Shades of Dark (39 page)

Sully pulled up the chart on the large viewer over the nav station. Three of Baris’ four quadrants were generally deemed “respectable,” with Fleet or commercial stations dotting the spacelanes. Six stations in all, including Corsau, which had at one time been Baris 5. The world of Garno straddled the A-B like Dock Five did, but on the opposite axis.

It was Dock Five’s end of the axis where the problems were. That’s where we were headed. Right through the Five-Oh-One, a small asteroid belt that had been mined out. It was a storm-prone area with dangerous magnetic fluctuations. Ships disappeared in the small wide darkness between the asteroids, never to be heard from again. Everything from plasma winds to black holes to corrosive particles was blamed. Reality, though, was often more mundane: pirates.

It was a region the
Karn
was familiar with. But that didn’t mean caution wasn’t advised.

“This was one of the first sections of the mining operation to be abandoned,” Sully was saying, using his lightpen to highlight a roughly spherical dwarf planet at the fringe of the belt. “There’s a refueling platform here with the usual solar arrays and a small cargo depot. They’ve been pretty much scavenged to nothing.”

“So why would Burke use this?” I asked.

“Because they’ve been scavenged to nothing. Between that, the storms, and the corrosion, it’s not a popular place. The depot probably doesn’t even have grav generators anymore. It wouldn’t be the most comfortable of stops, but it’s remote and defensible. You could do basic repairs or pick up supplies dropped off by a sister ship as long as no one else found the supplies before you did. It’s a good way to keep identities secret. The supplier might not even know who he sold the goods to.”

Sully touched a point deeper into the belt. “You could hang out here, blend in with the magnetic fluctuations and debris, wait for the supplier to depart, then slip in and get what you need.”

“The lab ship is scheduled for a pickup,” Del said.

“And what’s going to keep Burke’s lab ship from knowing we’re coming?” Philip asked.

Sully grinned. “Because we’re going to get there first.”

It would be two days at specs-plus-Sully, with Marsh keeping the sublights grinding at max, and Del and Verno switching off at helm every few hours so tired eyes and minds didn’t make mistakes. Based on Del’s information, that would give us a six-hour window to work with. That was not at all a comfortable amount of time. Ships did arrive early. If the lab ship did, then we’d have to pull back, wait for another chance to take it out while it was at dock somewhere else.

There was no way we could attack it in the lanes. It was as well armed and armored as a Fleet patrol ship.

It had been one at one time. Not a P-40 like my
Meritorious,
but the larger P-75.

Philip had his thumbs hooked in the belt of his hip-holster. He stared out the forward viewport. “If we could somehow get the
Nowicki
here by then…”

But we couldn’t.

“We can’t assume either,” I said, half-consciously drumming my fingers on the pilot’s chair armrest as a dozen scenarios danced through my mind, “that she’s going to sit at the depot, systems cold. I wouldn’t. Not in the Five-Oh-One. And since she’s a former P-class, she’s rigged to come online in a matter of seconds. She may have med-techs on board,” I added, “but I’ll bet you a bottle of Lashto in Garno’s best bar she’s got a top-trained command crew on her bridge. We come in, guns blazing, and they’re going to blaze right back at us.”

“A few torpedoes would be nice,” Sully intoned from the nav station. “I’d even forgo a new shuttle to have those installed.”

He looked at me, one dark brow slightly arched. He was not going to let that go, ever.

Torpedoes would work. But as he said, we didn’t have any.

Suddenly Sully leaned forward, elbow on armrest, hand open.

Good idea, angel-mine!

Good idea? Which one of the dozens of things in my head had he grabbed?

“Why destroy what we can use?” he said. “And this is Chaz’s idea, though she didn’t know she had it. At least, not quite like this.”

“The beauty of a
ky’saran
link,” Del said softly.

“Destroying the lab ship achieves our purpose, but we don’t know if there are innocents on board. Kidnapped Takas, for instance. As Chaz keeps reminding us, we’re not here to be murderers like they are. But more than that, we destroy the ship, we lose all the data. Names, contacts.”

“Proof.” Philip nodded. “So we don’t target them. We ambush them. We get to the depot first, wait till they dock, take the ship, crew, and data. I like it. I like it a lot. Of course,” he glanced slyly at me, “we don’t have a shuttle that we can—”

“The
Karn
can drop us off and go hide,” I said.

“Little more risky,” Philip countered.

“I’d rather have the
Karn
come back for us, ion cannons at full, than try to make a run for it in a lightly armed shuttle.”

“Not that we even have a shuttle in which to make a run for it.” Sully shrugged lightly.

I narrowed my eyes. “Mr. Sullivan. You’re pushing my buttons.”

“If it’s the button that activates your captain mode, I’m all for it.”

Del snorted out a laugh.

“See what you started?” I shot back at Philip.

This time he shrugged, hands moving outward in a classic “what did I do?” gesture.

I sighed. “Gentlemen.”

“Marsh, Verno, Ren, and Dorsie stay with the ship,” Sully said. “The four of us, we go in as a team. Two
Kyis
and two extremely well-armed and well-trained humans. Lady and gentlemen,” he glanced at the three of us in turn, “I see this as an unqualified success. We stop Burke, we gain data. And if we’re careful, we’ll even gain another ship.” He pointed to Philip. “Don’t discard your title just yet, Admiral Guthrie. We could be on our way to building you a fleet.”

Sully disappeared with Del shortly after that. Verno came on duty. I stayed on the bridge. Philip wandered in and out, waiting for something from Jodey, I was sure. Then Marsh showed up, shooing me out of the pilot’s chair. Sully was still nowhere to be found—out in woo-woo land somewhere. I sighed. I went to the cabin, stripped out of my coveralls, and threw on workout slinkies and an old thermal of Sully’s, and headed for the gym.

