The Kassa Gambit (30 page)

“I think we could arrange that, Captain. Is there something you’d like us to deliver?”

“We have a surveying report we’d like to send back. Nothing exciting, but regulations are regulations. You can collect a moderate payment for it, of course.” The report would be a cryptographically sealed data pod. Fleet vessels scattered these little pods all over the local sector. Theoretically it was a backup system, in case the ship in question disappeared. Since no Fleet vessel had ever disappeared, Prudence was pretty sure they used the capsules as a way to smoke out who could be trusted and who couldn’t. She’d never been tempted to crack one of the pods, since she was positive it would just contain a note that said something pithy like “Espionage doesn’t pay.”

“We’d be happy to oblige you. Can you meet us at the halfway point?” They would have to match velocities to do a physical exchange. If they did it halfway to the node, she could still pick up enough velocity to make the trip on the other side in a reasonable amount of time.

“Negative, Captain. We’re not at the Solistar node. We just came over from X785-C844.”

The dead node. The one that led to Kassa. Going that way would get them back to Altair in one less hop. She had just enough fuel to get there, running without cargo.

“Captain … was it quiet over there?”

“Dead as a doornail. That’s why they call them dead nodes.” Stanton’s voice was not suited to mockery. Then she realized he wasn’t mocking. He knew, and he knew she knew, there was reason to suspect what others took for granted. They had both been at Kassa.

There were monsters hiding in the dark places, after all.

“Captain Stanton, have you cleared,” she beat at her screen, pulling up a node-chart, “X784-D12?”

“Where? Oh, you mean the inward link?” Inward was an arbitrary designation that meant “toward home.” It wasn’t the kind of term tramp freighters used. “Yes, we came from there. If you wanted to go to Kassa, it would be a short trip.”

“That suits our plans perfectly, Captain Stanton. I’m contacting Traffic Control now and informing them of our course change. We hadn’t considered it before, because of the risk. But if you say it’s safe, then we can shave a hop off our trip.”

They were oh-so-careful to talk in generalities, to explain everything in simple terms. It was a tight comm beam, and encrypted to standard privacy, but both of them were assuming they were being overheard.

“We can do better than merely say it’s safe, Captain Falling. Our mission takes us back the same way, so we can go through with you, if you’d like.”

Would she like to be escorted by a fusion-powered warship? Would a girl like to be escorted to the dance by the captain of the football team? “That would be very generous, Captain.”

“I’m sending you the latest orbital data, for both nodes. Pick your optimal transit velocity, Captain. We’ll match you.”

That was potentially a lot of fuel Stanton was willing to expend to make her life convenient. She hoped it was merely because he was trying to impress her, like lonely men in deep space often did, and not because he was worried about something dire.

Monterey Traffic Control was not happy. The machines beeped and complained, threatening her with fines for filing false course information. She brushed them off. Free navigation was still the law.

There was a pause in the warnings, and then they went away. That might mean that a human being had taken charge, or it might mean the machines had exhausted their limited threats.

A human being. There was one down there right now, on the planet, making this all possible. She put her hands to her eyes, to hold back the feelings that poured through her.

“Anything?” Kyle asked softly, from the entrance to the bridge. She didn’t know how long he had been standing there.

“No.” No news was good news.

“Remarkable that the
Launceston
showed up,” Kyle mused. “Nice to see an old friend.”

“They’re not
my
friends.”

Kyle grinned. She could tell by the sound of his voice. “One thing I can tell you after my two weeks on the
Launceston
is that Stanton is as anti-League as it is possible to be, and still hold a commission in Fleet. He’s a friend to both of us.”

“Why are they here, Kyle?” It was too suspicious to let go of.

“For the same reason we are, Prudence. Fleet isn’t stupid. There are too many threads pointing this way. Stanton is out here looking for clues.”

Stanton came back on the line. “Captain Falling, we’ve examined your course, and we feel it would be best to handle the delivery on the other side of the node, if that’s acceptable to you.”

