.

“No,” Charles assured him. “At least, nothing that should be a problem for you.”

For another moment Tyler continued to grip his pulser, as if still trying to decide whether to use it. Then, reluctantly, he returned the weapon to its holster. “We’ll reach the rendezvous in six hours.” He looked at Mercier, then back at Charles. “Until then, both of you will stay out of my way.”

“As you wish,” Mercier said, inclining his head. “The People’s Republic will look forward to your fulfillment of your orders.”

“The People’s Republic will not be disappointed,” Tyler said shortly. “Good day, Citizens.” Turning, he strode from the room.

Mercier looked at Charles. “You play with fire, Citizen,” he warned. “He might easily have lost control and shot you.”

“Should I have babied him instead?” Charles countered. “He’s a StateSec officer. He knows the sort of duty he might be assigned to.”

“As do we all,” Mercier said. “
Your
duty right now is to not get yourself killed until your part in this is over.”

At which point, the Peeps would step in and take care of that? Probably. “Thank you, Citizen Mercier,” Charles said, managing a wan smile. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“See that you do,” Mercier said. “Go get a glass of water. It’s time for your antidote.”

*
   
*
   
*

Weiss had been back at his post in the embassy for nearly a week before Charles finally responded to his calls. “Sorry for the delay,” the Solly apologized on Weiss’s secure line. “I’ve been busy with something across town and couldn’t get free long enough to return your calls.”

“That’s all right,” Weiss said. “We need to meet.”

“We will,” Charles promised. “But not right now. I’ve just taken a new house in the Grandee District, and it needs some renovation before it’ll be ready to receive visitors.”

Weiss frowned. With the momentous events that had just happened at Karavani, Charles was squandering his time with
real estate
? “You’re not serious.”

“Of course I am,” Charles assured him. “It’s an investment, not only in my future but in my present. Nothing says enthusiastic supporter of the People’s cause like a foreigner buying a piece of the People’s land.”

He had a point, Weiss had to admit. Buying property on Haven automatically put the buyer under extra governmental scrutiny, and no one would do that if they weren’t as pure as a New Berlin snowfall. Assuming Charles passed all the hurdles, he would come out of the experience considerably lower on the Peeps’ list of suspicious characters.

“The downside is that StateSec will be watching the new place for awhile until they’re convinced I’m not up to anything,” Charles continued. “Two weeks, three at the most, and it’ll be safe for you to drop by.”