Victory Conditions (46 page)

And then she glanced, as anyone might, at the person beside her, and he saw recognition on her face, and the instant control that changed her expression to the cool, guarded gaze of the professional commander.

“As you see,” Rafe said, “I have been having a little chat with Sub-lieutenant Coughlin.”

“How interesting,” she said in a colorless voice.

“But I would be delighted to come meet the Premier,” Rafe said. “I’m sure the sub-lieutenant will excuse us.”

“Ky, I—” Hal began. Rafe subtracted another hundred points from the man’s estimated intelligence.

Ky turned and faced him directly. “You had something to say, Sub-lieutenant?” Her voice remained perfectly steady, perfectly cool, admiral–to–sub-lieutenant.

“Er…no, ma’am. Just…I’m sorry…”

“It is of no consequence,” Ky said, each word uttered like a flake off a flint core. She looked back at Rafe, her eyes now as hard as that core. “If you please, Ser Dunbarger. The Premier is waiting.”

Rafe bowed slightly. “Of course, Admiral. At your service.” He brushed past Hal without saying anything more; she had already turned on her heel and started back to the ballrooms without looking back. The crowd melted before them, silent until they had passed, when a rising murmur suggested what they discussed.

“I will smack Stella silly,” Ky said once they were inside. “I can’t believe
you
would have rifled my desk.”

“Stella,” Rafe said with some care, “warned me off you, for your own good.”

“She had no right,” Ky said. She shot a glance back at him, and he saw, not surprised, that she was angry with him, as well as with Stella. “And you—you had no right to parade my—that—here—”

“I wanted him dead,” Rafe said. “He hurt you.”

“I’m over it.”

“Oh, really.” Rafe touched her arm and she swung around; her aides stiffened and closed in, ready, he saw, to take him down. “That’s not what Stella thinks. Or I think.”

“We are not having this conversation.” Ky turned again and strode off toward the first ballroom and the receiving line. “Not here, not now, and hopefully not ever.”

“Not here, not now, but definitely sometime,” Rafe said to her retreating back. For a short woman, she walked remarkably fast, the crowd opening a lane for her as if she were royalty. Considering what she’d done, she might as well have been.

But then they were in the first ballroom again, and he was engulfed in the elaborate courtesies of rank and station, and Ky, at his side in body only—or so it felt—kept up a murmur of introductions and polite comments that irritated him as much as he admired her poise. He bowed, he shook hands, he chatted with the Premier of this government, the President of that, the Prime Minister, this admiral, that general, a Minister of this and a Secretary of that, being, as best he could, the urbane senior executive while on the inside he felt alternating waves of fury at Hal and fear that Ky would never speak to him again.

Two hours later it was over…though a cluster of ranking officers and politicians still surrounded them, chatting and exchanging contact information and casual invitations, the lights had blinked three times and attendants were clearing the serving tables onto carts. The group moved toward the ballroom doors without breaking up. Gary, waiting there for Rafe, gave him a minute head shake…so evidently the story had spread outside the ballrooms already.

Rafe lagged behind the group, wondering if Ky would be occupied all the way back to her flagship—or if she was staying downside tonight. He had to see her, explain, even apologize if she insisted…

“That was a cruel thing to do,” Gary murmured as Rafe came through the door and Gary took up position beside him.

“Not half as cruel as what he did,” Rafe said, in the same quiet tone. He was not really surprised that Gary knew what had happened, not with the kind of surveillance Gary normally set up.

“Youngsters dump youngsters; it’s human nature. They can grow out of it.”

“It was more than dump,” Rafe said. “It was battery and dump.”

“Youngsters have no sense,” Gary said.

“You think I should have let it go?”

“Do you really think it will help you with her?” The question was serious, no mockery at all in the tone.

“I don’t know,” Rafe said. He felt bone-deep tiredness now. Ky was angry with him…maybe seriously angry, not just a little annoyed, and now that his adrenaline was lower, he could see that airing her former heartache might not seem to her the protective act he’d convinced himself it was. “I wanted to kill him,” he said to Gary.

“That was obvious. Might’ve caused less trouble if you had.”

“And I couldn’t even hit him. He was such a…a self-serving little twit.”

