Pathfinder (6 page)

“You don’t have to tell me Diana’s exceptional,” Matt muttered.

She nodded. Oleander had to have top scores in mental, physical, and weapon skill tests; she also had to be one of the thirty percent with the capability of accepting her own vat-grown tissue and organs. Ariane figured this wasn’t the time to mention
that
Directorate qualification to her civilian boss.

“I hope—” Matt’s face flushed. “We aren’t making you uncomfortable, are we? When Diana stays here on the ship.”

“No, of course not. I’m used to crowded living,” she replied quickly. She was
happy
for Matt and Oleander.
Honestly
happy. Those minor jabs of envy were only reminders of what she’d lost; she’d never feel the heady innocence of new love again. As for the tight quarters and lack of privacy, she’d been in worse situations on AFCAW ships.

“Just checking. After all, both you and Diana were raised planet-side.” To Matt, that explained a multitude of idiosyncrasies and erratic behavior.

“I should get to my duties.” She paused. “Thanks for retrieving me. It won’t happen again, I promise.”

“Sure.” He ducked his head. He probably didn’t believe her hollow promise, but then, neither did she. “By the way, who is Tafani?”

“What?”

“You seemed to be rehashing an argument with this Tafani as we came home.”

She’d asked Edones for a cleared AFCAW therapist, although Major Tafani wasn’t allowed to see the Directorate’s “Special Access” material. Too bad he ended up being a twit who couldn’t understand her situation. To be fair, he never knew the truth: her identity, military history, and the experimental rejuv procedures. While she considered how to respond, she saw Matt’s unfocused eyes come back to her. He’d already forgotten his question, obviously distracted by something deeper.

“How long will you be on active duty orders?” he asked.

“Don’t know. These were executed under emergency conditions and there’s no end date.”

“You think you can get Edones to free you? Aether Exploration might have a contract, but I’ll need you and David Ray.” Matt’s forehead crinkled and his eyes looked worried.

“I’m not sure.” With Edones’s manpower situation, she didn’t think it likely. “Perhaps we can talk about this after the arraignment at thirteen hundred. Send a reminder to my queue.”

Matt nodded and she escaped his foreboding somberness. She rubbed her temples, trying to soothe away the minor throbbing pain that she, admittedly, deserved. She hoped she didn’t have to choose between her reserve duty and her job as pilot of
Aether’s Touch
. Giving her headache an even better foothold, Warrior Commander waited for her at the edge of the ship’s dock area.

 

This was the first time Diana Oleander wore the black and blue uniform of the Directorate of Intelligence. She examined the light blue rank trim on the sleeves and checked for lint on the sea of black covering her body. The uniform had looked unusual on her, almost menacing, but she didn’t feel any different today.
Just the same old Diana
.

One rumor about the Directorate turned out to be true. They said once you sold your soul to the black and blue, you never go back—to normal ops, that is. Colonel Edones had presented her with paperwork to sign at the beginning of shift that restricted her future assignments.

“We can’t risk our core intelligence officers falling into enemy hands, Lieutenant. Signing this means you understand your future assignments must be approved by the Directorate.” Edones smiled impersonally as he handed her the slate for her thumbprint.

Falling into
enemy
hands? As she signed, she wondered what risk he alluded to, and which enemies. The war had ended more than fifteen years ago. Perhaps, for older officers such as Edones, the Terran Expansion League would always be the evil foe.

“Are the plainclothes missions that dangerous?” she asked.

“Field operatives are specially trained and they’re the only ones assigned covert missions. You can train for such a position later, if you wish.” He glanced at her sharply.

She looked away. Matt had speculated about Major Kedros’s sporadic and mysterious missions. In particular, he was incensed by Kedros’s last mission, which had turned out to be extremely dangerous even though she’d been in uniform. Then there was the seriously wounded Sergeant Joyce, who initially traveled to G- 145 out of uniform. Apparently, one could be put in harm’s way, regardless of mission uniform.

Oleander sensed those particular mission reports were off-limits. Besides, they were at the opposite end of the danger scale from her duty today. She smoothed her new uniform as she waited outside the airlock. Edones called this the public relations meet-and-greet, but it was a chance of a lifetime for her. How else would she ever meet Jude Stephanos, the senior senator for Hellas Prime?

