The Jovian Run: Sol Space Book One (32 page)

              Dinah mused on this for a moment as they turned a corner and joined a larger thoroughfare. “Sir, if I’m not mistaken, Teletrans Corporation is based on Mars. The fact that Burr wants to meet us on Earth sounds… suspicious.”

              Staples nodded. “Indeed it does, Dinah. Indeed it does.”

              “But you still want to go.”

              “I want answers. I don’t think the man is going to gun us down in his own office. If Owen Burr really is behind all of this, if he went to these incredibly elaborate machinations in order to turn Evelyn into a living weapon just to kill the Commander of Cronos Station, then he’s not going to be that sloppy. I’m sure he hoped we wouldn’t put all of this together, but this,” she waved the signed piece of paper briefly, “tells us that he’s planned for the possibility that we would. He’s got some endgame in mind, I’ve no doubt. I just wish I understood the connection between the two companies.”

              “I may be able to shed some light there, sir,” Dinah said, glancing over at her. “I did some research into Libom and Cronos station on the way back to Mars. Libom uses unmanned drones to scout the atmosphere of Saturn for rich gas pockets.”

              Staples stopped short, and Dinah stopped with her. “And Teletrans provides specialty operating systems for robotic drones, I’m guessing.”

              “Among other things, sir.”

              “God, could it be that simple?”

              The engineer lowered her voice as a group of high school aged children chattered by. “Do you think Burr had Laplace killed so that Ducard would order more drones, recommend more purchases, or something along those lines?”

              “It seems awfully elaborate, but if history has proven anything, it’s that there isn’t much people won’t do for more money. In your research, you didn’t happen to notice whether Teletrans is in dire financial straits, did you?” She began walking again, and Dinah fell in beside her.

              “Actually, I did, sir. Teletrans has been doing exceptionally well lately. They have reported a considerable profit each quarter for the last year and a half, and their stock split last month.”

              Staples laughed. “Is there anything you can’t do, Dinah?”

              “I never learned to dance, sir.”

              Staples looked at her wide eyed, searching for the irony that Templeton so often sought in their conversations, but Dinah’s face was as neutral as ever. She laughed again, louder. “I’d offer to teach you sometime, but I never learned either.” She paused for a moment, then decided to take the plunge. “I thought you might have found a dance partner on Cronos while we were there.”

              Dinah shrugged. “I make friends fairly easily, sir.” They turned another corner.

              “Then I’m sorry we had to leave so soon.”

              She shrugged again. “Side effect of serving on a spaceship, sir.”

              Staples knew that one of the reasons that people chose to live on charter ships was to avoid long-term entanglements, and she had long suspected that this was one of Dinah’s motivations. “Side effect or benefit?” She probed. Dinah did not answer, and Staples guessed that their moment of candor had passed. After a minute of silent walking through increasingly crowded tubes, Staples brought them back to their original topic. “If Teletrans is so successful, why the elaborate murder plot? Libom is big enough to be a really valuable client, but I can’t imagine that a few extra operating systems shipped off to Cronos would make much of a difference to their financials.”

              “I’m afraid I don’t know, sir. There was nothing about it in the financial report I read.”

              Staples laughed again as they entered the berthing area. “You know, for someone with no sense of humor, you’re really pretty funny, Dinah.”

              Dinah looked momentarily downcast. “I try not to be, sir.”

              Captain Staples decided to sit back and let her first Mate handle this one. She had done entirely too much public speaking for her tastes lately. Templeton looked out over the assembled faces in the mess hall. Everyone on the ship was present.
Everyone left
she corrected herself. She knew that they would have to replace the people they had lost, and soon, but it was difficult for her to think about bringing new people into this situation while there were still questions to be answered. Additionally, the grievous error made in hiring Quinn and Parsells hung over her. She knew it wasn’t Templeton’s or her fault. Their misconduct had been covered up by their superior officer, but it still made her feel distrustful of outsiders, and she suspected that much of the crew felt the same way. Even so, they were down two security officers, a cook, and most importantly, a coms officer. John was doing what he could, but it was not his area of expertise, and Dinah still needed him in the engine room, especially as she monitored the repairs to the engines completed at Cronos.

              “The captain wants to be really honest with everyone,” Templeton said, perhaps a little too loudly. “You all know what happened on Cronos. Someone mutilated Evelyn, a good and innocent woman, and used us to deliver her to a man, and that man died as a result. The problem is, we can’t prove it, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want justice. I want to know who killed Laplace and why, sure, but more than that, I want whoever did that to Evelyn to pay for it. Now we’ve got a ‘job offer,’” he sneered at the words, “from Owen Burr, the president of Teletrans Corporation. It looks like he’s behind this whole thing. The captain and I are going to go meet with him on Earth and hopefully get some answers. Once we get things sorted out, you all deserve a long stretch of downtime. New York City is a great place to do that. We’ll be berthing there, and you can have two weeks, guaranteed.” He looked over at Staples, who was leaning against a table. “Captain promised that if a job comes up, no matter how good it is, they’ll just have to wait.” He considered mentioning the need for more crew, but decided to let it pass for the moment. The fear of outsiders, of betrayal, was almost tangible in the room.

              John sat at one of the mess tables, his daughter between him and his wife. “Don, since you’re being honest, how much danger are we in?”

              Templeton took a few seconds to consider, drew himself up, and took a breath. “Not none,” he admitted, “but we’re not in the middle of nowhere right now. Pirates are pretty uncommon between here and Earth, and there’s no practical way to attack the ship on this planet or that one. Burr wants to make a deal with us. That’s the only reason he would want to meet with us, near as we can tell. If he wanted to try to kill us, he’d hardly invite us to talk. And if we run, try to hide, well… that might make him desperate. We can’t prove anything right now, and meeting with him is the best way to get clear of this.” He scanned the room, meeting eyes with Jang, then Dinah, then Yoli, and finally settling his gaze on Charis. “We got dragged into this. None of you asked for this, but we’re here now, and we,” he nodded towards Staples, “are gonna do everything we can to get clear of it. We’re going to do whatever we can to make sure that everyone,” his eyes flicked involuntarily to Gwen for a second, who looked only dimly aware of the subject of the conversation, “
everyone
is safe.”

