“Status,”
he croaked.
“No
targets on scan,” Sharon Hafel said, her own voice rough and hoarse.
“Ship
speed is .66C,” Nye added.
“Momentum
from Sol system is still with us.”
“Weapons
armed and ready,” Wardell said.
“Engines
and ship systems nominal,” Telisan said.
Fenaday’s
stomach lurched and he only partly smothered the groan.
“The
long fast ones are the worst,” said Telisan, standing beside him.
“At
least have the decency to look ill,” Fenaday groused.
The Denlenn seemed fresh and ready for
anything.
Fenaday, as usual after a
jump, wanted a shower and some sleep.
Jump was hard on the human body.
Why, no one knew.
Dobera and his
department would be running through the ship, handing out food and drinks laced
with restoratives.
Sickbay would have a
few people overcome by jump sickness.
“Well,”
Fenaday said, “no immediate threat nearby.
Still.
Bernard, Hafel, do you
have that holographic camouflage on line?”
“Aye,
sir,” Bernard answered.
She was one of
Mandela’s people, a brilliant young comp tech.
“System just came back up.
Wish
I’d been able to look at the machinery itself, though.”
A
thought Fenaday shared.
Mandela’s
shipwrights had cannibalized a large forward compartment and sealed it.
He had no idea what was in it.
Gandhi had told him on his final call that if
the seal was broken, they might as well not come back.
“Engage
holographic camouflage.
Let’s see if
Mandela’s expensive toy works,” Fenaday ordered.
Sidhe
went into stealth mode.
Her holographic generators slowly cloaked the
warship’s hull with the appearance of an asteroid.
Other stealth devices installed by the navy
reduced her radar signature by fifty percent.
Not invisible, but comfortingly
obscure,
Fenaday thought.
“Helm,”
Fenaday said, “put this solar system on the main screen.
I want constant update from scan.”
Micetich
manipulated controls and
Sidhe’s
main
screen fractured into a computer schematic overlaid with multiple views in long
and short scan.
On it they could see
their ship, arrowing in from beyond the orbit of the twelfth world.
Star charts listed the primary as Britton
335, known locally as Mur.
A G5 star, larger and hotter than Sol, it
sleeted out more radiation.
Moonless
Enshar orbited farther from Mur than Earth did
from Sol.
Duna had told him that the
higher radiation count factored in the development of burrowing creatures on
Enshar.
“Communications
have interrogated and received a microburst data dump from the master satellite
at the system’s edge,” Hafel advised.
“Okay,
shut down,” Fenaday said.
Other than
that microburst,
Sidhe
emitted no
radiation.
Fenaday wanted to run silent.
“Pass
the information to Duna and the science team,” he told Telisan.
“I’m sure they’re clawing the paint off the
lab walls.”
Behind
him, Dobera and a steward entered the bridge accompanied by Shasti.
As usual, Shasti showed no sign of any
discomfort from the star jump.
She
pulled a coffee and protein bar off Dobera’s cart and handed it to
Fenaday.
His stomach rebelled at the
idea of food, but he welcomed the coffee.
Taking the cup, he sat back with a sigh.
There’d be little to do until the scientists finished their initial work
on the satellite information.
Answers
came back quickly.
The information, only
minutes old, added nothing to what Mandela supplied them.
“Well,”
Fenaday said, looking at the screen.
“Lafayette, we are here.”
*****
The
starship began braking gently.
Fenaday
aimed for the two large gas giants in mid system.
Sidhe
would use their gravity to brake further in order to enter the inner system at
a sane speed.
Star systems change and
the charts on Enshar had not been updated since the disaster.
Fenaday didn’t plan on inhaling a chunk of rock
at relativistic speed so the voyage to Enshar from the system’s edge would take
two weeks.
Two very long weeks.
Fenaday
again sought to fill the time with drill and work.
Distractions only helped a little.
As they neared their destination, Duna found
much of the friendliness toward him evaporating.
The crew no longer felt heroic; they felt
cold, scared and mean.
Sidhe
began to wind like a watch spring.
*****
The
sound of shouting brought Shasti running toward the mess hall.
She raced in, spotting a mass of struggling
men and women around the bolted-down tables.
Before she could even shout an order, a slim form burst in from the
opposite hatchway, slamming into the knot of crewman and scattering bodies with
bone-breaking power.
HCR,
she realized.
“Freeze,” Shasti
shouted.
“Freeze, now!”
The
room stilled immediately.
The HCR held
one man down, his arm levered into an agonizing position.
“That
was good advice,” said a droll voice.
Shasti turned.
Mmok had entered
from the other side, trailed by another of the deadly machines and by Daniel
Rigg.
“It
wasn’t advice,” Shasti growled, stalking forward.
“That was an order.
Stand at attention.”
She looked the group over.
To her annoyance they were mostly her LEAFs,
though all were new hires.
One of Rigg’s
ASATs, a powerful looking, shorthaired man stood facing them.
From the bruises on the Landing Force Troops,
he’d given better than he’d got.
“What
the hell is going on here?”
Shasti
demanded.
They all looked at the floor,
like children.
But there was nothing
child-like in the danger of riot and disorder in the small, delicately balanced
ecology of a starship.
Men died for
upsetting it.
“I
won’t ask again.”
