A Call to Duty

  “Okay, we’ll try it again,” Guzarwan said. “Shuttle, are you having any com problems of your own? We’re reading some static coming off your systems.”

  “Not seeing anything,” Riley said, leaning closer to his repeater displays. “Crevillan?”

  “Nothing I can see, Sir,” the coxswain at the helm reported.

  “Would you try a reboot anyway?” Guzarwan asked. “Anything you can do to boost reception would help when we try to send this again.”

  “Saintonge?” the lieutenant asked.

  “We’re not reading any problems here, either,” Saintonge said doubtfully. “But I suppose it can’t hurt. Go ahead.”

  “Acknowledged,” Riley said. “Rebooting com system now.” He gestured to the copilot. “Go ahead, Prevost.”

  “Aye, Sir,” the copilot said briskly. She keyed her board. “Rebooting now.”

  And with the shuttle’s connection to Saintonge momentarily broken, Vachali shot all three of them in the back.

  He took a few seconds to confirm they were dead, then popped the cockpit hatch and looked into the shuttle’s passenger section.

  Fifteen of his twenty men had their fake uniform tunics off and were busily getting into the shuttle’s vac suits. The other five were also out of their Cascan uniforms and were switching over to Havenite ones.

  The rest of the passengers, the group of real Havenites who’d been returning from Péridot, were bobbing slowly in their crash harnesses. Dead.

  Again, Vachali gave himself a moment to make sure everything was as it should be. Then, he jerked a thumb toward the cockpit behind him. “Dhotrumi? Move it.”

  “Right.” Dhotrumi said. He caught the top of one of the seats and sent himself flying through the hatch into the cockpit, doing up the neck of his new tunic as he went. Vachali followed, heading to the pilot’s station while Dhotrumi stopped above the dead copilot and busied himself with the com board. By the time he finished, Vachali had both bodies out of their seats and had swapped out his own Cascan tunic for a Havenite one. “Ready?” he asked Dhotrumi as the two of them strapped into the command stations.

  “Ready.” Dhotrumi keyed a switch to bring the com back up.

  As utterly unclear as Dhotrumi could make it.

  “What the hell?” Saintonge’s Com officer protested, his voice coming through scratchy, distorted, and barely audible. “What did you do, Shuttle, pour liquid metal in the works?”

  “I don’t know,” Vachali said, trying to match the late Lieutenant Riley’s voice. But not trying very hard. Dhotrumi’s sabotage had rendered any hope of vocal recognition impossible. “If it helps, the good news is that Péridot’s orders came through this time. Did your copy make it?”

  “If you count digital mud pies, sure, this is great,” Com said sarcastically. “I swear you guys are going back to remedial com tech class as soon as we head for home.”

  “Hey, we did everything by the book,” Vachali protested. “I don’t know what happened. Maybe our glitch somehow matched up with Péridot’s glitch and that’s why we could get the transmission and you couldn’t.”

  Even through the distortion, Com’s contemptuous snort came through loud and clear. “Sure it did. Yeah, never mind the trip home—we’re starting those classes as soon as you’re back aboard. Just make sure you have those orders ready to show Security when you dock.”

  “Yeah, about that,” Vachali said, snapping his fingers softly and raising his eyebrows in question when Dhotrumi looked over. The other nodded and gave a thumbs-up. “Computer’s also showing a glitch in the docking system,” Vachali continued. “This may take a little longer than usual.”

  “You got to be kidding me,” Com growled. “What did you do, bring in a class of Secourian third-graders and have a water fight?”

  “Hey, we’ll get it fixed,” Vachali promised. “Prevost is back there looking into it now. I’m sure it’ll just take a few minutes.”

  “I swear, Riley, I’m going to send all three of you back to boot camp,” Com bit out. “Fine. Send me the telemetry, will you? Maybe we can figure it out from this end.”

  “Will do,” Vachali said. Not that the telemetry would come through any clearer than the voice communication, of course. Dhotrumi had seen to that. “Sending now. Want me to stay open?”

  “Thanks, but you’re hurting my ears,” came the sour reply. “While you’re shut down, you can run some diagnostics or maybe reboot again.”