Fabulous smells were emanating from Dorsie’s galley. I heard Philip’s voice when I passed by. Two excellent cooks collaborating. Dinner would be good.

An hour later I was sweaty, pleasantly tired, and feeling very limber. I was looking forward to a nice shower but when I entered my cabin, Sully was at the deskcomp and Philip sat at my dining table with the datapad. Both looked up when I stepped through the open doorway.

“Anything I should know about?” I balled up my damp towel and tossed it in the direction of the bedroom. “Do I have time for a shower?”

“Yes and no,” Philip answered, motioning to one of the chairs at the table. “Sit.”

Sully followed me, brushing my forehead with a kiss before I sat. He leaned on the edge of the table.

Philip tapped at his screen. “Jodey’s going to try to give us some support. He’s three shipdays out of Dock Five, out in Calth. He’s been meeting with some high-powered political types who’ve abandoned Tage, including Senator Falkner. There’s very preliminary talk of an independent alliance, a new Admirals’ Council. Very preliminary. Jodey says at the very least he’ll do a meetpoint with us when the meeting is over. He also sent this.” He swiveled the datapad around so I could see it.

I scanned the verbiage and diagrams quickly. It was data on the
Kyi
-killer weapons. That was Philip’s area of expertise more than mine. I nodded. “Break it down for me.”

It was Sully who did, very succinctly. “A
Kyi
can’t use one. The backwash would kill us.”

“It was designed that way,” Philip explained, when I switched a look from him to Sully and back to him again. “Like the jukors, having minds that the
Ragkir
can’t control. These weapons,” he pointed to the rifle on the table, “can only be fired by humans. They’re supposed to be fatal to a
Ragkir
.”

“Supposed to be?”

“They’re still in the testing stage. And since three of their prototypes are now missing,” Philip grinned broadly, “that’s set them back a bit.”

I shoved the rifle away from Sully. “Don’t go trying to prove them wrong.”

“I don’t intend to. I can
feel
something in that power pack, Chaz, and it doesn’t like me. It’s the way they’ve configured some kind of plasma. I don’t even want to dismantle it on this ship to find out what it is.”

“What is Tage so scared of?”

“You really don’t know?” Philip asked. “It’s underlying more than half of the things Del’s said to us. The Stolorths want Baris back.”

I stared at him, a large noisy bell going off in the back of my head. I’d been so preoccupied with Del’s insidious seductions, I’d paid little attention to the political scheme of things. But the minute Philip’s words registered, I saw it all—from the moment Del brought me and Sully into the bar on Narfial. All his talk of the Serian royal family, their sacrifices, their devotion, their expertise in handling the matter of dozens of clans. His reminders that Baris had once been part of Stol.

I will be a prince again among kings.

“There’ve been rumors that the Stolorths have sought an alliance with Blaine. Let me guess. Something else Tage convinced Prew is fact.”

“There might be some truth in that,” Philip said. “Stol was a great power once, before humans came to this sector. Agreements made with the Empire over the decades in order to ensure free trade have harnessed that. But it’s only changed their apparent aggressiveness. Not their ability to be aggressive.”

I looked back at Sully. “And now Tage realizes there are human
Ragkir
. You can’t be picked out of a crowd, like a Stolorth. You could infiltrate his organization, he’d never know.”

Sully was nodding. “He wants me dead and buried. Probably every other human empath too.”

“But if it came down to it, would you ally with Stol?” Even as I asked the question, I knew the answer. He was Serian now by oath.

“Between Tage, Stol, and the Farosians?” he countered. “Where would you place your faith?”

I drew a short breath and closed my eyes briefly. There was no easy answer.

No,
ky’sara,
there’s not.

“What I get from Del,” Sully continued out loud, “is that Stol just wants Baris. The rim worlds and Aldan, humans and Takas can have. They want open trade. No embargos, restrictions like they have now.”

“But humans need access to Baris to get from Aldan to the rim in a reasonable amount of time.” Going around the Baris Sector meant huge fuel costs and much longer delivery times to the rim worlds and stations.

“I brought that up about five minutes before you came in, Chaz,” Philip said. “Some kind of agreement would need to be hammered out.”

“Like the deal Sully’s father and Tage and those others made behind the Council’s backs after the Boundary Wars? Locking in mining rights only to a few influential families that would also control ship production and through that, the movement of goods? So Aldan prospers and Dafir starves. What’s to stop that from happening again? The goodwill of someone like Del?”

“It will happen anyway. Tage is a chronic xenophobe. It’s the one thing he and the Farosians usually agree on.”

“There’s no solution, then.”

“There’s one.” Philip glanced from Sully to me. “Restore the old Admirals’ Council and give the Takans and the Stolorths seats on it. Make Fleet represent the entire system and not just humans.”

“Tage would rather die first,” I said.

Sully nodded slowly. “That could be arranged.”

That didn’t strike me as the perfect answer. “Then three others step up in his place.” I turned to Philip. “Why didn’t the Admirals’ Council see this coming?”

“Because official policy has been to lock out the Stolorths, not negotiate with them. I’m as guilty of that as anyone.”

I knew Fleet policy. I’d heard Philip spout it, as recently as when he’d intercepted Sully and me on the
Meritorious
. Stolorths were “them.” Mind-fuckers. Takas were cheap labor. I rubbed my hands over my face. We were a miserable, miserable species.

“I side with Jodey. We need a new Admirals’ Council,” I said, dropping my hands to my lap.

“And a new Fleet,” Philip said. “And then we need to pray that the Stolorths and the Takas are willing to forgive us.”

“If there are any left.” Sully poked the rifle with one finger. “Between these and jukors, we’re looking at extermination. Not negotiations.”

“And war,” I said. “We’re looking at war.”