Shasti said, walking
among them.
She smelled fear on one
woman and turned to glare into her eyes.
The
trooper couldn’t hold her stare.
“It was
Greywold, Commander.
He said that the
ASATs were talking us down.
Saying that
we were trash…”
Greywold,
Shasti thought.
I am
going to regret not trusting my second guess on that one.
She scanned the LF troops.
“Excellent,” Shasti observed.
“You took advice from a man who cut and ran
on a fight.”
The chagrined troopers
looked about.
Greywold was nowhere to be
seen.
“And
what’s your story?” Dan Rigg snapped.
Shorthair
snapped to attention.
“Provocation,
sir.”
“Soldier,
when you are provoked you come see me, you don’t go hand-to-hand on duty and in
space.”
“Sir.
Yes, sir.
No excuse, sir.”
Mmok
laughed silently.
“Doesn’t look like
your fellow was doing too badly, Dan.
Maybe Commander Rainhell ought to thank you for giving her slackers a
lesson.”
“Shut
up, Mmok,” Shasti said.
“And get your
machine off that man.”
Mmok’s
lips thinned.
His one eye narrowed.
“Orders
on punishment, ma’am,” Rigg interjected.
“Or do you want to leave that to me?”
He moved to stand next to Shasti and stared at Mmok.
“Discipline needs to be maintained, now more
than ever.
Right, sir?”
Mmok
glanced away from Shasti.
His sardonic
face slid back into place.
Behind him,
in response to an unseen signal, the HCR released the trooper’s arm.
It walked up to stand at Mmok’s
shoulder.
A not so subtle warning not to
push him.
Shasti
considered.
Rigg was ostensibly her
number two and he’d just backed her.
She
and Fenaday suspected that Mmok had been given authority to command the ASATs
if it came to a break, but until then, both Rigg and Mmok reported to her.
Still, the ASAT was clearly the more
approachable and used to dealing with standard humans.
“That
might be as well, Mr. Rigg,” she said.
“My plan was to space all of them and use the food and air on the more
deserving.”
Her cool eyes rolled over
the pale and nervous crewman.
“I’m
sure Sgt. Rask and the Toks can find a lot of double duty for them,” Rigg
said.
“Maybe with five hundred laps in
full gear around the hanger as well.”
He
turned to the ASAT soldier.
“You got any
complaint about leading that little run, mister?”
“Sir.
No, sir.” said Shorthair.
“Lead
them down there.
Double time,
mister.”
The ASAT saluted and the LF
troops shuffled out after him, leaving the three humans and two robots.
Stewards appeared from the kitchen to clean
up the mess.
“The
next person,” Shasti said, “who breaks discipline is going to take a bullet to
the skull.
I am not losing control of
the deck of this ship.”
“Agreed,”
Rigg said.
“Hard though it may be for
you to hear, if there’s a problem it will be among your new people.
Your older hands, particularly your trouble
team are as reliable as my folks, but the newbies...”
Shasti
nodded.
“I’ve got my best people
dispersed at all critical areas.”
“May
not be enough,” Rigg said.
“My
people,” Mmok said, grinning and stressing the word people, “never sleep and
they never stress.
They’re the happiest
of warriors.”
“Keep
one here then,” she said, feeling ambiguous about having to rely on the cyborg.
“Cover Duna, the bridge and engineering.
I’ll get Captain Fenaday to clear an HCR for
bridge access.”
He
gave her a sloppy salute.
“We
have another problem,” Rigg said.
“I was
coming to see you when I heard the scrap.”
“What?”
Rigg
looked embarrassed.
“I’m afraid that I
didn’t list a weapon when we logged them into the arms room.”
“You
mean the personal .38 slug-throwers you and Rask hid?” she asked.
Rigg’s
mouth hung open.
Mmok gave a low
whistle, seeming to enjoy Rigg’s discomfiture.
“You’re busted,” he observed.
“If
you think you can hide something from me on my own ship, you’re mistaken,” she
said, her face cold and foreboding.
“Yes,
ma’am.
My weapon is missing.
I kept it locked in my personal locker.
Someone picked the lock and went through my
stuff last night.”
“Twice,”
Shasti said, folding her arms across her chest.
“The first time it was me.
Last
night was someone sloppy.”
“So
we have a loose gun aboard,” Mmok said.
“Suspects?”
“Greywold,”
Rigg said.
“His record shows priors for
theft.
It got him thrown out of the
Deutsche Brigade.
I searched his locker,
but he’s not dumb enough to keep it there.”
“HCRs
can find it,” Mmok said.
“Get
them on it,” she said.
“We’ll
turn both weapons in to the arms room, after mine’s found,” Rigg said.
“Keep
them,” she said.
“But keep them on you
at all times from now on.”
She walked
toward the entrance, then paused.
“Just
like Mr. Mmok keeps his palm laser on him.”
Mmok
looked startled for a second.
“One for
you.”
Hours
later the pistol showed up, hidden behind an air duct.
The thief had been careful enough to keep
prints off of it, but Shasti had little doubt of the thief’s identity.
It didn’t take her long to make up her mind
about what to do about it.
*****
Two
days before Enshar orbit, Fenaday was on his way to the bridge when Shasti
called him on their private channel.
“Fenaday
here, secure.”