Traitor's Duty (4 page)

 “One phone call…,” the Senator began.

 “Would have been traced. I’ve had some r
ecent
experience with how fragile our communication-security infrastructure is.”

 “Give me some details and I’ll propose a bill on the subject, not that it will get through the current logjam. We’re going to be debating the impeachment right until the Senate rests.”

 “You’re stalling?” Harriet asked.

 With a smile, the Senator replied, “I don’t have to. They are. You see, the Progressives are milking this for every bit of publicity they can. Every moment this is in the spotlight, they gain votes. Ideally, they’ll have this declared the day before the end of the session, and they can go back to their constituencies and parade their successes.”

 “How long?”

 “Thirty-two days, and each one’s going to be more torture than the last. Most of my party isn’t even showing up now. The Technocrats are loving it, but they’re torn between wanting the peace treaty and wanting to win the election, and I think they’re coming down on the side of winning the election.”

 “Will they?”

 Throwing his hands in the air, he said, “I honestly don’t know. I know that we won’t, but I don’t know if the Progressives can snatch enough Freedom Party supporters to make it count. We’re going to end up with the doves or the ultra-hawks, and the sane are going to have to sit out an election or two.”

 “All you are telling me is that I have a month to come up with some sort of a miracle, Senator. It’s good to have a time frame to work with.”

 “Everything I’ve heard about you is obviously true. You’re a born optimist.”

 “The universe has been trying to beat that out of me lately, but somehow I keep on going.” Leaning forward, she asked, “What I would like to know, Senator, is…”

 “Where I stand in all this?” He glanced across at his daughter, and said, “I don’t want a war, and I don’t want to leave us defenseless either. But I can’t afford to damage the Freedom Party any more than it has been already, which means…”

 “That you can offer any and all assistance short of actual help,” Harriet said. “We’ve heard that song already.”

 “What are you doing here, anyway?” Harper asked.

 “Can’t a journalist be a patriot as well?” She sighed, then said, “I got sucked in, I admit it. It’s the story of a lifetime, and the press need to be in on it. More than that, I can help.”

 “Lieutenant, I’m not going to leave you hanging out to dry. I’m pretty sure that I can get the charges against you dropped…”

 “I’m not in this for me, Senator. I’m in this to stop a war, and more than that, I’m in this to stop us being the aggressors in one! I don’t understand how the hell this can all have got started in the first place, damn it.”

 “Duty,” he said. “That’s the worst part of it. You have a President that’s managed to leave himself wide open to corruption charges, so the vultures start to descend. This President is rearming, earning the ire of the Technocrats, but proposing a peace treaty, so amazingly he’s got the hawks and the doves attacking him. As for the military, you tell me. You’re a soldier.”

 “A fleet that’s been getting ready for a war, building up forces and preparing to repel a surprise attack suddenly gets word that there is an opportunity for a strike, a chance to turn the tables on them,” she said, resigned. “And presuming that war is inevitable anyway, and knowing that a lot of the Senate will be behind them after the elections, they jump the gun and go early.”

 “Precisely,” the Senator replied. “Oh, we’re not saints. There are enough people on this bandwagon that are along for the goodies,
but t
he key movers, though, they are convinced they are doing this for the right reasons, and there is nothing as dangerous as tha
t
.”

 “What if they are right?” Harriet asked.

 “Then we risk leaving the Confederation exposed to a surprise attack. I’ll follow the lead of the only in-system expert on the Cabal we’ve got. What do you think, Lieutenant?”

 “They’re too weak.
R
ight now, we’re as safe as we’re going to be. That doesn’t mean we can ignore
the danger
.”

 Nodding, the Senator said, “We all assumed that we had time to rearm, maybe two to five years to get ourselves ready, and hoped that the very act of building up our forces would be a sufficient deterrent to war. I found the reports you sent back about conditions in the Cabal abhorrent, Lieutenant, but we’re not the universe’s policeman. We haven’t got the manpower, and the risk is too grave.”

 “I agree. Reluctantly. And I didn’t a few months ago. Given time and work, the Cabal will collapse anyway. We’ve already struck a few blows along those lines.”