The lights above the passenger airlock turned green. After it was opened by the crew, the familiar broad figure of Senator Stephanos was not the first to step out. Instead, a young man with intricately braided long hair appeared. He wore an expensively tailored suit that emitted, tastefully but with a mesmerizing flicker, the latest fashionable color rotation. His thin olive face puckered with disapproval as he looked over the assemblage at the dock, then smoothed as he focused on Edones and Oleander at the bottom of the ramp.

Her eyes widened as the young man lurched toward them. Some people just couldn’t handle artificial gee, namely “grav-huggers,” as Matt disdainfully called them. Even though the
Pilgrimage
was nominally one gee, it just didn’t feel natural to have a point source pulling you in a direction that wasn’t perfectly
down
. To compensate, the decks curved in strange ways, but they could generate nausea. The man’s expression indicated exactly that possibility and she almost stepped forward to intercept him, but hesitated when Edones cleared his throat.

Miraculously, the passenger stayed on his feet and came to a stop in front of Colonel Edones. “Good—you’re here just in time. The senator’s bags are ready in his state room.”

“
Pardon?
” The Colonel’s tone would have frozen the eyebrows off a more astute individual, but this stylish man was undaunted.

“The senator and his staff have carry-on—”

A beefy hand settled on the man’s shoulder and startled him, as well as Oleander. She hadn’t noticed Senator Stephanos walk down the ramp, even though there was no mistaking his broad shoulders and barrel chest set on short stocky legs. Those legs, however, were steady under station gee.

“Myron, these are AFCAW
intelligence officers
. They’re not baggage handlers.” The Senator’s voice was dry. The Feeds often described his craggy face, trimmed beard, and thick bushy hair as ursine. Stephanos’s politics had been described that way as well; he’d savaged many opponents on the floor of the Consortium Senate, and because of this, he purportedly always wore light, expensive body armor in public.

“Fine. I’ll send a remote.” Myron looked as sulky as a ten-year-old. His hand started moving toward his other wrist, where his implant was installed.

“Remotes aren’t allowed on the
Pilgrimage
,” Oleander said quickly.

“What?” Myron’s eyes widened and for the first time, his gaze flitted around the slip bulkheads and focused on the larger docking ring corridor. Even though there was extensive foot traffic, he must have just noted the lack of remotes and dizzying displays fighting for space on walls and ceilings. On any Autonomist habitat, he’d be the focus of commercials touting any business vaguely connected to his spending habits. He’d have to pay for suppression of commercials, or privacy, but he didn’t have to worry about that on the
Pilgrimage
.

“How do I call for baggage sleds or handlers?” He turned his wide dark eyes on Oleander. They expressed the harried look of a civilized man dropped suddenly into savage circumstances, but like a thin layer of oil sliding across water, his emotions disappeared. She saw
nothingness
, an empty shell. Suppressing a shiver, she turned away from Myron to look at the senator and his security detail of two brutish men.

“Check in with hostel services.” Stephanos gently pushed Myron toward a kiosk on the main corridor bulkhead.

After Myron left, Stephanos shook his head. “My sister’s grandson. All her careful work to ensure an original Colonist bloodline, and that’s what she gets.”

There was no appropriate response for this comment. After a pause, Edones said tonelessly, “Welcome to the
Pilgrimage Three
, Senator. Lieutenant Oleander and I are available to assist you.”

She stood straighter. Stephanos’s gaze flickered over her, checked her nametag and decorations. She nodded politely, but he’d already dismissed her, his attention back to Edones.

“You’re a lucky bastard, Colonel.” Stephanos chuckled dryly. “I just put your superiors at the Directorate on the chopping block, but senatorial ire rarely descends to the O-6 level.”

“Too low on the food chain?” Edones said.

“You uncovered the theft of the weapon, but then, I’d have expected the Directorate to be on top of that in the first place.” Stephanos’s eyes narrowed, perhaps searching for sarcasm in Edones’s politic face. Oleander glanced at her commanding officer, noting his slightly pink ears. Edones was impossible to read, but she was sure of one thing: He wasn’t feeling lucky right now.

