Engaging the Enemy (15 page)

“If they did, they had tech we don't know about,” Rafe said. “Not that it's impossible. Some of ISC's research division have been unhappy with the no-proliferation policy for decades. Management has suspected that they're using ISC funds for research we never see.”

“Let's assume they had that tech,” Ky said. “It's safer that way. And then let's assume you can figure it out and build us an equivalent.”

Rafe stared at her. “Me? I'm not a designer or engineer. I can't possibly—”

“Rafe, you're the one person we have who's expert in ISC hardware. Until we find a designer or engineer who wants to work with us, you're it. I'm sure Osman had information on this somewhere. Find it.”

“But you need me to help you with the contacts—”

“Yes. You can do both. It may slow you down.”

“To a dead stop,” Rafe said.

“Not really. If you can even define what we need to know, we can start trolling for more expertise.”

“I'm getting close to the edge of what I can do,” Rafe warned. “My primary loyalty is still to ISC. You're asking me to help subvert it.”

“It's my contention that in order to help ISC, we have to have communications that work,” Ky said. “ISC's enemies already have the tech I'm asking you to find—we're not making things worse. We're using the new tech to help.”

He scowled at the table. “Maybe. And maybe not. I'll have to think about it.”

“Don't think too long. By now the enemy knows who we are.”

“What about Stella? How will she know where you've gone?”

“I've left her a message, at the Captains' Guild.”

“She's not going to be happy about that.”

“I know,” Ky said. “But we didn't have a choice. On the way we can stop off and…er…practice some things.”

“Drills,” said Rafe with distaste.

“It's not as if you didn't have your own drills,” Ky said.

At the next jump point, Ky ordered the ship to lay over a few days. She took them close enough to one of the larger masses that debris from their successful shots at components of its ring system would stay in that area, not complicate the jump-point transit for other ships. The two corpses vanished in the first salvo.

Watching things blow up was less fun than it had been when she and her cousins set off illicit fireworks on the beach, but in three days she knew that the Gannetts were definitely a superb gunnery team and the others were as good as what she'd been shown in the Slotter Key Spaceforce. Osman had kept his weaponry and supporting electronics in superb condition, so only slight adjustments were required. On the fourth and fifth days, she and Hugh set up simulations for the crew to play through.

“I wouldn't like to be the odd pirate that tried to take us on,” Hugh said, after the first round of simulations. “When do we go hunting?”

“We need to do more than pick them off one by one,” Ky said. “That could take a lifetime. There may be sixty or more with the portable ansibles. That's how many Rafe thinks were dispersed just through Osman's services.”

“Ouch. You're right; we need a fleet. But assembling one—”

“Is not going to be easy, certainly not if I try to talk to governmental entities. I'm hoping to find some privateers at Sallyon, though. Surely they'll be more willing to listen.” He nodded without much enthusiasm, and she went on. “We also need more than gunnery drills, Hugh. That last fire-emergency drill was pitiful, response far too slow. Keep us awake nights if you have to, but I want to reach Sallyon with a crew that's thoroughly familiar with every compartment and every procedure.”

“Beats scraping paint,” Hugh said. Ky laughed.

In the next FTL passage, she had reason to wish she had not said
keep us awake nights,
because the drills he devised interrupted everyone's sleep repeatedly. Power loss, environmental leaks, hull breaches, fire in the galley, armed stowaways holed up in cargo, artificial gravity failure…and the captain had a role in every emergency, usually involving getting to the bridge in nothing flat. She wondered where he'd found the variety of drill-enhancing objects and substances that smoked, stank, flared, and made scary noises like escaping air, crackling flames, gunshots, and gurgling liquids. Or the makeup that turned some of the crew into gory “wounded” or “dead” heaps here and there about the ship, and others into strangers—stowaways, assassins, the enemy.

“At least it's not boring,” Rafe said one day, when they were hunched over the table eating a hasty meal after two hours of struggle to control an imaginary flood. “The man shows real creativity in his approach to drills, I'll say that for him.”