“Yeah, that’s what that fellow on Slotter Key said—”

“What!” Rafe’s voice came up and someone at the back of the group glanced at them. He lowered it again. “Who are you talking to on Slotter Key?”

“Security stuff, boyo. Fellow who was at the Academy, now in the Defense Department with the admiral’s aunt. Knew this Hal when he was just a cadet—knew the commander as well, for that matter. Arrived with the Slotter Key Spaceforce, the Rector of Defense’s emissary.”

It must be the legendary Master Sergeant MacRobert, Rafe thought. Now apparently Ky’s aunt’s assistant.

“Said he was a bright-enough cadet, more polish than substance maybe, but not from breeding. Riding the admiral’s coattails.”

“I suppose,” Rafe said, climbing into the car again. “You think I was an idiot.”

“Something like that, yes,” Gary said. He tapped on the partition, and the driver set off. “But men like you, if they ever do love anyone, are apt to do stupid things. I certainly did.”

“She will forgive me,” Rafe said, with more hope than confidence.

“Keep the hope,” Gary said. “I’m off home tomorrow, whatever. I need a break from all this drama…but if you ask me, which you haven’t yet, the best thing you can do is just tell her.”

“I still say he deserved it,” Rafe said.

“Maybe. But I’m not sure he deserves what he’s going to get in the end.”

“Disgrace? Maybe discharge? You don’t think he deserves that?”

Gary sighed. “Rafe, after all this time there are still things you don’t understand. You’ve got a lot more power than you realize. ISC may be less than it used to be, but it’s still the single more powerful corporation anywhere. Every word you say carries more weight, sets off more tremors. If that boy only loses his commission he’ll be lucky.”

Master Sergeant Cally Pitt had no part in the festivities going on at Government House, but had come to the hotel bar across the street to meet the renowned Master Sergeant MacRobert (ret.) in person.

“So, how did you personally meet Admiral Vatta?” he asked after the first introductions. He had insisted on buying her drink because, he said, he was now a loafing REMF and she still worked for a living. She knew better; he might not be in uniform, but he was far from retired, and she doubted that his assignment to Slotter Key’s Defense Department would keep him out of uniform for long.

“I damn near blew her head off,” Pitt said, sipping her drink.

“That sounds…like an interesting introduction,” MacRobert said. Pitt was aware of something dangerous in his tone.

“You know most of it,” Pitt said. “We were in Sabine System. She was on that little unarmed freighter—you knew that. We were supposed to check out every ship in the system—including hers—pick one to stow commanders of ships on, one to use as a courier—the usual.”

“My experience has not, heretofore, included system invasions,” MacRobert said. “I’m presuming you were hired for this?”

“We were hired, supposedly, by a legitimate government to pressure Sabine into something—I wasn’t clear on what. Seize the main space stations, seize shipping and hold it. At any rate, it was a routine boarding—and I was impressed that she was being as by-the-book as we were—until an idiot crewman tried to ambush us. I did try to push her out of the way, but—” Pitt shrugged. “Instinct takes over. She took damage; the other fellow died. We got her back to our surgeons, and they fixed her up.” Pitt did not want to detail the injuries, not to someone who looked so twitchy. She hadn’t expected this reaction, exactly. He knew what she—and Mackensee—thought of Ky Vatta. They hadn’t intended to hurt her; it had been an accident. Surely he understood that. He looked to be a good ten years older than she was, but that meant little if he had the skills.

“An odd beginning…I understand you requested this assignment, to be with her.”

Pitt shrugged again. “I did. She’s—she was remarkable, in several ways. You’ve heard about the rest of the Sabine thing? How she handled a mutiny of the prisoners we put aboard her ship? I thought she’d make a great officer in our company and told my CO that. He said try to recruit her. I wasn’t surprised to find out she’d had military training.”

“Yes, I knew about that.” MacRobert sipped his drink. “What I don’t quite understand—and forgive me if this is too blunt—is why she wanted anything to do with you.”

“I don’t get it, either,” Pitt said. “Usually when you almost kill someone, either they go all appeasing and clingy, or they want you dead. She decided to be grateful we’d saved her, held no grudge for the incident—and I don’t think she’d know how to be clingy if you gave her a college course in it.”