Noise at the top of the airlock ramp distracted the senator. Oleander leaned sideways to look around the senator’s security bulwark of personnel and saw a handful of offloading passengers arguing with
Pilgrimage
officials. Small antigrav multi-cam-eye recorders, somewhat larger than remotes, hovered above the argument. They spun and whirred, jostling one another for the best views of the altercation.

“The Feeds have released their hounds.” Stephanos looked over his shoulder. “I’ve had a lifetime of their complaints already on this trip. They’re not happy about having to travel
personally
to cover their news.”

“Our security plan allows them one recording device each, which can’t go remote. Fortunately for us, the
Pilgrimage
doesn’t have the nodes to provide a continuous mesh network.” Edones gestured toward the main corridor. “If you’ll follow me, Senator, I’ll brief you on the security plans.”

Oleander ended up at the tail of the procession, behind the security posse and beside the muttering Myron. Between Myron’s complaints about the lack of facilities, she heard scraps of conversation floating between Edones and Stephanos.

“Our security plans will stand scrutiny by the Terrans,” Edones said.

Stephanos mentioned Terran State Prince Duval. She craned to hear the colonel’s answer, but Myron poked her in the shoulder.

“If the Feed correspondents are allowed remotes, then why can’t I operate one?” Myron asked.

After she finished explaining that cam-eye platforms had to be kept near enough to be controlled by the correspondent’s equipment, which didn’t really qualify as
remote
operation, the conversation between Edones and Stephanos had moved on.

“They won’t like being barred from the classified sessions, but we’ve got no alternative.” Edones jerked his thumb toward the mayhem they left behind at the docks.

“As long as net-think believes these men are getting fair trials. If I hear even a whiff of a rumor of railroading, I’m making it the Directorate’s business to stamp it out.”

“We can’t affect net-think.”

“Perception is everything.” The senator paused, and their procession bunched up and stuttered to a halt. Stephanos looked sharply at Edones. “Those correspondents are the only senses net-think has in G-145. They must show a cooperative Terran-Autonomist-Pilgrimage Tribunal giving this isolationist scum their due process of interstellar law. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Edones said.

Myron poked Oleander in the shoulder again and she tried not to grit her teeth. It was going to be a very long morning.

 

At the infirmary desk, the medical technician on shift glanced at Warrior Commander before firmly averting her eyes. The Minoan hung back, staying a couple of meters behind Ariane, who had almost forgotten its presence.

“The sergeant’s monitor says he’s awake.” The technician looked at her console. “Yesterday, he was only conscious for an hour or so. He made a supreme effort to speak with his family, using head shot only, of course. His wife might suspect the extent of his injuries, but his kids don’t.”

“I’m sure that was his purpose.” Ariane smiled. She’d never met Joyce’s children and only met his wife once.

“He collapsed afterward. But early this morning he looked good enough to move him out of critical care.” The technician frowned. “Comm to the room is down. That node has to be replaced—just like everything else.”

“It worked this morning.” Ariane shrugged in sympathy. This was why generational ships had a year or two of downtime after hauling a buoy to an unexplored solar system. They spent ten to seventy years at sub-light speeds, and when they arrived to set up the buoy, allowing faster-than-light (FTL) travel to that system, their technology was dated. The
Pilgrimage III
was being retrofitted with new ComNet nodes, as well as other enhancements.

“Go ahead, while I call maintenance. His room’s around that corner and at the far end.”

She walked in the direction the woman pointed and found a long corridor with an exit beside Joyce’s room at the end. The technician wasn’t correct in assuming he was awake, because he didn’t answer her chime. After two tries, she opened the unlocked door and peeked in.

Something was wrong. Joyce lay in an awkward position, obviously unconscious, amid rumpled bedclothes. Even though the monitor beeped quietly and cheerily at the foot of his bed, his breath was shallow, his skin was pale and had a light sheen of sweat. She stepped to the foot of the bed and examined the monitor, started tracing the leads under the top sheet to where they connected to—