“Thank you,” Hugh said, coming in behind them. “And I'm pleased to report, Captain, that performance has been steadily improving, reaching commendable on the past three drills. With the captain's permission, I'd like to let up now. I think they need a reward for good work.”

“You have the captain's permission,” Ky said. “The captain would like a full night's sleep—or any shift's sleep—so I don't get to Sallyon looking like this—” She gestured at herself.

“The captain is always impeccable,” Hugh said. She gave him a look. “And diligent as well,” he added. “Some captains would've told me to lay off days ago; I appreciate your willingness to let me push this crew to a higher standard.”

“You're welcome,” Ky said. “And I appreciate the work you put into this.”

“Mutual admiration,” Rafe murmured and rolled his eyes. Hugh looked at him with a mild expression that seemed to convey something far less than mild; Rafe suddenly turned red and got up hastily.

“Interesting young man, that,” Hugh said to Ky.

“Very,” Ky said. “My cousin Stella knew him awhile back; he showed up with her at Lastway.”

“He is…er…attached to her?”

“No. At least, I don't think so. They had a legal partnership; I had one with him myself after Lastway, because Stella said he would honor a partnership.”

“Is it operative now?”

“No, it's long run out. I forgot to renew it.”

“And yet he chose to be on this ship with you. Interesting.”

“He had the expertise with communications systems,” Ky said. “I needed him.”

“Ah.” Now the mild look was turned on her. “He's quite good looking.”

“Not you, too,” Ky said. When he said nothing, she went on. “Martin worries all the time that I'll fall for him or something. I won't. He's not my kind.” If she had a kind, which with Hal's defection she wasn't sure of. “I'm going to bed,” Ky said. “And I would appreciate it if there were no surprise drills for the next eight hours.”

“Certainly not, Captain,” Hugh said. She hoped that was not a twinkle in his eye.

Three days later, they dropped into the Sallyon system and eased in toward the Sallyon Main Station.

Sallyon had placed a remote surveillance station only fifteen light-seconds from its mapped jump point;
Fair Kaleen
no sooner cleared downjump turbulence that Ky found herself facing a Sallyon Immigration Control official onscreen.

“Sallyon inbound clearance station to arriving vessel. Confirm beacon ID, owner of vessel ID, commanding officer ID, last port of call, ansible status at last port of call. All vessels must have clearance from this station before proceeding to Sallyon Main Station.” Along with that came a datastring for the ship pilot, directing the rate of deceleration and course.

“Shipname is
Fair Kaleen,
” Ky said. “Owner, Vatta Enterprises. Captain, Kylara Vatta—”

“Our records show this vessel's captain should be Osman Vatta. Explain this discrepancy.”

“Osman Vatta was a pirate,” Ky said. “He stole this ship from Vatta Transport. You should have a warning on file from Vatta repudiating ownership and responsibility for Osman Vatta—”

“We do.”

“Osman Vatta is dead,” Ky said. “I should be on your list as captain of either
Glennys Jones
or
Gary Tobai,
depending on your latest update information before the ansible troubles—”

“Er…yes.”

“This ship,
Fair Kaleen,
is now returned to the Vatta Transport list; in order to prevent confusion, I intend to re-register it under a new name.”

The face on the screen looked both confused and cross. “But who are you? What authority do you have?”

“I'm Kylara Vatta,” Ky said. “My father was Gerard Vatta, chief financial officer of Vatta Enterprises, which included Vatta Transport, Ltd. That list from Vatta should have included a brief bio and visual—”

“Well…yes…but what are you doing with that ship? How did you get it?”

“My cousin Stella and I have been authorized by Vatta headquarters—” If any such thing still existed. “—to reestablish Vatta trading routes and recover any Vatta ships we can locate. I also hold a letter of marque from Slotter Key, which authorizes me to take prizes. Osman is dead; this was a Vatta ship until he stole it; I have returned it to Vatta service.”

“It's an armed vessel,” the officer said.

“Yes, of course,” Ky said. “Osman was a pirate.”

“You haven't disarmed it.”

