Curse of the Iris (28 page)

“You're a bit young for the Hashoone curse,” she said.

“What's the Hashoone curse?”

Diocletia indicated the empty quarterdeck. “Sitting at your console in the middle of the night with no watches scheduled. Or staring at your mediapad in your bunk.”

“Oh, that. Doesn't seem to affect Yana, though.”

“Your sister could sleep through an emergency reentry. But then the two of you have been as different as could be since the day you were born.”

Tycho settled into his chair, closing his eyes at the familiar way the imitation leather creaked and then seemed to fit around him.

“So why are you on the quarterdeck in the middle of the night?” Diocletia asked.

Tycho hesitated. It was just him and his mother, and for a moment what he wanted most was to tell her what had happened with DeWise, how he had done something for what he swore was an admirable reason—or
mostly
an admirable reason—but one thing had led to another, and now he was stuck, unable to go back but not wanting to go forward.

“Oh, you know . . . everything,” Tycho said, shrugging helplessly.

“I know,” Diocletia said, then smiled. “It's not as bleak as it may seem, though. This mission is a bad idea, to say the least. But we'll be okay if we keep our heads. And in the meantime, here's something that should cheer you up.”

Tycho got up and stood by the captain's chair. His mother typed on her console.

“Carina's people have sold off the
Iris
cache. That's the amount per share—four of the five shares are ours, since we're not giving Thoadbone his. We'll have to give the crewers their cut, of course, but I'd call it a pretty good payday.”

Tycho whistled appreciatively. Two or three years' worth of cruises might not yield that much money.

“We barely got to celebrate your find—the solar system had other plans, as it so often does,” Diocletia said. “But we will. And we'll get to do so because you saw what nobody else saw, and insisted we look where nobody else thought to look—including me.”

This, Tycho thought, was a moment he should want to go on forever: his mother talking about how his success had helped their family, an accomplishment that would certainly be remembered when the time came to choose a new captain.

But he remembered DeWise's words, and his smile faltered.

“What is it, Tycho?”

“I'm glad I was right about where the
Iris
cache was, but something's still bothering me.
Why
was it there? Johannes must have hidden it under Darklands. But it's pretty clear he didn't tell anybody else.”

“You don't know that. It was a long time ago, and the Collective members were being hunted by the Securitat. Maybe it was a temporary arrangement, and everybody forgot.”

“That's a lot of money to forget. And the treasure got there without Johannes ever taking his scanner from the Bank of Ceres.”

Diocletia bit her lip. “True.”

Tycho was quiet for a moment.

“I wanted to think Orville Moxley was the one who ambushed Josef Unger at P/2,” he said, going over the thoughts that had plagued his restless nights. “I tried to convince myself Thoadbone had the coordinates for P/2 from his uncle's logs, figured out we were going there and tried to head us off. But it was much simpler than that—Mox got our course heading from the trackers and found P/2 the same way we did, by searching against known orbits.”

“Most likely,” Diocletia acknowledged. “But what about Muggs Saxton? His scanner was gone too. Maybe he ambushed Josef. Or maybe it was the Securitat. Or some pirate we don't know about.”

“Then how did the treasure wind up under our own home?” Tycho said. “Muggs didn't have the guts for a deep-space ambush. And the Securitat wouldn't have killed Josef unless they were sure they didn't need him anymore.”

Diocletia looked surprised.

“That's a pretty ruthless thing for a fourteen-year-old midshipman to say. How did you get so knowledgeable about the Securitat?”

Tycho looked away, his stomach churning.

“But I think you're right,” his mother said. “So what you don't want to say, Tycho, is that you think Johannes killed Josef Unger.”

“Yes,” Tycho said.
And ruined many lives that came after him
, he thought of adding, but decided not to.

“I wish I could tell you there are a million reasons why you're wrong, and Johannes would never have betrayed a fellow pirate. But I can't. Your theory makes a lot of sense.”

“I know. I wish it didn't.”

“Still, I can't tell you you're right, either—as I told you on Callisto, I looked in the Log. There's no mention of the
Iris
, unless Johannes restricted access to it. In which case we'll never know.”

“I guess I have to learn to accept stuff like that and not let it drive me crazy.”

His mother smiled. “When you figure out how to do that, tell me the secret.”

Tycho smiled back.

“Still . . . ,” Diocletia said.

“Still what, Mom?”

“Vesuvia, I need a course plot based on orbital coordinates.”

“Acknowledged,” Vesuvia said. “Awaiting input.”

“Call up the orbital data for P/2093 K1,” Diocletia said. “But this time I want the coordinates beginning in . . . what year should we start with, Tycho?”

“The raid on the
Iris
was in 2809.”

“Vesuvia, can you calculate orbital positions for P/2093 K1 since 2809?”

“The calculations are straightforward,” Vesuvia said, and Tycho thought the ship's AI sounded slightly offended. “Shall I display them on the main screen?”

“That won't be necessary. Do you have a record of any course intercepting those coordinates?”

“Yes,” Vesuvia said.

Diocletia and Tycho looked at each other.

“When?” Diocletia asked.

“April 17, 2895. Twenty-three days, nineteen hours, twenty-one minutes, and nine seconds ago.”

Tycho laughed. Diocletia shook her head, exasperated.

“I seem to remember that trip, Vesuvia,” she said. “Do you have a record of any
other
course intercepting those coordinates? Set a confidence interval of 85 percent.”

“Coordinates match no record.”

“Does your definition of ‘record' include data to which a captain has restricted access?”

“No. Records are limited to accessible data.”

Diocletia drummed her fingers on her console, eyebrows lowered, teeth working at her lower lip.

