Galaxy's End: Book One Page 26

  “Two ships emerging,” Bert snapped.

  The woman wrinkled her brow and said, “What was that?”

  “Two ships have emerged,” Bert said louder.

  “Not you,” the woman said. “I’m speaking to the captain of my frigate.” She blanked the screen and shut down the audio.

  Captain Stone allowed herself to smile. She knew the woman in charge had just received the same information, a few seconds after Bert had made his announcement. Stone waited. The woman would set up the link again. Soon.

  The screen filled with the agitated woman. She said without preamble, “There is no way you could predict the emergence of those two ships, let alone when. Yet, you did it precisely on time.”

  Captain Stone said, “I would like very much to meet with you in person and provide all the information I have.”

  The woman glanced down at her dressing gown and then back at the screen. She nodded and allowed a slight smile. “As our valued guest, of course. I’ll have that destroyer escort you and one of my shuttles will bring you to meet with me and my staff, if that is agreeable, Captain Stone.”

  Before she could agree, the screen blanked again as the connection was terminated. She imagined the flurry of orders from the woman to her staff and others. Stone realized the woman had never identified herself. However, she had signed off after using her title and name, a measure of respect not provided to prisoners.

  Stone looked down at the bright green blouse Kat had purchased at the spaceport, the too-baggy pants, and shoes with bows on the instep. Before the meeting, she intended to find something more presentable to wear and that would entail the dead captain’s cabin.

  Bert pinged and said, “It appears both ships were taken captive without incident. All four are following us. I believe both were boarded and are traveling with Bradley Concord officers on their bridges. Ahead of us is a complex built for constructing spaceships, all military. We are heading for a habitat constructed from what appears to be a small moon or exceptionally large asteroid.”

  “Anything else of interest?”

  “Perhaps fifty warships in various stages of construction.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Kat

  I still couldn’t get Chance off my mind. He was hiding information. At least twice, he’d attempted to use his empathy powers on me. Not only did I resent it, but I was also angry. His revelation of making a person do something against their beliefs, background, or wishes, wore on my mind. It was always in the background of my thinking. It went against all I had believed.

  Bill still sat across from me. We’d ordered more red and brown ice cream more as an excuse to remain close to each other than because we wanted to eat it. Bert remained quiet, understanding this was not the time to discuss Chance.

  “Problems?” Bill asked as he paused while the bowls were delivered.

  I said, “Too many to talk about.”

  “Tell me the worst and we’ll go from there.”

  It was a perfect answer. Just like Bill to go right to the heart of what bothered me. When I told him, he’d try to explain how I should handle it if he couldn’t fix it himself. That was not what I wanted. Or needed. All I wanted was an ear to listen.

  Chance had spoken to me in the way he would have if I were his young daughter, not as if I had the power of life or death over him. While I didn’t have that power specifically, I certainly had input. Right now, my input was to shove his butt outside the ship and let him suck in a few breaths of vacuum.

  Okay, I calmed myself. I wouldn’t ask for that unless his overbearing manner placed the ship in danger. Even then, I didn’t think I could do it. But all that didn’t mean I was any less angry or upset.

  Changing the subject, I said, “You like it here. This ship, I mean. It’s old and too small for humans to be comfortable.”

  He shrugged. That was evasive and made my anger tic upwards another point. I said, “If offered a position here, would you take it?”

  Bill placed the spoon on the edge of his bowl as if realizing the seriousness of my question. He said, “What about you?”

  “That was not the question!”

  He clenched his jaw and growled, “I was not asking if you would accept a job without me, I was asking if you were also offered a position. We’re a team. Where you go, I go.”

  What a friend. I loved the guy.

  I tasted my ice cream and then said, “Why don’t you go back to work? I have some thinking to do.”

  He stood and walked away. Again, he knew exactly what I needed.

  I sat and reviewed every word of the conversation I’d had with Chance and examined it for hidden or underlying meanings. Bert could replay it, but that might confuse me. There were hints and traces of unknowns in his talk. Not humor, but almost funny. Like when a child tells his parents something that is almost correct—but not. Like when they say they can read but only know a few letters.

  Parts of the conversation were slipping away but I trusted my memory to single out the important parts. The obvious things like forcing people were not what I wanted to remember. Nor that he was from the planet I’d spent a few years on. And he’d murdered one of the crew. Those were huge. Impossible to forget.

  No, it was something else.

  He had described how his family, all his children, and even his wife, were held, hostage. To do so, the mysterious employer made him kill a sentient being. That item bothered me, true or not. The explanation implied others knew of his empathic abilities and had made use of them. That was the problem I had. Who were those people and how did they know?

  There had been the statement and then he quickly moved on in the conversation. If that were true, and he cared for them, he would be worried that since he hadn’t completed his assignment. His family would be punished or killed.

  There should have been tears. Threats. Anger.

  However, there were none of those.

  The steward approached and asked if I wanted more ice cream. Looking down, I found it had melted, but that was not what I wanted. I said to her, more of an order than a request, “Take me to where the crew cabins are. Now.”