“No. As I said, I hold a letter of marque—”

“Your weapons must be locked down and sealed; we must inspect the seals. An inspection team will board before you dock at the station.”

“Of course,” Ky said.

“Now—what was the ansible status at Rosvirein when you left?”

“The ansibles at Rosvirein were working while we were docked there, but we left because we were informed by Rosvirein authorities that a threat existed, and we observed a ship apparently heading for their financial ansible just before transition to jump.”

“Do you have any recorded evidence of this?”

“I can make a copy of our scan log,” Ky said. “There was some exchange of fire—”

“How many invaders?”

“Three ships came through in formation; that's when Rosvirein advised all outsystem ships at the station they must either leave or stay for the duration of whatever happened. I chose to leave; I'd been caught in trouble before, at Sabine. Rosvirein had their own ships shadowing the first three, and everyone else had been told to lock down their weapons and stay out of the way. We were a little more than a day out of Rosvirein Main Station when four more ships jumped in and fired on one of the Rosvirein defense batteries. Then one of the ships in the departing line veered off and appeared to be headed for the financial ansible. That's all I know.”

The man grimaced. “I doubt that. Someone like you, in a ship like that…all right, I'll give your ship provisional clearance to our main station; you'll have to halt ten thousand kilometers out for boarding by a weapons inspection team. Resistance to boarding will be interpreted as hostile intent, and you will be subject to severe measures…is that clear?”

“I'm not going to object to your weapons team inspection,” Ky said. “I already told you that.”

“Then you will be cleared for docking, but I warn you, you had better stay out of trouble. We don't tolerate subversives.”

“Subversives?”

“Half the rabble we get from Rosvirein are troublemakers,” the man said. “Organized crime is rife over there; pirates come and go without hindrance. You say you are legitimate but you're in a very dubious position, Captain Vatta.”

“I'm not your enemy,” Ky said. “The pirates are my enemies; they killed my parents; they tried to destroy my family's business.”

He didn't respond to that, but continued. “Your ship's navigational computer has received the assigned course data. Proceed.”

As ordered,
Fair Kaleen
slowed to a crawl and finally parked at zero relative velocity to the weapons inspection team's shuttle. Ky extended the new docking tube that had been replaced along with the air lock, and aired it up; a team of eight came aboard. Sealing the weapons took almost two hours, but the inspection team, unlike the Customs officer, showed no excessive suspicion. “Welcome to Sallyon, then,” their officer said as he prepared to take his team back to their shuttle. “Local Traffic Control will guide you in.”

Onstation formalities, once they were docked, went smoothly. Clearly trade was down; the station wasn't crowded with ships, and they had been assigned a berth in a section normally reserved for passenger liners “to balance mass,” as the stationmaster explained. Ky looked over the list of ships onstation, and was startled to notice one with Slotter Key registry:
Sharra's Gift,
commanded by an N. W. Argelos. Maybe it would have news from home.

The officer at the head of the ship's gangway had a very military set to his shoulders; the crew were brisk and businesslike.

Ky walked up to the dockside barrier, gave her name, and asked to speak to the captain.

The young woman with the compad looked her up and down and called to the man at the gangway. “Visitor to see the captain.”

He came nearer. “Your business, please?”

Ky felt herself straightening even more. “My name is Ky Vatta; we just arrived from Rosvirein. I'm from Slotter Key and saw that this ship also carried Slotter Key registry. I'd like to meet with your captain to exchange information important to our system.”

“Vatta, eh? How long have you been away from Slotter Key?”

“I lifted from home on seventeen Berith, last year,” she said. “I know about the attacks on Vatta headquarters and personnel; my father—Gerard Vatta, the CFO—was killed along with my mother when our home was destroyed.”

“I see. Wait here, please; I'll contact our captain.” He touched his temple, indicating an implant call. Ky eyed the dockside.
Sharra's Gift
was onloading sealed pallets that looked remarkably like arms. “You can come aboard,” the officer said. “Captain Argelos will see you, but he can give you only a half hour.”

“Thank you,” Ky said. She nodded to the Slotter Key flag painted beside the hatch; inside, a young woman waited to lead her to the bridge.

