Virtues of War (8 page)

Katja robotically recited the OOW turnover report.

“In position Sirius one-seven-three million, sub-Cerberus one-zero million, bearing true three-four-niner mark four-one. En route to land in
Normandy
, ETA 0900 in fifteen hours.

“Primary contact of interest is Centauri frigate desig suspect one-eight, bearing true zero-four-zero mark one-zero-five,” she continued. “She’s inbound from the jump gate, destination unknown. We’ve had no contact with her, but if you use the strike camera you can get a visual. Orders are to observe her, but not interact unless provoked.

“Other contacts of interest include merchant ship one-seven, the
White Star
—” She pointed at the contact on the 3-D display, “—maintaining her course and speed en route to Laika, and
Kristiansand
, who is remaining on station to track her mystery ship. She dispatched one of her Hawks, Viking-Two, about eleven hours ago, and it’s due to land in
Normandy
in thirty minutes.”

“Lucky bastards,” Breeze said. “That was just about our time slot, wasn’t it?”

Katja frowned. “Yeah. But I think it was best that we did the boarding—Hawks are a little under-equipped.”

“Fair enough.”

“No evolutions are scheduled for your watch,” Katja continued. “When you read through the messages, take note of
Kristiansand
’s summary of her hunt so far. I think their mystery ship might be connected to what we were looking for on Cerberus. All ship systems are nominal, although fuel, food, and oxygen are all below thirty percent. Our anticipated levels upon return to
Normandy
are all below twenty percent, and the captain has advised Command that we are not capable of doing another unscheduled operation.
Rapier
is on a course of one-niner-eight mark three-one-five, speed five-zero-zero.”

Breeze repeated the course and speed back as a formal acknowledgement of the handover. “On a course of one-niner-eight mark three-one-five, speed five-zero-zero, I have the watch.”

“NavO has the watch. OpsO has a date with her rack.”

Was that a joke? Wow. Katja must be tired. Throughout their entire fast-attack training course together, Breeze had only ever seen her smile when she was punch-drunk with fatigue. Tired people did lots of strange things, but Katja’s thing had been to make un-funny jokes. It hadn’t endeared her to anyone.

Katja put her console to standby, gathered up her warbags and released from her straps. “I’ve organized the recordings from our boarding, just in case you want to review them for anything I missed.”

The thought hadn’t even occurred to Breeze. But considering Katja’s record for ignoring important details, it was probably a good idea. “Thanks. I’ll skim it tonight and take a more thorough look again tomorrow when my eyes aren’t glazing over.”

“I’m pretty confident we got everything. At least we didn’t pull out early this time.”

Breeze refrained from comment. Frustration still gnawed at her regarding the botched Cerberan strike. It would have been her first big bust, and she had been pleased with how well all her research had come together to point at that particular farm on Cerberus. To see it wrecked by a trigger-happy butch who couldn’t follow the simplest instructions was almost too much to take.

“Agreed,” she said finally.

To be fair, though, it wasn’t Katja who had ended the strike early. As
Rapier
circled low for another pass over the farm, the panicked voice of one of the locals sending out a distress call came through loud and clear while the strike team had been chasing down the suspect. Thomas immediately ordered the withdrawal—prematurely, in her opinion. There had still been plenty of time to send the strike pods back to the farm.

She’d read his final report, and had been surprised at how much blame he had placed upon Katja’s actions. Not that Breeze disagreed, but she hadn’t expected such an obvious example of covering his own ass.

She heard Katja push herself out of her seat and move aft. “Have a good watch.”

“Thanks,” she said. “Sleep well.”

The hatch opened and closed behind her, and she was alone.

It was still a novelty to her, having charge of a Fleet warship. It certainly wasn’t something she’d sought out, nor was it something that particularly interested her in the long term.