  “We’ll do that,” Vachali said. “Shuttle out.”

  He keyed off and half turned toward the open hatch. “EVA teams?”

  “Ready,” Labroo called.

  “Stand by the hatches,” Vachali said. “Two minutes.”

  He turned back to the helm controls. Péridot had been easy. Guzarwan and Kichloo had had the advantage of being invited aboard before the attack, and the fact that the cruiser had been on Haven’s for-sale list meant that Mota could research the computer systems ahead of time and look for back doors and wall cracks he could exploit.

  Saintonge was an entirely different pan of penne. He and Labroo probably knew as much about Havenite battlecruisers as anyone outside the RHN, but they were a long way from knowing all the critical little details that would make or break this operation. Vachali’s men would be going in essentially cold, and even with only a skeleton crew aboard to oppose them they were seriously outnumbered. Add in the fact that Dhotrumi would be starting largely from scratch on Saintonge’s computer systems, and they were definitely facing an uphill climb.

  But that was okay. In fact, it was better than okay. Uphill climbs were Vachali’s specialty. Impossible odds, impossible challenges—that was what separated the lions from the sheep.

  Vachali was a lion. He’d proved that time and time again. He would prove it again tonight.

  Saintonge was coming up fast. “One minute,” he called over his shoulder. “Repeat: One minute.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Lieutenant Burns swivelled around in her station as Travis and Donnelly floated back onto the bridge. Her face, Travis noted, started to shift into a condescending expression as she saw who it was.

  Until, that is, she saw who was right behind them.

  “I understand Lieutenant Donnelly wants to make a call to Saintonge,” Metzger said without preamble. “You have a problem with that, Lieutenant?”

  “Uh . . .” Burns’s throat worked as she flashed a dagger-edged look at Donnelly. “I—it’s not regulation—”

  “I asked if you had a problem with that.”

  Burns’s eyes flicked to Donnelly and back to Metzger. “No, Ma’am.”

  “Good.” Metzger gestured to the young woman at the Com station. “Patty, put through the call.”

  “Yes, Ma’am.” Boysenko turned back to her board and keyed a switch. “Saintonge, this is Com Spec Boysenko aboard HMS Guardian,” she said. “Commander Metzger would like to speak with your Officer of the Watch.”

  “Guardian, acknowledged,” a crisp voice came back. “Hold for the First Officer, Commander Charnay.”

  Travis stole a sideways look at Donnelly. Her eyes, he saw, were on Burns, a small but grimly satisfied smile tweaking her lips. Some undercurrent was going on there, he gathered, but he had no idea what it was.

  The com display lit up with the face and shoulders of a dark-haired man with a lined face and a small, neatly trimmed mustache. “Commander Metzger, this is Commander Charnay,” he identified himself. “How may I help you?”

  “I have a small but possibly important question, Commander,” Metzger said. “On our way into Secour, Wanderer’s captain said he was having trouble with two P-409-R control modules and was hoping to buy replacements from you. Can you tell me whether or not he ever made such a request?”

  “I doubt we’d have sold him one even if he’d asked,” Charnay said, his gaze dropping to something off-camera. If he was annoyed at being asked to do what was essentially yeoman’s work, he didn’t show it. Maybe the fact that Gua
rdian’s XO thought the matter worth asking about personally had suggested to him that he treat it similarly. “No, I’m not seeing anything about P-409-Rs in the log. It’s possible he’s planning to ask later.”

  “Possibly,” Metzger agreed. “If I may impose a bit further, Sir, could you also check on Clarino surge dampers?”

  “Nothing on those, either, Commander,” Charnay said, eying her thoughtfully. “May I ask what this is about? And why a senior officer is involved?” He lifted a hand suddenly. “Excuse me.”

  For a moment, he looked off-camera, and Travis could hear voice murmuring unintelligibly.

  “I’m sorry, Commander Metzger, but I have to go,” Charnay said. “We’ve got an incoming shuttle that’s having problems with its docking system, and I need to give this my attention.”

  “Understood, Commander,” Metzger said. “Thank you for your time.”

  The screen blanked. “Well, Lieutenant?” Metzger asked, turning to Donnelly. “What now?”