              John looked decidedly unhappy, but he had no more questions, and neither did the rest of the crew, at least publicly. “All right,” Templeton said. “We’re going to head to New York. It’s just after nineteen now. Captain wants us wheels up by nine tomorrow morning, so get some sleep because we’ve got an early morning. Breakfast will be OJ and pastries at six-thirty.” There was a chorus of groans, and he smiled half-heartedly. Coms might be the most important position left vacant in regards to ship operations, but the loss of a cook was devastating for morale.

              Wrapped in her bathrobe, Staples was reading a book in her bed, now shifted to what had been a wall under Martian gravity.
Gringolet
was less than a day out from Mars en route to Earth and still gaining speed. She had just begun to doze when her watch pinged and Templeton’s voice came through.

              “We’ve got a ship on our radar, Captain.” He sounded concerned.

              Her eyelids fluttered and she heaved a sigh, wishing the voice would just go away. She tapped her watch and said, “We’re close to Mars, Don. There’s bound to be some traffic.” A thought occurred to her, and she sat up a bit. “It’s not headed for us, is it?”

              “No, but it’s going to pass awfully close. I can’t be sure without Charis up here, but I’d say no more than a few thousand kilometers.”

              “That
is
close, but not too unusual. We’re only a bit out from Tranquility. What type of ship do you make it?” The tatters of sleep were leaving her, and it annoyed her.

              “That’s the weird thing, Captain. I can’t match it to the database.” Staples thought for a moment. It was approaching twenty-three, and Templeton had the evening shift at present. The ship was set for Earth per Charis’ calculations, and that meant that her first mate was alone in the cockpit. The man was far from a computer expert, but he was proficient enough to run a radar match against the ship’s database of extant ship types.

              “It could be something new, Don. We’ve been gone a few months.” Even as she said this, she knew there was a problem with it. Charis had updated the computers when they were on Mars, and anything that was in the public domain for ship classes should be available to Templeton.

              “Captain, I can’t be sure, but I think it’s decelerating really fast.” His voice was apprehensive.

That brought her fully awake. “Okay. Okay, get Charis, Bethany, and John up there. I’ll be up as soon as I can. How far out is the other ship?”

“I’m trying to tell, Captain. I think it’s maybe twenty minutes out.” Gooseflesh broke out on her arms. Something was wrong if a ship could get that close before Templeton picked it up.

“Get everyone to combat positions now!” she said stridently into her watch. She doffed her robe and ran out the door in her grey tank top and flannel pajama pants. The metal floor was cold under her bare feet. As she emerged from her chambers, she began climbing the rungs inset in the floor, making for the fore of the ship. Templeton’s voice came over the speakers, ordering everyone to combat ready positions and summoning John, Charis, and Bethany to his location.

Staples was emerging from the elevator and reaching for the rungs that would take her the rest of the way to the cockpit when she felt the ship give a series of minute shudders. The elevator closed behind her and descended, likely summoned to retrieve one of the others. She paused to tap her watch.

“What the hell was that, slugs? Is it firing at us?” Without waiting for an answer, she began climbing.

“I’m here now, Captain.” Charis’ voice came not only from her watch, but drifted down the hallway from the cockpit above. “I’m trying to figure out… missiles!”

Staples was breathing hard, pulling herself up hand-over-hand as fast as she could. Even at point four Gs, her heart was beating fast from a mix of physical exertion and fear. After what seemed an interminable climb, she gained the floor and climbed to her feet in the bent cockpit. Instinctively, she looked up through the skylight for the other ship, but it wasn’t immediately visible from her position. Templeton and Charis were the only two present; she wondered how the navigator had beaten her husband to the cockpit, but then she realized that John would be busy securing Gwen. “That doesn’t make any sense. If we’d been hit by missiles, we wouldn’t be-”

“Not theirs,” Charis cut her off, her eyes intent on her surface and her fingers busy. “Ours. We just fired six missiles at the other ship. They’re only a few seconds from contact.”

Staples’ stomach dropped. “What? How?” She looked at Templeton, who sat buckled in his seat looking as stunned and confused as she felt.

“I didn’t do anything!” he said, and of course she knew he was right. Not only would Templeton not have fired first, she doubted he had the ability to do so. He was no more a tactical officer than he was a coms specialist. Staples darted forward to her chair and stared up through the skylight, and this time she could see the glow of the other ship’s engines clearly. From the view Staples had, the ship was indeed unfamiliar. It was small and sleek, with a far narrower engine profile in the rear than hers. As she watched, the engines darkened and the vessel began turning its broadside towards them. Pinpricks of light, thrust from the missiles they had evidently fired, were plain against the blackness of space. Sol burned brightly off to the left of the ship. Suddenly, a second sun bloomed as the other ship opened fire with a barrage of flares and flak. Tiny explosive shells rocketed from guns in the other ship’s side, exploding in bursts of shrapnel and blotting out all view of the vessel. There was a massive bloom of light from that wall of explosions and shrapnel as one of the missiles detonated short of the vessel. This was followed by another, a third, a fourth, and a fifth. Staples counted them off as they happened, then a second later there was another silent explosion, this one on the hull of the other craft. One of the missiles had gotten through, and the result was devastating. The dart-like vessel ceased its anti-missile barrage as the detonation of the sixth missile on its hull sent it spinning away.