Pathfinder (26 page)

“Thanks for the coffee, Young Flower.” Floros held the coffee up. “Got to go.”

“You’re welcome—ah—Prickly Cactus,” Oleander called to Floros’s broad back as she hurried away.

She grinned as she walked to the kiosk and got herself a fruit juice. Sergeant Joyce said they had to get Captain Floros on the job, because if Myron made extra copies of data from the
Bright Crescent
, Floros might be able to track it. The message she’d loaded on Floros’s slate explained their suspicions and asked for her support.

There was something else Sergeant Joyce needed. Oleander headed for the day officer, from
where
all administrative and mission orders emanated.

“Hello, Lieutenant.” Chief Master Sergeant Serafin stepped out of the hatch that read DAY OFFICER, as Oleander arrived.

“On control deck today, Chief?” Oleander said. Serafin ran the tactical assessment station.

“Haven’t you heard? We’ve been taken off op-status.” Serafin ran her fingers through her short salt-and-pepper hair. “I’ve got some unhappy people downstairs in Tactical and Weapons.”

Oleander nodded in sympathy. Everyone took a pay cut when taken off operational status, but the noncoms and soldier-grade were the hardest hit. And being here in the boondocks, where nothing was cheap, was even more punishing.

“Congratulations on the career move, although I’m sorry to see a good weapons officer go to the black and blue.” Serafin smiled.

“Can I quote you when I see Colonel Edones?” Oleander laughed. “I’ll be going into the conference room.”

“You certainly can—he knows my feelings. If you really do speak to him, tell him his ops crew stands by him.” Chief Serafin’s face sobered as she bid Oleander good-bye.

Before entering, Oleander squared her shoulders and took a deep breath to calm her stomach. She wasn’t going to be lying as much as stretching the truth, but it was scary to try this with AFCAW officialdom.

The person who could cut admin orders, the sergeant on Day Officer duty, listened to her story with a skeptical squint around his eyes. “If Master Sergeant Joyce wanted a change in status, why didn’t his doctor call?”

“We’re on lockdown,” she reminded him. “No calls are coming in.”

“Right, forgot that. Hell, it’s been four days now. Plenty of time to finish their audit,” the sergeant muttered. He pointed to a leaning stack of slates in front of him. “I’m backing up, sitting on orders to transmit to HQ Personnel.”

“Sergeant Joyce wants to be put on restricted admin status. He feels he can do his administrative work if he has an issue slate with secret- level access and crypto.” This was the crux of the request and she tried not to hold her breath as she waited.

“Hmm. I’d have to end his sick leave. Is he up and about?”

“He can get around and work for a couple hours a day. That’s why he wants restricted status—he’s not a hundred percent yet.” This was an understatement, not a lie, she told herself.

“Really.” There was a bit of a drawl to the Sergeant’s voice and his eyes narrowed. Oleander tried to look as innocent as possible as they locked gazes. “If you say so, Lieutenant. You’ll go down as the releasing authority for the change of status.” He reached for a slate and made out the orders, sending her a local copy for ship’s supply and storing a copy for HQ. “You’ll have to figure out how to get him the slate.”

“Thank you, Sergeant.”

She left for her appearance before the board. It might be third shift before she got the slate to Joyce. She’d lose rack time, but it’d be worth every minute of lost sleep if Joyce could figure out who was behind this audit.

Myron sat at one end of the conference room with another aide. Open view ports behind him showed two other representatives of the board. During first shift, the aides asked questions, arranged data, and dug up information, until fourteen thirty hours. At that point, there was a break while the ICT concluded and Senator Stephanos appeared. Another session continued until twenty hundred, where the
real
audit board members, the senators, looked at the notes prepared by their aides and asked their own questions. Oleander had joked about this audit intentionally running the crew ragged, but the senators themselves weren’t holding up well under the brutal schedule either.

Colonel Edones, as mission commander of the
Bright Crescent
, and Lieutenant Colonel Aquino, as operational commander, sat to one side behind a small table. She thought they looked inspiring in full dress under the AFCAW crest, a stylized Labrys Raptor printed on the bulkhead. They looked the picture of military experience—
too bad these sessions are closed to the public.
Aquino’s red-and-gold dress coat upstaged Edones’s black one, edged with light blue, with blue and gold epaulets. On the other hand, the left side of Edones’s chest dripped with shiny medals and colorful ribbons, surpassing Aquino’s awards. Those decorations on Edones’s full dress were a reminder of his wartime assignments. She looked around. Colonel Edones was probably the only person in the room who had been on active duty during the war with the Terran Expansion League.