  “I don’t know, Ma’am,” Donnelly admitted, flicking a glance at Burns. Travis followed her eyes, and found the same self-satisfied smile on Burns’s face as he’d seen earlier on Donnelly’s. Definitely something going on there. “If Wanderer was lying about their problem . . .” Her lips compressed briefly. “But even if they were, I . . . I’m sorry, Ma’am. I don’t really know where to go with it.”

  “I don’t think lying is an officially actionable offense,” Burns murmured.

  Metzger’s eyes remained on Donnelly. “Then I suggest you do some additional research or thinking and see if you can come up with something.”

  Donnelly nodded, a small wince flicking across her face. “Yes, Ma’am.”

  Metzger turned to Burns. “As you were, Watch Officer,” she said. With a final look at Donnelly, she turned and headed for the hatch.

  “You two are also invited to leave,” Burns said quietly, eyeing Donnelly and Travis. She swivelled around, turning her back to them—

  “Bridge; CIC,” a voice came from the speaker. “Lieutenant, I was just running a visual on Saintonge. Something strange seems to be going on over there. There are a bunch of EVAs moving along the hull.”

  “It’s nothing, Carlyle,” Burns said. “They’re having trouble docking a shuttle, that’s all.”

  “Bring it up,” Metzger called from the hatch.

  Burns swivelled around again, her eyes flashing, and for a fraction of a second Travis thought she was actually going to tell the XO that she was Officer of the Watch, not Metzger, and that if there were any orders that needed to be given Burns would be the one to give them.

  Which would of course be not only insubordinate but pedantic and pointless, given that the XO could assume the watch anytime she felt like it. More to the point, Burns was a lieutenant and Metzger was her XO and they would both be living on the same ship until they got back to Manticore.

  But Travis hadn’t imagined that flash of Burns’s eyes.

  “You heard the XO,” the lieutenant growled.

  “Yes, Ma’am.” The man at the TO position keyed a switch, and the image of Saintonge appeared.

  There wasn’t really much to see, Travis realized, especially given that the battlecruiser was still end-on to Guardian’s flank, the positioning Commodore Flanders and Captain Eigen had agreed on earlier. Saintonge’s bow endcap was foremost, her bristling armament of autocannon, counter-missiles, and internal X-ray laser almost casually pointed in Guardian’s direction. Behind the endcap the tip of one of the battlecruiser’s missile launchers was visible, peeking coyly out at the universe. Further aft, the dorsal and ventral radiator fins from her forward fusion plant jutted out high over the hull, while behind them the matching set of radiators from the aft plant were also visible. The image included some infrared, and it was readily apparent that only the aft reactor was running and hot.

  Conspicuous by its absence was the usual wide toroidal spin section, or even Péridot’s dumbbell-shaped equivalent. Those in the know had told Travis that Saintonge had a different kind of habitation section, something that utilized grav plates instead of centrifugal effects to create its artificial gravity. Travis had no idea how energy-efficient such a design was, but it certainly made for a sleeker shape.

  “Where are they?” Metzger called.

  “They were there, Ma’am,” Carlyle said, sounding midway between embarrassed and confused. “They’ve either gone in or are behind the bow endcap where I can’t see them. I’m sorry, Ma’am.”

  “That’s all right, Ensign,” Metzger assured him. “How many did you see?”

  “At least eight or ten,” Carlyle said. “What I got is all recorded, if you want to take a look.”

  “Maybe later,” Metzger said. “For now, just keep an eye on things over there. If the Havenites are doing some major hull work, it might be nice to know what kind. Anyone else have anything on Saintonge?”

  One by one, in rapid succession, the lidar, radar, and tracking stations called in negatives. Not surprising, really, given that all of Guardian’s active sensors were currently shut down. Emissions from devices capable of probing thousands of kilometers into deep space were far too powerful to use this close to other ships, especially with small-craft traffic in the area.

  “Nothing on Saintonge from Gravitics, Ma’am,” a final voice said hesitantly, and this one Travis recognized as Specialist Vyland. “But I think I’m getting something from Wanderer.”

  “What, specifically?”