She had done her stint of line officer training during the year-long selection phase, but that had been more of an introduction to the basics of space travel. Never had one of the cadets been given anything close to real responsibility. The entire summer had been a fire hose of astrophysics and relativistic theory combined with ancient traditions and stratified codes of conduct. It had been preferable to the brutality of strike officer introductory training, but even so it had solidified her decision to go into Intelligence.

And yet, here she was, with charge of a Fleet warship. Alone on the little bridge, with no one at hand but herself to fly the ship, conduct communications and, in an emergency, fire the weapons. It was very different from being a support operative, and even after two months Breeze failed to understand the appeal.

She scanned her displays again. Fuel and oxygen were as low as Katja had reported, and approaching critical levels. If
Normandy
needed another fast-attack mission, she would have to scramble one of
Rapier
’s sister ships,
Sabre
or
Cutlass
.

Yesterday the ship had been en route back to
Normandy
when Breeze had noticed a merchant ship in the space lanes, headed for Laika. The Centauri-flagged
White Star
was in fact on the vessel-of-interest list. When she had reported it, to her dismay, Command had responded with orders for
Rapier
to board the vessel.

Thomas had immediately redirected them along an intercept course, and sixteen hours later the strike team had conducted an unopposed boarding. Four hours of searching had revealed nothing of interest, and
White Star
had been cleared to continue on her way.

An extra twenty-four hours in space and nothing to report. Combined with the fruitless strike against the Cerberan farm, it had rankled her all the more.

Breeze pulled up the message file and read through the Fleet traffic that
Rapier
had received in the eight hours since her last bridge watch. Most of it was routine logistics and intelligence—nothing that concerned
Rapier
directly. She paid closer attention to the report from
Kristiansand
. A civilian ship outside the space lanes, running silent and near-invisible.

Most interesting.

This could be evidence of Centauri meddling in Sirian affairs. After the Sirian Wars—known throughout the Astral Force as the Dog Watch—Terra had issued a decree instructing the colonies to stop selling arms to any of the Sirian factions. And yet, somehow, the warlords still seemed to find a way to rearm, often with Centauri-designed, robotic weapons.

Astral Intelligence had long suspected the Centauri government of weapons running, but evidence was difficult to find. Years of patrolling the space lanes within both Centauria and Sirius hadn’t provided any proof of direct involvement, despite a huge increase in commercial shipping between the two systems every year.

Until now. Possibly.

Individual ships were nearly impossible to find in the vastness of space, except for the fact that ninety-nine percent of all civilian craft
wanted
to be easy to locate, and carried standard beacons. A wide range of electromagnetic transmissions helped to pinpoint them, as did energy signatures from propulsion drives. Besides military vessels, the only ships who actively tried to hide in the depths of space were pirates and other criminals.

Breeze tried to keep her mind objective, but a growing excitement welled inside her as she realized that she might just have stumbled across proof of Centauri arms smuggling. Provided the Centauris didn’t interfere.

What was that Katja had said about a Centauri warship?

She studied her 3-D display and located the yellow “suspect,” called up the standard information on the contact and realized that it was actually going to pass fairly close. Leaning forward in her chair she peered out through the bridge windows, curious if she could see it unaided. There was nothing obvious, but a single bright star caught her eye.

She activated the strike camera and locked it into the coordinates of the Centauri frigate. The camera searched the depths of space for several moments, then centered on a tiny, brilliant point of light. A quick manipulation revealed this particular star to be a sleek, gleaming spaceship. Unlike the dull, charcoal-colored Terran warships, Centauri warships reflected the light of Sirius off their silvery hulls.

Breeze zoomed in as far as her camera allowed, and studied the unfamiliar curves of the foreign frigate. She was suddenly very aware of her ignorance of the Centauri fleet. Terra’s oldest and largest colony had ships of varying sizes, and they were referred to generically as cutters, frigates, and battle cruisers.

She recognized this one as a frigate only because the report identified it as one. It was an attractive design, all smooth curves, again quite unlike the imposing, brutish shapes of Terran ships. Even in their instruments of destruction, the Centauris had style.