It was break time and there was a busy hum as personnel changed. Some were leaving, having given their statements; others, like her, were just beginning the process. She pushed through the small throng to the table where the commanders sat.

“Chief Serafin sends her regards, sir,” she said to Colonel Edones. “She says your crew stands behind you.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Edones replied. Aquino nodded.

She went to her seat on one of the benches and watched the two commanders. Aquino was the younger, but he appeared ground down by this audit. Edones looked his usual cool and alert self; perhaps he wasn’t as affected by politics as Aquino. She’d seen Edones look much worse, particularly when he was evaluating the casualties and destruction wrought by Abram.

“Attention please, let’s begin.” Myron sounded more self-important than the last time she’d spoken with him. “Calling Lieutenant Diana Oleander to the stand for a formal statement.”

Pompous little prick
. That was Joyce’s name for Myron and they’d never even met. She tried to suppress the words and couldn’t, so she had a smile on her lips as she swore to abide her oath as an AFCAW officer.

“Please state your position and responsibilities on the
Bright Crescent
during your entry to G-145.”

“I was the senior weapons officer, responsible for planning weapons loads, as well as targeting, firing, and launching weapons.”

“Lieutenant, when you planned the mission weapons loads for entering G-145, did you consider the costs of comparable loads?”

Senator Raulini’s aide asked the questions from her offices on Hellas Prime. Her image on the bulkhead looked outward with a severe expression that suggested she carried many burdens.

“No—but first, I must point out that this was a joint mission with the TLS
Percival
, so we had to coordinate with the Terran crew to avoid duplication of weapons coverage. Second, we don’t know the price tags of weapons. We plan weapons loads against the threat that Intel gives us.” Oleander had a sinking feeling in her gut.

“You don’t ever consider cost? For instance, you must know the Assassinator missile is several orders of magnitude more expensive than a load of swarm missiles. You know that, don’t you, Lieutenant?”

“Yes, but I can’t use that as the basis for my decisions. In this case, we knew there might be
one
ship with an armed TD weapon and we had to—”

“Do you think you
should
consider cost, in retrospect?” The woman coldly cut her off.

Opinion, apparently, even the retrospective kind, was more important than fact. Oleander’s stomach started churning. She knew any questioning that required hindsight could only get worse.

 

Isrid was pleased with his testimony this morning in front of the ICT. He’d identified the two technicians who had tortured him under Abram’s direction, although they were only lackeys. Being an expert in the discipline of torture, Isrid knew the responsibility lay with the architect who controlled the drugs, technique, and tone of the interrogation. He wished he could have meted out justice, personally, to Abram.

He knew the audience had responded emotionally to his story. The crèche-get were the most influenced; they loved and prized their children, even if they came out of birthing chambers. The Autonomists and Terrans, who initially had wary, closed faces, were still carried away by the account of torturing a child to extort his father. The exception had been SP Duval. Isrid saw hostility and doubt shouting from the other SP’s body language. Thus, after ICT adjourned for the day, he wasn’t surprised to hear he had a call from Duval. This would be their first face-to-face direct conversation and before he answered, he tapped the RECORD-AND-SAVE command.

Duval appeared in a view port on the wall, and bypassed any pleasantries. “You put on quite a show for the Tribunal, SP Parmet.”

“I described what happened, SP. Did you expect something else than the truth?” He used a casual tone as he saved an entry on his slate with a tap of the stylus, taking his time. He could analyze Duval’s reactions later.

“This is an unusual situation for me and my staff. Our Overlord doesn’t like working with Autonomists.” A greasy smile slid across Duval’s face.

Isrid nodded politely. “It’s unfortunate that your delinquents reared their ugly heads again. Weren’t you asked to take care of this isolationist problem a long time ago?”

“We don’t refer to them as the ‘isolationist problem.’ ”

“My apologies.” Isrid
sounded
unrepentant, while looking apologetic. Sending conflicting signals made the recipient uncomfortable. “You haven’t explained the purpose of this call.”