Apparently Stanton found Monterey system as unpleasant as she did. She doubted his opinion would be improved by learning that the planet was crawling with genocidal clones.

“Of course, Captain. We’ll see you on the other side, then.”

“Acknowledged,
Ulysses
. We’ll match with you after exit, while you’re doing your cross-system flight. Give you more time to adapt, if there are any problems. Regulations require commercial vessels to try and avoid course corrections during node approaches.”

“Understood,
Launceston
.” Stanton and his regulations. For once she appreciated them, knowing how handy they might be in the next few hours.

An hour passed. Then two. After the third hour Prudence began to consider nominating Garcia for sainthood.

The comm channel lit up again.

“
Ulysses,
this is Monterey Traffic Control. We would like you to return to the spaceport to answer some questions.”

A human voice, but not recognizable as Dejae’s. Traffic Control didn’t stint on its filters. The monks on Monterey had been concealing their identity for a very long time.

“I’m terribly sorry.” She was, but not for them. For Garcia. “We’ve already passed turnaround. We can’t abort now. It’s not physically possible.” Garcia had bought them the time they needed.

“We understand that. However, this is a serious matter. We are dispatching a patrol boat to follow you through the node. We require that you reverse velocity on the other side, and return with the vessel.”

“I don’t think I can. I’ve already plotted a vector through the next node, and my current velocity presumes making that hop.” She’d been running on maximum acceleration since liftoff. They would streak across X785 like a meteorite, unable to stop before the next node even if they wanted to. There was no margin of error. She was trusting the orbital data from the
Launceston
with their lives.

“Our vessel is equipped with grappling lines and fusion power. It will assist you with velocity management.”

They wanted her bad.

“If you cannot correct your course, then you will be required to abandon ship and board your crew on our vessel.”

Really bad.

“Well, if it’s that important, I guess we’ll have to.” She signed out.

After a few minutes, they called back.

“
Ulysses,
we note that you are continuing to accelerate. This is not acceptable. Begin your deceleration now, or we will be forced to ask the
Launceston
to intervene.”

“I’m sorry, Monterey. The
Launceston
just chewed me out on the regs for course corrections during node approaches.” That, of course, had been the point of Stanton’s little lecture. “I’m not going through that again. We’ll see you on the other side.
Ulysses
out.”

She turned off the comm.

Kyle was grinning, in a very unfriendly way.

“What are you so happy about?”

“They’re trying to stop us. That’s good news.”

“How do you figure?”

“It means we can still hurt them.”

EIGHTEEN

Hammer

Four long days, but not long enough. He didn’t want them to end.

Not because there was trouble waiting for them on the other side. The Monterian ship would be only hours behind them. The
Launceston
might well feel compelled to enforce the law. There were many bad things that would start happening once they left the node. But those were not the reasons Kyle found himself resisting the passage of each hour.

Being with Prudence, a part of her crew, a part of her ship. A part of her family. They were together without friction, without suspicion. For the first time in his life, Kyle wasn’t playing a role, wasn’t trying to present the image he thought others wanted to see. There was no reason to try. Jorgun didn’t care, and Prudence couldn’t be fooled. And the absence of Garcia drew them together, like a hole in the ground that needed to be filled.

He wanted to win through to the next node for the most selfish of reasons. Because then he would have more time in node-space. Only two and a half days, but beggars could not complain.

The ancients had been right. Heaven was a place in the sky, where nothing bad could touch you. But not for long; never for long enough.

“Listen to that.” Prudence played a warbling hiss for him through her comm console. She’d been analyzing the data on his blue pod for the last five hours. He’d helped her with the technical settings, but mostly he’d sat next to her and soaked up her presence.

“I’m not a computer,” he said. “It doesn’t mean anything to me.”

“It doesn’t mean anything to the computer, either. But it shouldn’t be there. It’s not cosmic radiation or planetary comm. And it’s at the right time. This signal was sent out by the invading fleet, on a wide beam, throughout the whole system.”