  “It’s hard to tell, Ma’am,” Vyland said. “She’s beneath the planetary horizon, so all I’m getting is a refraction pattern. But it looks to me like she’s bringing up her nodes.”

  Travis and Donnelly exchanged looks. Wanderer, the ship with the supposed Klarian problem, was starting her wedge?

  “Really,” Metzger said, thoughtfully. “Patty, had Wanderer given any indication that she was planning on going anywhere?”

  “She didn’t send out any general calls, Ma’am,” Boysenko said. “Do you want me to signal her and ask her intentions?”

  Metzger looked at the helm display, still showing Saintonge. “Not yet,” she said slowly. “Guzarwan was supposedly doing the Péridot tour today. Let’s give Captain Eigen a call and see if Guzarwan mentioned anything to him about what he and his ship were up to.”

  “Okay,” the young and exceedingly frustrated voice came over the cockpit speaker. “You got the patch loaded? I got no idea why you’d need it, but—hell with it. Let’s try it again.”

  “Acknowledged,” Vachali said, smiling tightly to himself. The vibers had only a limited range, especially with a battlecruiser’s worth of metal running interference. But the range was good enough. One by one the reports had now come in as the EVA teams reached their assigned hatches, used their cutters, pressure-dupes, and induction jumpers to bypass the sensors and locks, and slipped inside the ship.

  And at last it was time for the lion to strike.

  He made sure to make the docking a little rough, just to add a final touch of realism to the operation. The indicators went green, and he shut down first the thrusters and then the rest of the board. Unstrapping, he left the cockpit and joined Labroo, Dhotrumi, and the other two waiting by the hatch. “Stay behind us until we’re clear,” he murmured to Dhotrumi, giving the other a small shove toward the rear of the group. He didn’t expect the Havenites to bring much security to one of their own incoming shuttles, but there was no point in taking chances. The last thing they could afford was to have their chief hacker catch a stray bullet. “And everyone remember we’re still outside the gravity zone. Aim and fire accordingly.”

  The hatch swung open, revealing three men and a woman, all in tech coveralls. None of them Marines; none of them, as far as Vachali could tell, even armed. Sloppy. “About time,” the nearest tech growled as he floated forward. His eyes barely even acknowledged the shuttle’s passengers before shifting to the docking mechanism. “What the hell—?”

  The rest of his que
stion or complaint was lost to eternity as Vachali and the others shot all four of them.

  Labroo was through the hatch and into the connecting passageway before the bodies finished their slow bounce off the bulkheads. He looked both ways and gave the all-clear hand signal.

  “Quietly, now,” Vachali warned as the team collected their kit cases and floated out through the hatch. The longer they could keep Saintonge’s crew fat, sassy, and oblivious to what was happening to their ship, the better. “Very, very quietly.”

  Gill’s plan had been simple. He and Flanders would exit the Alpha Spin service airlock, use the thruster packs from the locker to jet up to the main hull, find one of the hatches the saboteurs had gimmicked, and get inside.

  After that, of course, considering that the ship was full of an unknown number of enemies, things would probably get more complicated. But at least the opening move was easy.

  Or it was until he discovered that one of the thruster packs was completely dry and the other had no more than five seconds of burn time left.

  “Great,” he growled as he and Flanders hung from the handholds outside the lock. There was less than half a gee at this level of Alpha Spin, but it still made for more weight than he was used to dealing with in a vac suit. “Now what?”

  “We climb the pylon, of course,” Flanders said calmly, hooking his safety line onto the ring beside the lock. “Come on—to the top of the section.”

  He bent his knees and jumped, catching the seam ridge at the edge of the Spin Five roof and pulling himself up.

  “Great,” Gill muttered again. He had no idea where the Havenite was going with this plan, but without anything better to offer he had no option but to follow.

  A minute later they were standing at the base of the forward pylon, on the antispinward side, where facing the pylon meant they were also facing the direction of the rotation. Gill gazed up toward the main hull fifty meters above them, trying to ignore the dizzying movement of the starry background as it circled around them at Alpha Spin’s rotation rate of three RPM. The pylon was like a giant white sequoia, a solid five meters in diameter, without a single handhold in sight.