“We thought it polite to warn you of an intelligence leak.” Duval’s smile moved askew. “The Directorate is running
Kressida
in G- 145—ah, I see you recognize the name. We think they’re turning someone in your area of the solar system, someone on your staff, or Ensign Walker’s.”

“What’s your source?”

“We’ve got a Directorate file that references the operation as being current, but no other details.”

“Really? You’re sure . . . ?” Isrid showed his doubt that Duval could put his hands on actual Directorate files, although he wasn’t blindsided, not in the least. Dr. Istaga suspected such an initiative and was now evaluating loyalties. In fact, yesterday he’d given Isrid a list of personnel he thought were intelligence risks, having chinks in their loyalty or “issues rendering them susceptible to Autonomist manipulation.” These were valuable people, ones the Overlord couldn’t afford to lose, and ones who should be watched.
Maria’s name was at the top of the list
.

Duval defended his statement. “
My
TSF intelligence staff is trustworthy. They claim it came from the
Bright Crescent
.”

Isrid knew about the audit on the AFCAW cruiser. Duval was hinting he’d found a leak, possibly due to that audit, but why did he emphasize the trustworthiness of his Terran Space Force? “Ensign Walker appears to be doing well with station security.”

“The TSF has its uses, but I wouldn’t be too dependent upon your ensign. Major Kedros is obviously running this Directorate op, but she’s integral to the Priamos R&D efforts, is she not? So the TSF won’t do anything about her, not openly.”

“We’re watching Kedros.”

“She’s probably behind the threats sent to you and your family.” Not trained in
somaural
projection, Duval couldn’t hide the faint downward waver of his gaze.
He was lying
. Of greater significance, he shouldn’t know about the threats.

“Why would Kedros threaten me?” Isrid trolled for more information. Luckily, Duval couldn’t envision a world where Isrid had confronted Kedros, or believed her innocent.

“Revenge, perhaps? For your offenses last year.” Duval cocked his head. “Vengeance can only be satisfied in one way, regardless of what the Autonomists say. That’s why Pax Minoica can’t last. And when it blows apart, only the nimble will survive.”

“I appreciate the heads-up.” Isrid smiled politely. A warning, yes, but Duval wasn’t just passing it on; he was adding a threat. Isrid filed this away in his memory, as well as the hint that Duval knew how and why Kedros had signed over the G- 145 leases. Most intriguing, because this was a fact in pursuit of both relevance and context, was that
Duval didn’t want the League in G- 145
. His body language made that obvious. But why, when the League was benefiting from this research?

After Isrid finished the call with the odious Duval, he checked with his personal security. Flynn had sent out his right-hand man, a husky no-neck sort named Zheng, who had been on Parmet’s security for years.

“Yes, SP?” In the view port, Zheng looked up.

“You said you traced the threats down to a specific port on the
Pilgrimage
?”

“To a public kiosk, with no surveillance.” Zheng agreed with the rest of his security staff; Pilgrimage had too many places on their habitat that needed security upgrades, and he’d be happy to talk to them about it.

“No way to figure out who sent the message?”

“No, sir.” Zheng’s face held self-inflicted misery of failure. “And we’ve only got the two messages.”

“But they definitely came from the
Pilgrimage
?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, here’s another twist. SP Duval knows about the threatening messages. He might have gotten the info through TSF, or not—can’t tell.” After relating the relevant information to Zheng, he called Maria.

“I need you up here,” he said after she answered. His fingers flickered and added,
Espionage.

“Same old stuff?” Her fingers and wrist asked,
Autonomist?

“Not necessarily. I’m worried about Six, which is your specialty.” He remembered a night many years ago, when she’d asked to take the lead on coordinating surveillance on Overlord Six—the same person and staff as today—being the only Overlord still in power since the end of the war sixteen years ago.
After all, I have a personal interest in how they allocate childbirth licenses. If I can get approval, I’ll transfer
, she’d said, rubbing her long leg over his. At the time, he’d held her tight and immersed himself in the smell of her hair and the feel of her skin—knowing he’d never let her leave. He gave her the assignment and as it happened, she had less chance of having offspring in District Six than in Three.