Captain Argelos was a thickset man near her father's age, black hair streaked heavily with white. “So you're Gerry's daughter,” he said, shaking his head. “That was a bad business, the attack on your family. My condolences, Captain.”

Tears stung her eyes; she blinked them back. It was the first time anyone had said the conventional words, offered the conventional sympathy. “Thank you,” she said.

He sat in silence a moment, looking to one side. Then he nodded, as if coming to some conclusion. “It has made us all nervous,” he went on. “To think that our Spaceforce could not protect our citizens on our home planet—”

“I can imagine,” Ky said.

“I don't know—Vatta has never been part of—but are you aware of Slotter Key's privateer program?”

“Yes,” Ky said and offered an explanation she hoped would make sense to him. “I was at the Spaceforce Academy before I joined the family business.”

“Ah,” he said. “Then you know that Slotter Key privateers operate most of the time as ordinary traders or freight carriers. Pirates never knew where we were, how many we were, or which we were. We have broad discretionary powers, and we carry sufficient weaponry to make us a match for most pirates. But now…it's clear that something has changed, that pirates are operating in larger groups.”

“You're telling me that you yourself are a privateer?” Ky said.

“Yes, I am,” he said. “I am trusting you with this information, to explain why, although we share the same flag, I cannot afford to be associated with you at this difficult time.” He sighed, and rubbed one hand over his hair. “When the trouble started, I wanted to offer assistance to any Vatta ship we met—serve as an escort, lend some of our personnel for security duties and the like—but my Spaceforce adviser argued against it. Strongly. We were here to protect Slotter Key shipping, I said to him, but he said that was the wrong way.”

“And what did he say was the right way?” Ky asked, keeping her voice light. Was this man's Spaceforce adviser in league with the enemy?

“Hunting for the pirates,” he said. “Which we did. We found some, too, but they were in numbers we couldn't match. Nor can you, Captain Vatta. It's suicide to try. If all of us—all the Slotter Key privateers, that is—were a single fleet, it would still be risky.”

“Space warfare is always
risky,
” Ky said from a dry mouth. “But sometimes it's necessary.” She drew a deep breath. “So—you have information about the way the pirates are operating now?”

“Yes. Unfortunately, I have no way to get it to Slotter Key, with the ansibles down, other than going there. Without guidance from the government my options are limited—”

“What about other privateers? Do you know where they are? What they know?” Despite herself, she could hear in her voice a rising excitement.

“No…we use commercial ansibles to communicate, the same as everyone else. Two ports back I ran into another of us, but he didn't know any more than I did.”

“You didn't think of working together, combining your forces?”

“Two of us against pirate fleets that might be as big as fifteen or twenty? What good would that do? If we can get in touch with Slotter Key again…when the ansibles come back up…if ISC can even do that much…” He scrubbed at his hair again, a man clearly nearing the end of his rope.

“Who's your adviser?” Ky asked. “Maybe it's someone I knew—”

“I don't know if I should tell you. I'll have to talk to him. I think I'll just go home, see what the government says. If they want us to combine—”

“If they're not compromised,” Ky said.

“Compromised?” His brows rose.

“You said yourself it bothered you that they weren't able to protect citizens onplanet. What that says to me is that someone got to the government at some level. Someone wasn't doing their job. Perhaps someone didn't want to do their job.”

He scowled at her. “That's—you're asking me to believe that the government
wanted
Vatta attacked?”

“Not officially, no. But pressure could have been applied. What if someone knew about the change in pirate tactics, knew that Slotter Key's insystem defense couldn't stand against a pirate fleet, and was offered the choice—sacrifice one family, or lose everything—”

“That couldn't…” His voice trailed away; he looked down. When he looked at her again, his eyes were troubled. “Is our local defense really that weak?”

“Ask your adviser,” Ky said. “But it's not just Slotter Key's problem. Ansibles are down all over; other governments may be under pressure.” She stopped, switching internal gears. “Did you ever hear of a pirate named Gammis?”