MacRobert snorted. “No. She wasn’t one of those isolated kids, when she came in, but she wasn’t always looking for someone to follow, either. That’s what made it so infuriating when we—they—had to cut her loose.” He shook his head sharply. “Sorry, Cally. I didn’t mean to go all protective and prickly. You’ve been straight with us so far, and I’m sure you did what you could. But with all that happened to her—and her family—”

“No worries,” Pitt said. “She was angry enough with me, when she found I’d told you she was alive after that battle at Moray.”

“Um. Gathered that from what she sent Grace.”

Pitt noticed he didn’t refer to the Rector of Defense by her title, which was out of character for someone with his background. She asked no questions, but came to her own conclusions, and also that they were of no military significance. “My round,” she said, lifting an eyebrow at him; he nodded, smiling, and she gave the order to the bartender. “My CO wants me to stay in touch with you,” she said next.

“I have no objection,” MacRobert said. “As long as it’s fine with my seniors—and right now it is.”

“What do you think of Cascadia so far?” Pitt asked.

“Not enough fly-fishing streams in range,” MacRobert said. “Otherwise, a nice-enough place to visit. What about you?”

They discussed vacation spots for the next hour or so, watching as the line of arrivals across the street died away and then the shiny green cars began to line up once more, to take the guests away. Pitt had long since decided that MacRobert was charming and deadly, a combination she liked very much.

Now he cocked his head. “I think the celebration’s breaking up over there. Are you on escort duty, or would you like another round?”

“I should get back,” Pitt said. “My boss wants a written report on the evening and I need to debrief a few people, so I should catch the next shuttle up.”

“I hope to see you again, then. You’re welcome to stop by, if your duties take you to Slotter Key. Grace would love to meet you.”

“As duty takes me,” Pitt said. She was not at all sure she wanted to meet Grace Vatta.

“As duty takes all of us,” MacRobert murmured, standing politely as she slid out of her seat and turned away.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FOUR

M
aster Sergeant Cally Pitt had enough rank to get a seat in the forward compartment of the shuttle, since all the officers who’d gone downside to attend the reception were staying overnight. She could have stayed—would have stayed, if a certain other senior NCO hadn’t been so obviously not looking for company. But better to get back aboard and sleep in her own bunk, if no more was to be gained. The chatter in the shuttle’s lounge area, juicy as it was—Rafe Dunbarger had attacked Ky Vatta’s former boyfriend in public, at the reception—seemed too far-fetched to be of interest. She overheard four different versions of it, from a mild rebuke (well, maybe) to both participants having screamed obscenities at each other until separated by Security (unlikely). Whatever had happened, she was sure, was none of her business, and the facts of what had happened would show up eventually in the official report of someone who had been there. She dozed lightly on the way up and waited until the troops and civs in the rear compartment—some slightly boozy—had exited before she left. With luck, she wouldn’t have to notice any of them; their respective shore patrols would pick them up before she got there.

From the shuttle dock, Pitt moved briskly toward the Mackensee docking area, out at the tip of one of the lower branches—stupid design for a space station, but she didn’t have to live here.

Then she saw a too-familiar movement in the huddle ahead of her, across the corridor. The uniforms weren’t Mackensee, which meant it wasn’t technically her business, a mix of USD and Slotter Key and Cascadian and Nexan…none of whose own security forces seemed to be in the area.

“Here!” she said loudly. The back row turned, stared at her a moment, and then edged away. “What’s going on?”

“Nothing to concern you,” one rash youngster said, then took another look at the rack of medals on her dress uniform, the stripes up her sleeve, and shut his mouth. Pitt gave him a humorless grin.

“Disorder concerns me,” she said. “As guests on Cascadia Main Station, where by Cascadian law rudeness is punishable, it should concern you as well. Now: what’s going on?” She walked up to them as if she owned the place; they moved aside reluctantly. In a heap on the deck lay a man in a Slotter Key dress uniform, with the pips of a sub-lieutenant on his shoulder, a
Bailey’s Reef
ship patch, a single narrow stripe on his sleeve, and entirely too much blood on the deck under his head. He stirred slightly; at least he was breathing.

