Part 49 (1/2)
Jim's hair was in wild disarray, but he looked handsome in it. She took his arm. ”Is something wrong?” he asked.
”Don't know,” she said.
”Would coffee improve whatever it is?”
”Couldn't hurt,” she said.
In the main room of the suite, Amos and Bobbie were talking about methods of unpowered travel, each of them subtly outdoing the other and both clearly aware of it and having fun. Alex grinned to her and Jim when they sat at the breakfast bar, and then poured them both demita.s.ses of slow-pouring espresso with thick brown creme at the top. Naomi sipped, enjoying the heat and the rich complexity hidden inside the bitterness.
”You're looking better,” Alex said.
”Feeling better. Thanks. Bobbie, the missing s.h.i.+ps you were looking for. They were all MCRN, right? Navy?”
”s.h.i.+ps. Weapons. Supplies. The whole thing,” Bobbie said. ”I guess we know what happened to them now.”
”No colony s.h.i.+ps, though?”
The big woman frowned. ”I wasn't looking for any.”
”What's up?” Jim asked.
Naomi swirled the espresso in her little bone-colored cup, watching the whorls form and vanish in the low gravity. ”The missing s.h.i.+ps come in two flavors. Military vessels from Mars that the Free Navy have now, and then colony s.h.i.+ps that went missing on their way out to new systems. And I make sixty, maybe seventy percent matches with the Free Navy s.h.i.+ps to old military records. I can't find one match with the missing colony s.h.i.+ps. I can't see a pattern in what systems they were going to or what they were carrying. And I don't know what hijacking them could have gained for Marco.”
Amos made a low grunting sound in the back of his throat.
”Yeah,” Naomi said, as if the sound had been words. ”Something in the ring gates is eating s.h.i.+ps.”
Epilogue: Sauveterre
”I have a tracking number,” the captain of the little freight s.h.i.+p said for what had to be the sixth or seventh time. ”I have landing papers and a tracking number straight from Amatix Pharmaceuticals. I know the s.h.i.+pment arrived on Medina six months ago. I have a tracking number.”
Sauveterre sipped smoked tea from a bulb as he listened. He would have preferred whiskey from a gla.s.s, but he was on duty and the Barkeith was on the float. The first did for the whiskey, the second for the gla.s.s. Granted, the captain's office was private and he could have done whatever he pleased. And, he supposed, he did. Keeping to his duty was a more pleasing thing for him than whiskey, which was as it should be.
”Sabez you got a tracking number, Toreador,” the voice from Medina Station said. ”Amatix, though? Esa es Earth-based. No Earth-based companies on Medina.”
The Barkeith was a Donnager-cla.s.s battles.h.i.+p. A small city in s.p.a.ce, run with machined precision and capable of turning not only the little freighter but Medina Station to particles smaller than grains of sand. But it and the rest of Duarte's fleet were waiting for permission from traffic control on Medina to proceed through the next ring gate and begin the second, stranger leg of their journey. It was an overabundance of etiquette on the fleet's part, but there were reasons for that. Not the least being the general reluctance to use heavy weapons too near the alien station that hung inert in the vast non-s.p.a.ce between the rings. They weren't ready for that to awaken again. Not yet.
A light knock came at the door. Sauveterre straightened his tunic. ”Come.” Lieutenant Babbage opened the door, bracing with a handhold on its frame. She looked anxious as she saluted. Sauveterre let her hold the position for a moment before answering her salute and allowing her to enter.
”I have been en route for ten months!” the captain of the Toreador shouted. ”If the colony doesn't get this s.h.i.+pment, they're f.u.c.ked.”
”Have you been listening to this?” Sauveterre asked, nodding toward the speakers.
”No, sir,” Babbage said. Her skin was ashen under the brown. Her lips pressed thin.
”uzgun, Toreador,” Medina Station said. ”You need to dock for medical, wir koennen -”
”I don't need to dock for medical! I need my f.u.c.king supplies! I have a tracking number that puts them on your station, and I will not -”
Sauveterre cut them off and took another sip of tea. ”They've been going more or less like that for the better part of an hour. It's embarra.s.sing on their behalf.”
”Yes, sir.”
”Do you know why I wanted you to hear it?”
She swallowed her fear, which was good, and her voice didn't tremble when she spoke, which was better. ”To demonstrate what happens when there is a breakdown in discipline, sir.”
”The end point of it, anyway. Yes. I've heard you violated dress code. Is that true?”
”It was a bracelet, sir. It belonged to my mother, and I thought...” Her voice trailed off. ”Yes, sir. That report is true, sir.”
”Thank you, Lieutenant. I appreciate your candor.”
”Permission to speak freely, sir?”
Sauveterre smiled. ”Granted.”
”With respect, sir, the dress code was MCRN regulation. If we are going to enumerate transgressions against code, there are some larger ones that might also be worthy of examination. Sir.”
”You mean like being here at all.”
Her expression was hard. She'd overplayed her hand, and she knew it. It happened. Embarra.s.sment and the childish need to stamp her feet and say it wasn't fair. He wouldn't have gone there in her place. But since it was on the table, it was on the table. No way but forward.
”We are in a time of flux, that's true. With the elected government failing its obligations, Admiral Duarte has taken authority and responsibility for the fleet on himself. I, following the chain of command, am carrying out his orders. You, also following the chain of command, are expected to follow mine. This is an independent initiative of the fleet. It's not a free-for-all.”
”Sir,” she said. She meant Yes, sir, but she hadn't said the yes part.
”Do you know what happens if I write you up for your failure to follow fleet discipline?”
”I could be demoted, sir.”
”You could. If things continued, you could be drummed out. Removed from duty. Dishonorably discharged. Not over this, of course. This is small, but if it became large. You understand?”
”I do, sir.”
”If you were discharged, what do you think would happen?”
She looked at him, confused. He gestured with his free hand, a sweep that gave her permission to speak.
”I... don't...” she stammered.