 “Hang on a moment,” Harriet said. “You fought your way through Cabal space…”

 “They tried to trap us, and damn near succeeded. That was different.”

 “How?”

 Orlova shook her head, and said, “Because they were building up a force to attack us, and they fired the first shot. We sent a message that we were strong enough for them to leave alone, and that we would go to any lengths to get back our people, but we did not engage in acts of aggression. Helping a few people free themselves from the Cabal is one thing, but we didn’t strike a base without warning.”

 “Now we have,” the Senator said. With a sigh, he continued, “We might be at war whether we want to be or not, but I think we could still get the peace treaty ratified, with enough bonuses that we might be able to convince the Commandant to go along with it. We’re going to need your help for that.”

 “My help? I’m not a negotiator.”

 He glanced across at his daughter again, then replied, “I understand you have covert operations experience.”

 Orlova sat back in her chair, closed her eyes, and said, “You want me to break the Commandant out of the nice warm jail cell he’s been thrown into. Don’t you have your own people for this sort of thing?”

 “Triplanetary Intelligence isn’t returning my calls, and I don’t keep commando units on hand. Borrowing a police car for an hour or two is one thing, but I’m talking about something a lot more extensive. Besides…”

 “You don’t have any connection to the party,” Harper said, looking at her father. “Nor do I. You’ll have me as back-up on this, and your journalist girlfriend as well.”

 “I’m not her girlfriend,” Harriet said.

 “I saw the two of you in there on the cameras,” the hacker said with a smirk. “So, you’ll do it?”

 Orlova looked at the Senator, and said, “Then what?”

 “He negotiates a new treaty with the President, and we get it in front of the Senate, somehow. I’m not sure how.”

 “There has to be an easier way of doing this.”

 “Probably, but I can’t think of one right now. If you have any better suggestions…”

 “No,” she replied with a sigh. “And it’s got to be better than another cocktail party.” 

 “Almost certainly.”

 “And given your current faux-neutral status, should I be caught on this hare-brained scheme of yours, I can presume that I will be…”

 “Disclaimed as a traitor, and in all probability shot. Under the circumstances, this has to be a volunteer mission, Lieutenant.”

 With a smirk, she said, “You’re not in the chain of command to give me orders anyway. Though I presume this comes direct from the President.”

 “It does.”

 “Then I guess I volunteer. Just make sure you spell my name right in my obituary.”

Chapter 4

 “Signal confirmed, Captain,” Spinelli said from his sensor station, turning to face Logan in the command chair. “Transport by the looks of it, though we’d be the only ones who’d recognize it as Triplanetary.”

 “Why is that, Spaceman?” Ryder asked, turning from her position at Tactical.

 “Because it’s the Ouroboros, ma’am, but with new markings.”

 Logan frowned, then asked, “Are you sure, Spinelli? There must be other Cabal ships of that type.”

 “Very probably, sir, but every exterior detail matches. I’ve got some excellent resolution shots of that ship now, and I can match it completely.” He looked up from his console, and said, “Trust me, sir, I know that ship far too damn well.”

 “Interesting,” Logan replied. “A superficial attempt to transform a Triplanetary ship into a Cabal vessel. Are they responding to our hails?”

 “Still silent, sir. Now sixty minutes since they jumped into the system, and I’m not getting any response,” Weitzman said, eyes darting from display to display.

 “No chance of an intercept?” Logan asked.

 “We’re scheduled to leave the system in two hours,” Ryder noted. “We might be able to get out that far in time, but we’d be days late getting to Hades. Of course, sir, it’s your call.”

 It didn’t take long for Logan to decide, “I can guess what is on board that ship; I don’t see the point in wasting four or five days to satisfy my curiosity. We’ll let them go, but Weitzman, you make it damn clear that we know what they are up to.” He stood up, then said, “I’ll be in the office if you need me. Ryder, take the conn.”

 Still it was ‘the’ office, not ‘his’ office. Five weeks he’d been officially in command of the Battlecruiser Alamo, and he was still reluctant to take the jump and consider it as his ship. As he stepped through the door, he looked down at Captain Marshall’s desk, the empty chair behind it, and shook his head.