“Why would they broadcast their presence?” He kept asking why a lot. Everything these monks did was ass-backwards and upside down.

“I don’t have a clue. It’s an encrypted signal. But Altair should have computers that can crack it.”

“I’ll hand it over to the
Launceston,
then. They’ll get there sooner than we will.”

“Yes, they will,” she said cryptically.

A yellow light on her console turned on, accompanied by a gentle but insistent tone. It was the worst sound Kyle could imagine. It signaled the end of their vacation.

“Normal space in fifteen minutes. Put on your best smiles, boys. You need to convince the
Launceston
to give you a ride.”

A cold panic washed over him. “What?”

“Think about it, Kyle. I can’t stop that patrol boat from catching us. What I can do is put Jorgun and you on the
Launceston,
out of their reach. I’ll surrender, and take the
Ulysses
back to Monterey. It will be four more days before they find out they were swindled. You’ll be safe by then.”

“I’m not leaving you, Prudence.”

“It’s not your choice.”

“You can get on the
Launceston
with us.”

She turned her face partly away. “I’m not leaving my ship.”

“It’s just a ship! It’s not worth dying for. With the information you have to sell, Altair will buy you a new one.”

“Kyle, it won’t work. If I’m not on the
Ulysses,
they’ll know something is up. They’ll attack the
Launceston
.”

“So what? It’s armed. It can fight.”

“But it might not win.”

Kyle stared at her, unable to rationally cope with the prospect of losing her.

“Kyle, we can’t take the chance. You have to warn Altair before it’s too late. You don’t understand.
You don’t understand.
”

“Psychotic clones are trying to take over my planet. What part do I not fucking understand?”

She stared past him, into some distant memory.

“The monks think they won’t kill anyone. But when they have complete power, they’ll forget. They’ll get impatient. There will be problems … and genocide will look like a solution. In twenty years, Kyle, there will be ovens.”

He reached out, to hold her, but she pushed him away, tears pouring down her face.

“I can’t lose you and Jorgun that way. I can’t lose another family to the fire.”

“You can’t stop it by dying!” His fingers were numb, all feeling and strength gone out of his hands.

“They might not kill me right away. And if you win, then you can rescue me. You can be my knight in shining armor.” She said it with a wan smile, the kind of smile that would have comforted Jorgun. It didn’t comfort him.

If wresting Monterey from its orbit and casting it into the sun with his bare hands was what it would take to win Prudence back, he would do it.

But there had to be an easier way.

“Fake a malfunction. Let the
Ulysses
drift. While they’re boarding we’ll escape on the
Launceston
.”

“They’re not that stupid, Kyle. For Earth’s sake, stop making it hard on me. On us.” Jorgun was whimpering at his station, confused but understanding enough to know something bad was going on. “This is the best plan. I’ve thought about it for days. It’s what we have to do.”

“I can’t do it, Prudence.”

“You have to! They will kill you, Kyle. They’ll turn you over to Rassinger, and he’ll kill you, whether Altair wins or loses. And what hope would I have then, locked in my cell, alone on Monterey? How could I bear the days, knowing you could never come for me?”

Stop it. Stop saying that. He thought the words, but could not speak.

Impossibly, she dried her tears. Impossibly, she stood without breaking, while the world spun around Kyle, colors and shapes turning harsh and unreal.

“Go pack your bags. That’s an order.”

Jorgun went, unable to disobey her. Kyle had nothing to pack. Everything he wanted would be remaining on the
Ulysses
.

“Take care of Jorgun for me,” she whispered.

The light turned red, and they were in real space. It didn’t feel any different. The evil had already touched him.

Stanton, of all unlikely sources, gave him a reprieve. The
Launceston
didn’t want to play along. When Prudence hailed them to arrange a passenger transfer, Stanton refused.

“I’m not going to abandon my assigned patrol route to ferry your passengers, Falling. Monterey can’t board you for a few questions. If they want to talk to you, they can bloody well follow you to Altair.”