  She flinched, then turned, and almost fled out a side door with me at her heels. It didn’t take long. She came around a corner and said, “All of us are in this passage, except for the captain, of course.”

  “Which one belongs to Chance?”

  She pointed.

  The door was unlocked. I entered alone and found the cabin smelled of a man who didn’t bathe as often as he should. Or perhaps it was the pile of dirty uniforms in a sloppy pile in one corner. But I was not there to judge.

  The cabin was like others. Small, cramped, and built for a race slightly smaller than humans. The walls of his cabin were bare. No magnetic picture frames of his family. The dresser top displayed three bottles of colognes. No photos.

  “Bert, can you tell me where his personal computer or tablet is?”

  “His wrist com is on him but deactivated when we arrested him. There is another tablet inside the cabin, to your right.”

  I moved right and found a shirt tossed over it. “Bert, open his wrist com and search for photos of his family.”

  “On it,” Bert replied.

  The tablet was locked. Bert did his magic, and I was able to access it. There were no photos of anything. The tablet had barely been used. However, there was a link to his financials. We wouldn’t be able to look at them until we left the wormhole and entered three-dimensional space.

  Bert pinged to announce himself. “No photos, no personal messages.”

  I searched his tablet for messages and found only shipboard communications, duty assignments, and such. It was as if he didn’t have a personal life.

  She located a locked and encrypted file. “Bert, can you help me with this?”

  Before he could answer, she forwarded the file. A ping sounded as she poked around in the few drawers and locker. Bert said with a chuckle, “Why bother to lock and encrypt a f
ile if you use a standard algorithm a child can access? The file should be back on his tablet because I sent it to him. Interesting stuff.”

  I opened the file and found Bert was right. There were pictures and videos. Plenty of them. Many were of attractive nude women and unless he was married to a few hundred of them, they were not his wives.

  What was more interesting were the images of a green world with soaring trees and deep blue lakes. A resort floated on the lakes. There were more servants than occupants, the resort was luxurious. The brochures had five stars across the top. Each lake had a different theme for its resort.

  The offerings were spectacular, imported from faraway worlds, along with the most beautiful women I’d ever seen. The only thing more spectacular than the individual resorts were the prices, so high they were almost boasting of the outrageous expense.

  The last brochure I opened offered a lifetime membership in glowing print. The number displayed for the cost would buy most of Roma. I asked Bert, “Are you looking at what I am?”

  “Yes. And I have an interesting item for you. The data in the tablet shows the file you are looking at was accessed three days before we departed Roma—and again two days ago.”

  “What else?”

  “An inquiry for availability was sent over a month ago. Three days before we departed, a “confirmation” was received and forwarded for payment to a bank on Cisco.”

  So that was what Chance was concealing. He had a secret bank account and already paid for a lifetime membership in an exclusive resort. After killing the captain, he only needed freedom long enough to buy passage to Altera. No doubt he had secured several bank accounts enough to pay for that ticket.

  No wonder he was smug.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Captain Stone

  Inside the cabin of the dead captain, Stone located his clothing locker and withdrew several uniforms, all too large. However, in a drawer, he kept insignia, most with four bars incorporated in the design. Four bars were for a captain. She chose several and moved on to the crew’s quarters where she found a steward about her size.

  She said, “I need clothing for a meeting with the military, so something official-looking. Where can I find it?”

  “I’m Sheila, Captain. Let me show you what we have.”

  The steward went to the laundry and opened a locker filled with uniforms to fit almost any body shape or size. The uniforms were primarily pale blue, with pinstriping down the outside of the legs, arms, and front seam. Sheila eyed Captain Stone and selected one. It fit almost perfectly. Captain Stone placed the handful of items displaying the four bars of a captain on a table.

  Together, they pinned on a gold decoration, turning the plain uniform into something a little gaudy and official. Sheila prevented the captain from using too much, telling her, “Sometimes, less is better.”

  Kat arrived and they created a uniform for her, including a few pins that didn’t have the captain’s bars but were no less impressive. She chose one with a wreath of leaves and little rubies set inside the middle. The former captain had probably kept them from his old uniforms as he rose in the ranks.

  Despite the woman’s help, they didn’t discuss their plans until alone in the small docking bay beside the cargo hold. Captain Stone said, “I don’t know how much time we have, but here’s the basic plan. If I point to you with one finger, I want you to give the person across from us a gentle mental push. You’ll know from the conversation what I want them to decide. Two fingers mean a stronger effort. Three is all you got. I do not intend to use any, but one finger will be my limit unless we are in trouble.”

  Captain Stone looked at Kat and gave her a confident smile.

  Kat said, “This is a lot like holo-vids adventure, isn’t it?”

  “Yes, with the exception that if you don’t like it or fail, you may die.”

  Kat returned the smile and said, “In one of those holo-vids, the hero said, ‘this is a good day to die.’”

  “He was lying.”

  The vibration of the shuttle linking up was between a shudder and mild collision. Captain Stone knew she must look irritated at the sloppy helmsmanship and did nothing to hide it. Even though it was technically not her ship, there were rules and one of those rules said that you never banged into another ship. Not even a shuttle.