“Let's try it another way,” she said. “Were coordinates intersecting the orbit of P/2093 K1 already in your memory before we plotted them last month?”

Vesuvia was silent for a second, then two. Then three.

“Yes,” Vesuvia said.

“When were those coordinates entered into memory?” Diocletia asked quietly.

“On July 3, 2816.”

“Seventy-nine years ago,” Tycho said.

Diocletia nodded.

Tycho tried to think of another explanation, but there wasn't one. Seventy-nine years ago, when Johannes Hashoone was captain, someone aboard the
Comet
had used the ship's computer systems to plot the coordinates of a lonely ball of ice and tar, one of millions hurtling through the wilds of the solar system.

The
Foundling
had been there too. But unlike the
Comet
, Josef Unger's ship had never returned.

17
SHOWDOWN AT SATURN

R
emembering the Ice Wolves' precision flying at Ganymede, Admiral Badawi had insisted his task force arrive at Saturn with similar flair. So the Hashoones weren't particularly surprised when the admiral ordered them to use their long-range tanks until they were barely outside Saturn's outermost F ring—close enough that the pale-yellow world's bulk filled the
Comet
's viewports.

“At this speed, you'll need to vector nearly straight away from the tanks, not down,” Mavry warned Carlo.

“I've been simming this for two weeks, Dad.”

“All ships detach,” Badawi declared.

“Detaching tanks,” Tycho said over the frigate's internal speakers. Belowdecks, he knew, the Hashoone retainers and crewers had formed into teams at the gunports, prepared for action.

“Sensors are up and green,” Yana said coolly. “Refueling Station Gamma is dead ahead. We're still out of range for detecting other targets.”

The
Comet
shook as clamps released, stabilizers disengaged, and fuel ports retracted, separating her from the massive fuel tanks she used for travel between planets.

“Disengaged from fuel tanks,” Vesuvia said.

“My boards are green,” Carlo said. He shoved his control yokes forward, accelerating down and away from
Comet
's tanks.

“Gunnery crews, hold your fire,” Diocletia said into her headset.

“Aye, Captain,” Mr. Grigsby growled from his station belowdecks. “Easy on the triggers, you lot.”

Checking over his boards, Tycho realized he was smiling. Despite his anxiety about the mission, his family was working together like the disciplined starship crew they were—and he was a part of it, as he'd always dreamed. Whatever lay ahead, there was no place in the solar system he'd rather be.

“Vesuvia, put the tactical view onscreen,” Diocletia said.

“Acknowledged.”

The view from the
Comet
's forward cameras flickered and was replaced by an approximation of what an observer looking down from high above Saturn would see. Green triangles marked the cruisers
Hippolyta
and
Antiope
, sitting at the center of the Jovian formation. Ahead of the capital ships was a trio of green squares—the destroyer
Godfrid
at point, flanked by the
Ingvar
and
Ingolfur
. On the right flank, two green circles indicated the positions of the
Ironhawk
and the
Shadow Comet
; on the left, two more circles represented the
Steadfast
and the
Izabella
. Ahead of the Jovian task force, at the top of the viewscreen, the perimeter of Saturn's rings formed a wide arc, with Refueling Station Gamma a red cross just outside the A ring.

“
Ingolfur
, tighten it up,” Badawi grunted, and Tycho pictured the admiral on the
Hippolyta
's bridge, fuming that one of destroyers ahead of him wasn't maneuvering exactly as in his endless sims.

“That's better,
Ingo
,” the admiral said. “Now maintain formation.”

“Helmsman probably goosed the throttle before stabilizers were clear,” Carlo said disapprovingly. “You'd expect better from a warship pilot.”

“Military pilots, arrr,” Huff said. “He's probably only got five weeks behind the sticks of a real starship. On t'other hand, I bet his uniform looks
perfect
.”

“Quiet, Dad,” Diocletia said, studying the display.

“Refueling Station Gamma's within sensor range,” Yana said. “Updating with new target information.”

On the display, red shapes began winking into existence on either side of the red cross of the refueling station.

“Six bogeys—looks like three destroyers, two frigates, and a pocket cruiser,” Yana said.

“That'll be the
Geryon
,” growled Huff, his forearm cannon jerking reflexively. As always before a battle, the old pirate was dripping with weapons. He had twin pistols in his shoulder holsters, bandoliers filled with ammunition forming an X across his chest, and a wicked-looking cutlass slung at his left hip.

“They'll have more than six ships,” Mavry warned.

“Let's hope Badawi knows that too,” Diocletia said. “Vesuvia, tag the bogeys as hostiles. And switch back to visuals.”

“Acknowledged,” Vesuvia said, and a moment later Saturn was in front of them again, surrounded by its hypnotizing gyre of rings. The
Comet
accelerated smoothly through the thin F ring, dodging chunks of ice and rock and leaving ripples in the drifting dust behind her.

“Preparing to hail the station,” Badawi said. “All craft display colors and hold here.”

Carlo eased up on the yokes, and the
Comet
drifted to a halt.

“So far so good,” he said.

“So far,” Mavry said.

“Vesuvia, display colors,” Diocletia said.

“Transponders active, Jovian flag.”

“This is Admiral Badawi of the Jovian Defense Force. I am addressing those insurgents who call themselves the Ice Wolves. Your illegal insurrection against the Jovian Union is at an end. Heave to and prepare for boarding. Any vessel not complying with these orders shall be treated as a hostile combatant.”

“Hostile craft are activating transponders and displaying Saturnian flag,” Vesuvia said.

“Here we go,” Tycho said under his breath.

“All ships engage,” Badawi said. “Eliminate the enemy craft but leave the station alone—let's see if we can bring them to their senses first. Just like we simmed it, people. Do your country proud.”