“Well,” Pitt said. “I’d say you lot have something to answer for. Names and ships, if you please.” One on the far side took off running, but the others, now shamefaced and shuffling their feet, mumbled names and ship assignments into her recorder. “And why, precisely, should I not immediately call Station Security and have you arrested?” Pitt asked.

“He deserved it,” said one, a thickset young woman in Bissonet’s lighter blue. “Bastard trashed the commander.”

“Commander…?”

“Admiral Vatta. I was there when that ISC man told him off. Worthless pile of trash—” She made to nudge the fallen man with the toe of her boot; Pitt stopped her with a look.

“They were friends,” another Slotter Key sub-lieutenant said. “I was at the Academy with them; I knew that, and then he turned against her after she left. I didn’t know about the letter and the ring, though, until tonight.”

Pitt sighed. She’d hoped she’d left the gossip behind her but clearly not. Someone probably called Cascadia Station from the planet, and of course the story had grown with each repetition. Junior officers left behind on Cascadia Station—bored, possibly drunk—had leapt on it with enthusiasm and come to meet the shuttle. She suspected that the story now included much that never happened, though she wondered what letter and what ring he was talking about.

“Admiral Vatta put whatever happened behind her,” Pitt said, certain that was true. “If she isn’t pursuing it, you shouldn’t, either. It dishonors her, to have people who claim to admire her brawling in the station corridors.”

“I don’t want him on my—our—ship,” the Slotter Key sub-lieutenant said. He, too, had a
Bailey’s Reef
ship patch.

Stubbornness, Pitt thought, seemed to be a Slotter Key trait. She fixed him with her best senior-NCO glare. “Sub-lieutenant, with all due respect, until you command your own ship, you will serve with anyone your commander accepts, and treat your fellow crewmembers with the respect due them as your shipmates. Or you are not worthy of a commission, whether he is or not.”

His jaw dropped a little; clearly that thought had never occurred to him.

“You’re not one of us,” began someone else. Pitt looked that one straight in the eye as well.

“I am not in your chain of command, no. But I suggest you consider how your chain of command will regard this breach of discipline. However your commanders may regard this unfortunate individual—” She glanced down at Hal, who was now moving a little, and groaned as if for punctuation. “—they are unlikely to agree that you had a right to corner him in the corridor and assault him. Discipline, not self-righteous, self-indulgent rage, is what enables military success, ladies and gentlemen.” That was almost word for word the lecture she had gotten as a youngster, one time when she and her fellow privates had ganged up on the fellow they suspected of being the barracks thief.

“What’s going on here?” came a call from down the corridor. Pitt recognized the tone of reinforcements with some relief.

“We need a Slotter Key Spaceforce medical team,” she said, without taking her eyes off the group in case they bolted. “And shore patrol from the following ships…” She read the names off.

“Trouble?” But that was followed by a murmur as whoever it was called for assistance; then he came up beside her, looked down at Hal, and whistled. “Well, this is a fine mess.” He was also in Slotter Key colors, and also had a
Bailey’s Reef
ship patch and as many hashmarks on his sleeve as Pitt.

He glared at the nearest Slotter Key sub-lieutenant. “Tell me you had nothing to do with this…” But the bruised knuckles told their own tale. He sighed. “Captain Angard is going to have your hide,” he said. “You know what she said at Orders this morning.”

“I was just so angry,” the sub-lieutenant said. “After all he did…and they weren’t even going to do anything about it…”

“With all due respect, sir, you were just so effing stupid.” He glanced at Pitt. “Excuse my language, Master Sergeant.”

“I’ve used worse,” Pitt said.

“I’ve called for medics and shore patrol. Captain says she’s on the way.” The sub-lieutenant looked scared now. Behind him, down the corridor, a unit of the Slotter Key shore patrol jogged around the bend, their armbands bright.

In just a few minutes, all the assailants were standing in a row against the bulkhead waiting for the arrival of their relevant officers, and a team of medics had turned Hal over, revealing the unlovely result of a multiperson beating…the flattened nose, the black eyes, the split lips, the lumps of bruises already darkening, and that was only what showed. Two bloody teeth lay on the deck; one of the medics scooped them into a jar and tucked it into his pocket. Under the uniform, Pitt knew, would be other injuries. He regained consciousness as they cut away his uniform, peering through the slits the swelling black eyes left him.