  The airlock opened and two marines leaped out, rifles at the ready. A lieutenant in full-dress royal blues strode out behind. He was young, handsome, and well-mannered. He pulled to a halt a few steps away, saluted, and said, “I am Lieutenant Anders at your service. The admiral sent me to escort you, Captain Stone. This way if you please.”

  He bowed at the waist slightly and used an arm to indicate the way to the airtight hatch a few steps away as if they didn’t know how to exit their ship. Stone returned the salute formally and moved ahead of Kat, whom she didn’t bother to introduce.

  After Kat followed her, the pair of armed marines reentered the shuttle. Inside was a wide-bodied tube of maroon leather sofas, carpet, and cream-colored trim. A closed door led to the flight deck.

  Captain Stone took a seat and Kat settled next to her. Stone noticed that Kat hadn’t yet taken her eyes off the lieutenant—and understood why. He was a looker. Tall, thin, blond, and very human. His actions were formal and his smile quick to appear, especially when it was in her direction.

  He said, “The trip will take a few ticks. If you have any desire for refreshments or other needs, I’ll see to them.”

  Kat said, “Something to drink?”

  “Can you give me a hint? We have a fully stocked bar.”

  Captain Stone was prepared to glare at her protégé if she ordered a stim or alcohol, however, Kat said, “Water will be fine.”

  The lieutenant turned to a steward who was barely within sight and nodded. Captain Stone glanced around and found the marines had also disappeared but would be willing to wager a year’s wages they were watching everything from nearby.

  Her eyes went to the viewports along the sides. There were several ships in various stages of construction. The flash of welders came from the framework of one, a new destroyer if she didn’t miss her guess. A warship. Others had completely enclosed hulls and she imagined swarms of workers inside installing electrical, plumbing, partitions, doors, and of course, weapons.

  Knowing the lieutenant would be reserved or silent on answers, she asked, “Was the woman I spoke to earlier the admiral?”

  He nodded.

  “I didn’t catch her name.”

  “Swain. Admiral Susan Swain, perhaps you’ve heard of her?”

  Captain Stone shook her head. “I’m sorry, I haven’t. Should I have?”

  “Perhaps not, I guess. Word of our little war probably has not traveled far, but she is quite well known on both sides.”

  “For her expertise in battle?” the captain asked innocently as possible. She knew one wrong question would bring the already limited conversation to an abrupt halt.

  He waved a hand dismissively as he said, “Not really. It’s her ability to avoid direct confrontation and attack at her leisure. She is rather proud that her fleet avoided all major contacts and when they did choose to fight, it was swift to attack and swifter to retreat. She always has a fallback.”

  “That sounds smart,” Kat said.

  The lieutenant leaned closer and spoke proudly, “She has the lowest ratio of lost ships on either side while destroying the most.”

  Kat went wide-eyed. “That must be hard to do. To have the lowest losses and the most kills at the same time, I mean.”

  “That’s why they made her an admiral at such a young age,” he said pompously. He paused and spoke as if they were old friends. The tone changed slightly as he asked, “Your message said you came with information that would help us win our war.”

  “We did.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Kat glanced at the small shake of Captain Stone’s head. “I think that is a topic for my captain. And your admi
ral.”

  “Well then, tell me how you and your captain came to be in command of a ship registered to a company that has never heard of her?”

  Captain Stone gave another small shake of her head. They had used a subspace message to do a background check. Now, the lieutenant was fishing for additional information he could relay to his superior. Captain Stone curled a lip. “That’s a stupid thing to do, you know.”

  Both faces revealed the same shock at her abrupt statement. The lieutenant muttered, “Stupid?”

  “Yes, stupid, and just like the traditional military. Pull your best commander out of the field and promote him or her to a backwater assignment to build ships. Disgraceful. She should be out there with a fighting fleet at her back, using the skills that eventually got her pulled from the job she performed so well.” Captain Stone crossed her arms over her chest. “Perhaps if she was not so good at battle strategy, she would still have a fighting command.”

  The lieutenant said stiffly, “Our admiral is respected by all. The work she does here is especially important to the war effort.”

  Captain Stone thought that his words were exactly what he’d say if she were here with them, confirming her suspicion. She realized the admiral was probably listening to the conversation to get an advanced read on who they were before they met. The lieutenant was trying to ease things over, knowing what was happening.

  She was not having it. “Respect is one thing. Leadership another. If I was in charge of your war, she would be in the front lines where she could win the damn thing.”

  The lieutenant stood as if lost and looking for an escape. His eyes fell on the door to the flight deck.

  Captain Stone was not about to allow that to happen. She snapped, “How long did it take her to recall you from whatever assignment you were on and dress you in that pretty uniform? To do that, you had to return to your quarters, clean up, dress, and then meet with her to get your final instructions. You had to launch this shuttle, which means gathering the crew and instructing the marines in their duties. During that same time, she could have already sent a shuttle to bring us to her. Without the fancy escort and easy conversation.”