 “Why the hell aren’t you sitting there, damn it? This isn’t my job.”

 The door behind him slid open, and Ryder walked in, replying, “Right now it is, Captain.”

 He turned with a start, and said, “You want it?”

 “Not yet. Maybe in four or five years.”

 “Figures.” He moved over to the desk, staring out at the starscape, and continued, “You think I made the right call?”

 “It isn’t my place…”

 “Don’t give me that crap. You know how far over my head I am. I can play-act for almost everyone out there, but you know better. I need you to watch my back, and if you don’t tell me when I screw up, we’ve had it.”

 “I think you made the right call. It would have been nice to go and get that ship, but we don’t need it, and we need to get to the task force as fast as we can.”

 “If it isn’t too late already.”

 “What do you mean?”

 Sighing, he said, “If I’d been commanding that task force, I’d have taken along a couple of ships that I could use as couriers, to report the success of my mission.”

 “Scoutships, surely.”

 He shook his head. “Remember that the people commanding that task force are playing fast and loose with their orders. They won’t necessarily want just everyone to know what they are doing, and that means using covert means.”

 “A Cabal ship, though? Why not a Triplanetary one?”

 “How well do you know transports, Ryder? Speaking purely personally, without the computers, I couldn’t tell one from another. All it has to do is drop into some out of the way spot, Triton Colony maybe, and send its message home from there. No-one at that flea-pit could tell the difference.”

 Managing a thin smile, she said, “You realize you’re probably talking about my next posting. Assuming I have a next posting.”

 “Intelligence will always give you a job if it comes to it.
If
I ever get back in touch with them again. Failing that, perhaps we could all just take off and seek adventure in the far stars.”

 “You don’t strike me as the explorer type.”

 “I grew up reading the same books that you did, and you might be surprised at how much time I’ve spent on the frontier.” Looking out at the stars, he continued, “I’ve spent more of the last decade outside Sol than back home.”

 “But, before…”

 “There are some routes that were well-worn even before Alamo set off on that first expedition, you know. Proxima Station, Omicron Eridani, far-flung outposts where there was still some freedom.”

 “I thought you were an information broker.”

 “Specializing in exotic alien artifacts. Not that getting hold of them was particularly easy. The industrial archeology companies are extremely jealous with their findings, especially the ones with a United Nations contract.”

 “Thinking of going back to that?”

 “Possibly. There’s a lot more stars to look at now than there were a few years ago, that much is certain, and the Cabal must have some interesting stories to tell. From what I picked up out of Alamo’s files, there’s plenty of scope for exploration.” He grinned, then said, “That’s one good thing about commanding this ship. Full access to the mission logs.”

 “I wish I hadn’t missed the trip,” Ryder said, looking wistful.

 “I’m sorry about that,” he replied. “I needed you on Spitfire, and I need you now. I promise that I won’t hold you back next time.”

 Shaking her head, she said, “I won’t hold you to that, Logan. What you said back at Carter Station was quite right; I go where I am needed, not where I want. Not while I’m wearing this uniform. For however much longer that turns out to be.”

 “You might be surprised. I was out for a decade, and they brought me back in eventually. And I wanted to leave.”

 “You’ve never told me what happened.”

 “No, I haven’t. And for the present, it’s going to stay that way.” He looked down at his uniform, and said, “Let’s just say I had a lesson in what this costume means, and that it soured me on it for a while.”

 “Yet you came back.”

 “There’s wasn’t much choice at the time, and maybe I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed it. Besides, I can’t deny that my life has been a lot more interesting since I put this thing back on.” He looked at the door to the bridge, and asked, “What about the crew? You know them a lot better than me. How are they holding up?”

 “Quinn and I are keeping them as busy as we can. Not hard, with so few of us on board. I don’t think they’
v
e really thought about what is likely to happen too much, though that’s liable to change later on.” She paused, then said, “They’ll do what they have to do. That much I do know.” 

 “And afterward?”

 “I don’t think anyone’s given it too much thought. As I said, we’re keeping everyone moving fast enough that they aren’t getting any time to think. At least it will be over soon.”