“What happened, sir?” asked one of the medics.

“Feh dowah ladduh,” Hal said, his speech slurred. Pitt gave him a point for that, at least.

“A ladder with a lot of people on it?” asked the other medic, grinning.

“Juth feh.” The missing teeth robbed him of the sibilant.

“Well, we’re taking you to sick bay…” The medics loaded him onto a gurney, and the gurney onto a scooter, then climbed on and eased away, tires humming softly on the deck. Pitt glanced at the
Bailey’s Reef
NCO, who was staring at the bloodstains on the deck, sucking his teeth.

“If you don’t need me—” she began.

“Captain’d like to speak to you,” he said. “She said if you would—”

“Of course,” Pitt said. “But I need to report in myself.” Easy enough by skullphone; she called her ship, explained that there’d been a little disturbance on the dockside, and she’d stopped it, but would need to wait for someone else’s CO to interview her.

“Is this something Admiral Vatta needs to know about?” the duty officer asked. “Trouble with the Cascadians, an alliance problem?”

“Not that,” Pitt said carefully. “But in the end, yes, she needs to know it. I’d rather deliver that report in person, sir.”

“Very well. Call if you need me.”

Ky Vatta maintained appropriate decorum, pleasantly refusing invitations to come to this or that home for a nightcap and insisting that she really did need to get back to her quarters. She said nothing to her aides on the way back to her suite. She knew they knew she was upset about something; she knew they would find out what it was all too soon, if they hadn’t heard already, and that was an additional humiliation. If Rafe had been there, she could have torn a strip off him…but he had not tried to catch up with her. Just as well. The person she really wanted to eviscerate was Stella, and Stella was an inconvenient distance away.

She acknowledged the salutes from the few uniformed personnel in the hotel corridors as she headed for the lifts.

“Would the admiral like anything—?” one of her aides said as the lift stopped.

“No thanks,” Ky said, summoning a smile. “I just have a few things to do before bed.” The aides stayed on the lift; Ky nodded to the guard at the door of her suite and entered, closing it carefully behind her, closing the second door that shut off the little entrance foyer.

Even then she did not do what she felt like doing, which was screaming and smashing something. Jaw clenched to keep from the screaming part, she undressed carefully, hanging her evening dress uniform on the rack provided, where she could push it into the antechamber for the cleaners to take care of.

Damn Rafe. Damn, damn,
damn
Rafe. How dare he? How dare Stella talk to Rafe? How dare Stella read that letter, which she herself had so carefully forgotten? How dare anyone remind her…and to see Hal again, in that context, with everyone around. She yanked the pillow off her bed and threw it at the mattress, a trick she’d learned as a child—it made no sound or mess. She showered, brushed her teeth…she was still too angry to rest. She went into the suite’s office area.

Unlike either the bridge or the CCC, it had no shipboard ansible…she’d forgotten that. It did have a terminal for normal ansibles, though, and that was all she really needed. She put through the call to Stella’s office up on the station, managing a pleasant tone as Stella’s assistant answered and until she had Stella on a full-visual link.

“So how was the reception, Ky?” asked Stella. She looked relaxed, happy, and completely unaware of the trouble she’d caused.

“You disgusting, nosy, interfering bitch!”

“What?” Stella stared, eyes wide. “What do you think I’ve done?”

“Don’t play innocent! You poked around in my desk is what you did. You found the letter…you found the
ring
! And you couldn’t even keep quiet about it. You told him—you told
Rafe,
of all people, and probably everyone else—”

“I did not,” Stella said, coloring. “I told Rafe, yes, but he was the only one—”

“You had no
right
!” Ky’s head throbbed; she felt like throwing up and smashing the screen and bursting into tears, and she must not do any of those. “You had no right to tell him—to tell anyone—least of all him—”

“It was for your own good, Ky,” Stella said. “He’s…he’s not safe. He’s not the right man for you. He needed to know that you’d been hurt, and I didn’t want you hurt again—”

“I am not a fragile blown-glass flower,” Ky said. “And it’s none of your business who I like, or who I choose to be with—and anyway, maybe it’s just that you want him back. Maybe it just stuck in your throat that for once beautiful Stella didn’t get what she wanted and Ky did—or would have if you hadn’t ruined it.”