“I wondered if we might reach an agreement like gentlemen, then,” Ollivar said at last.
“Let’s try.”
“This imulsion… and our global connections…”
“I know what I have that you might want, Lyle—you don’t mind if I call you Lyle, do you?—but I’m still not sure what you have that I might want.”
“Well, for a start, you probably want to reestablish a presence ashore, I think. That’s where I can come in handy.”
“Oh.”
“What were you expecting?”
“Don’t you want to tell me about your guest? Rather aristocratic chap in an oilskin jacket? Couple of Gears with him? No?”
Ollivar looked at Michaelson as if he was nuts. He wasn’t putting it on, either. “I’m not sure we’re on the same page.”
Marcus looked at Dom and murmured to himself. “Shit…”
“Prescott,” Michaelson said. “I’m not sure he’s worth a ransom, but we do want to ask him—and you—a few questions, so perhaps we could reach an agreement.”
“I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about,” Ollivar said. He looked as if he was repeating it to himself. “Are you serious? You’ve lost your chairman?”
“It’s a little more complicated than that, but he certainly left in a hurry with a box of interesting things.”
Ollivar started laughing, that embarrassed, surprised kind of laugh that said he’d played this all wrong. “Damn, you think we kidnapped him? Kidnapped Prescott?”
“I rather hoped he might have made contact with you and offered some cooperation in exchange for information.”
“You’ve lost your fucking chairman. You’ve lost your fucking chairman!” Ollivar stopped laughing. He seemed to realize his bargaining chip wasn’t quite what he thought it was. “Well, that’s a bit careless of you. Why do you want him back so badly, anyway?”
“Ah, if we knew that, we wouldn’t be asking,” Michaelson said.
Dom hoped Ollivar couldn’t gauge the expressions of the squad watching him. He avoided meeting anyone else’s eye because the let-down was crushing. Okay, everyone was busy just trying to survive, but now that the specter of Prescott had been raised again, getting answers seemed urgent.
“If I see him, I’ll be sure to give him a ride and bring the poor lost soul straight back to you,” Ollivar said. “In the meantime, have a think about that imulsion source you’ve stashed away, and how we might cooperate in future. You’re all Stranded now, remember. New world order and all that. We do things a little differently.”
Dom finally got it. Ollivar had heard the COG had broken up. Now he saw the fleet as a rival pirate force with a new set of agendas, and he wanted to get things on a business footing rather than shoot it out with a bunch of warships.
“I’ll definitely consider it,” Michaelson said. “I have the power to do that now that my poor dear Chairman is no longer with us. I’ll get back to you very soon.”
Ollivar still looked a bit bemused as he did the long, scary climb back down the side of the carrier and dropped onto the deck of his gin palace. It roared away in a spray of white foam and Michaelson let out a long sigh.
“Interesting,” Marcus said.
Baird was really pissed off. “Asshole. Prescott, I mean. He can’t even do a dirty deal right.”
“It’s a disappointment, I admit,” Michaelson said. He folded his arms and seemed to be contemplating the beans. “Because I have no idea at all now who Prescott rendezvoused with. And he did, I’m sure of it. But our primary goal now is to survive, and all previous bets are off. We have to think differently now.”
“Yeah.” Marcus sounded unconvinced, but then nodded. “We’ve still got Lambent out there. And a lot of civilians to find safe homes for.”
“Exactly. And who better to help us do that than Mr. Ollivar?”
“So we’re doing deals with pirates again.”
“Try to think of it another way,” Michaelson said, starting a slow walk back to the bridge. The world had changed again in the space of a few minutes. “They’re just seagoing Stranded in an unfriendly world. And like the man says—we’re all Stranded now.”
EPILOGUE
NCOG RADIO LOG
VESSEL: CNV SOVEREIGN CALLSIGN CNV27
DATE/TIME: 20/BY/15 0455
STATION TO: ANVIL GATE/ANVEGAD
FREQ/CH/SAT: H5
OPERATOR REMARKS: ROUTINE SITREP CONTACT FAILED. AERIALS CHECKED SAT H5 STILL
UNRESPONSIVE. RADIO CONTACT PRESUMED LOST.
ACTION: ALL WATCHES TO AUTO-REPEAT CONTACT
ATTEMPT DAILY UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
OPERATOR: LT. MATHIESON D.
Karen Traviss, Coalition's End
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