Breeze remembered seeing the first “Centauri-style” buildings being constructed in Lorient when she was a child, and even though fashions had moved on the Centauri architecture had a timelessness to it that kept the buildings popular. Centauria had long been admired for its harmony with nature.

During her two years in the diplomatic corps, Breeze had met a fair number of Centauris, and despite their government’s strange obstinacy against Terran diplomatic initiatives she had considered most of them quite impressive as individuals. Of all the colonies, Centauria was the only one truly competent to sit at a table with Terra as a respected partner—it was their insistence on being treated as a sovereign equal that caused the problems.

Breeze tried to zoom the camera in further, but the magnification was maxed. It was frustrating to be so close to an actual Centauri warship and not be able to get a better look. She recorded a few images, but knew even as she did that they would be practically worthless to Intelligence.

Relaxed in her seat, floating loosely against the straps, she ran her hands down her long braid and glanced idly at the various readouts on her console. There were no evolutions scheduled for her watch, nothing to keep her busy for the next four hours. She thought about reviewing the boarding, as Katja had suggested, but she couldn’t muster the enthusiasm.

Her thoughts clouded over with the fact that she had just spent the better part of a week on this crappy little ship, enduring the way-too-intense Katja and condescending Thomas. Risking her life to make the intelligence find of the year, and they were coming home with nothing.

She stared at the fuzzy picture of the Centauri frigate again. It looked like one of the brand-new class, first spotted by Terra only this year. A good close-up look would definitely be of value.

That, at least, would help redeem a crappy week.

She studied
Rapier
’s intended flight path, and realized that if she altered course to port she could significantly reduce the closest point of approach. Maybe bring them close enough to get some good images and an EM signature recording.

The captain’s standing orders gave her, as OOW, the freedom to adjust course by fifteen degrees either side of the intended flight path, generally for contact avoidance. She did a quick projection.

That would be enough.

So she took the ship out of autopilot and slipped her hand over the control stick. Ever so gently, so as not to create an obvious acceleration, she turned
Rapier
’s nose to port. The starscape beyond the windows drifted right and the single bright star moved toward the center of her view. Her fifteen-degree limit prevented her from pointing right at it, but it became clearly visible up ahead.

Locking the camera onto the frigate, she began digging through her control screens to figure out how to start recording on
Rapier
’s limited EM sensors. By the time she’d figured out how to capture and record emissions from the frigate, the image in the camera had grown considerably.

She puzzled over the EM sensors for a few minutes, trying to make sense of the readings. At first there were only a few standard emissions—a beacon, an anti-collision radar, a coded transmission. The transmission was a lucky catch—the super-computers in
Normandy
might be able to break it down.

Breeze smiled. This was gold.

Then another emission lit up her sensors. It was strong, and focused in a tight beam. She glanced at the monitor, and was surprised to see the Centauri ship filling the screen. She zoomed out further. Its aspect had shifted again as it got closer.

Flashing on the 3-D display caught her eye. A glance revealed that the Centauri frigate was now on an intercept course with
Rapier
. Peering through the bridge windows, she could clearly see the tiny, bright object shining in the blackness. She looked back at the monitor in time to see a pair of shining orbs separate from the frigate and disappear from the camera’s view.

Her stomach knotted in sudden fear. Had that ship just launched something?

Two new objects lit up on the 3-D display, the computer taking several seconds to assess them as suspect.

They were closing on
Rapier
fast.

“Oh, shit.”

S
he fumbled for her warbags, tearing open the emergency spacesuit as she unstrapped from her seat. As she floated free in the bridge, she pulled herself into the suit, yanking herself back down as she sealed it around her neck.

Then she grabbed her helmet and keyed the general alarm.

The jarring
bong-bong-bong
sounded throughout the ship for eight seconds, enough time for Breeze to snap her helmet in place and strap into her seat again. Then she hooked her helmet into the ship’s broadcast.