She didn’t like it, but my word as ship’s master was law. Olivia was too adult to huff off, slam doors or otherwise give into her temper, but she was equally clearly unhappy with my caution.

  I spent my down time with Maauro. She had decided on another special dinner, again with crew morale in mind. I got out of her way with a promise to return later to help set the table.

  Meanwhile, I had curled up with a book and some light music on the bridge, when I heard Delt in the corridor behind the bridge.

  “God damn, stubborn, ill-tempered….would have to be the best-looking –” he stopped when he saw me.

  “So,” I said, “you have a spat with Olivia?”

  He snorted. “Who, me, and the poster girl for the Confederacy? How did you guess?”

  “Well you were talking to yourself about best-looking, I assume female, and that leaves: Maauro, spoken for, Rainbird, cute enough if you like tattoos, but that would be fast work even for you. And I don’t think Jeiwan is feeling up for romance yet. So, Olivia?”

  “Good detective work,” he said, with a grimace.

  “Don’t tell me you were lured into talking politics?”

  “Not by choice, that girl is Confed Blue through and through. Didn’t this come up between you two?”

  I shrugged. “I was actually in Confed service when she met me. I never talked to her about Retief and I am not sure how much she was briefed about me before the mission, but she never brought it up. You won’t run into many people better at keeping a secret than Olivia.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Well I’d had about enough of her mouthing off about Retief, rebellion and about how dangerous you two are.”

  “She trying to convert you?”

  “As if,” then he ran his hand through his mop of blonde hair. “I don’t think that she is really trying. She’s just scared of Maauro.” He paused, and gave me a frank look. “Are you ever?”

  “No. I know you think that is just reflexive and because I love her. You’re partly right, but I didn’t answer without thinking. Maauro is a great power in herself. I recognize it.”

  “Wrik, I like her too, but I’m only beginning to realize the full import of what she is, a planetary level supercomputer in a body that is, if not indestructible, is damn tough. I mean she’s as cute as any girl I’ve ever met, so much so that I am frankly envious of you, but there’s really no limit to what she can do: control ships, planetary defenses, explode reactors, turn off an entire world’s climate control, like she almost did to the Voit-Veru. She doesn’t want to rule a world, but what could stop her if she decided to?”

  “I suppose she could,” I replied. “Her greatest power is her ability to master any computer systems she encounters. She’s only grown since I met her on the asteroid, as she learns more of our technology. It’s only ever a matter of time before she can infiltrate any system. That’s the main reason we were able to stay free of the Guild and as free as we are with the government.”

  “And you never worry about it.”

  I laughed. “Well, for the first few hours after we met, I wasn’t sure I was going to draw another breath. Remember, I saw her before she changed into her cute Maauro appearance. After she broke free of her original programming, well I just was never worried about her doing anything bad. Hell, even before that she was only dangerous if attacked.

  “Somehow I guess I always knew that she was good and could be trusted.” I shrugged. “I can’t tell you where that certainty comes from. It’s just there.”

  Delt again ran his hands through his hair again, a gesture I knew from our teenage years.

  “You have doubts?”

  “Not many, Wrik, but I’m not madly in love either. I want to trust her the way you do, and I have never met anyone I liked more on such short notice. Hell, I’d trust her with my life any day. But trust her with civilization itself? That’s harder.”

  “I can’t help you with this one, old friend,” I said, desperately wanting him to believe as I did. “You have to come to that certainty yourself in your own way.”

  Delt gazed at me, then his blue eyes unclouded. “You know I wouldn’t let anything happen to her.”

  “She’s honorary Ncome commando after all,” I said.

  “Every damn bit of it,” Delt agreed with a surprised look. I’d never brought up the name of our old squadron casually before. “I feel better since we talked.”

  “So…” I said, “Olivia?”

  “Guess I will just have to put up with her politics. After all, the only other beautiful girl not tied up with Confed is spoken for.”

  I thumped him on the shoulder.

  Dinner proved as successful as Maauro could have hoped, even Cully cheered up. With other Marine’s onboard, Olivia had returned to the brisk, no nonsense Major Croyzer. Still, she and Delt seemed back on friendly terms.

  “That was as good a meal as I have ever had,” Cully finally said. “I usually like to jump on an empty stomach, but for this food I’ll take the chance.”

  “Ok,” I said. “Everyone not on KP, start getting ready for jump. This should not be a bad one from the records. Just keep your meds handy. Maauro will check everyone and issue a packet at jump minus thirty.”

  Dusko, seemingly glad to have Marines to boss around, took care of clean up and I prepared the ship for jump, as Maauro readied the crew.

  We jumped into the system, which despite its short duration out of space-time, only fourteen days galactic, proved surprisingly unusually hard on the stomach despite the records from previous jumps.

  Fortunately, there was no threat near the edge of the system. Only a new Fetch was waiting for us. We rapidly refueled and reprovisioned from it, knowing the orange and white sled would be defenseless when we left. We did not have spacesuits enough for all the Marines. Cully took mine and there were two others that could be modified to fit Rainbird and Lacy. The Marines all confessed bemusement and wonder at Maauro working alongside them unsuited, but appreciated the help.

  “We could send Monean back now,” Cully said, after they came back aboard. “There are six cyrotubes aboard.”

  I had looked at Maauro. “I think it would be best to hold that off until we are going out-system again. There may be other people we want to send, further reports, or samples. Once we dispatch the sled, we are on our own again.”

  She nodded. “Agreed. With the Lieutenant in stasis we do not have disruption to contend with. I would prefer to send the entire Marine team back if we can. We will move the sled further insystem with us rather than leave it here. I do not want it to accompany us, it would use up fuel, but a slow inward fall should remove it from the zone of danger and make it available to us. For now, let us again take aboard all we can.” She smiled and headed back to the airlock.

  So now I stared out the portal looking at Maauro perched on our ship’s nose. I still hated her being outside the ship. We’d been inbound for two full days after refueling and reequipping. The sled had only basic instruments, so it could tell us nothing, but conditions local to the jump point. It would have recorded the emergence of a ship, but likely its instruments would not have registered the monster we feared.

  I began to wish that they’d had the foresight to bring torpedoes along but had to admit it would have been a risk to entrust atomic warheads to a defenseless sled. About this point, I would have settled for a conventional warhead.

  “Wrik,” Maauro’s voice came over the speaker. “I’m coming in.”

  “Got a chill?” I teased, watching her stand, her hair spinning in and wrapping in its accustomed place.

  “No, a contact.”

  “What?”

  “Please do not alert the others. I want to talk to you first.”

  Moments later she stepped through the interior airlock, still radiating both the chill of deep space and that bacon smell that clung to objects exposed to direct space.

  “I am warm enough to hug,” she said, after a second. I obliged happily. She sighed with pleasure and snuggled under my chin.

  “What did you detect?” I finally asked.

  “I have picked up the echo of intraship communications, too degraded to reconstruct. Taiko was and may still be here.” Her face now held a pensive look.

  “That’s good news,” I replied, troubled by her expression.

  “It is. As with all news, it has many sides. To this point, all has been harmony in our mission. But Olivia has been sometimes troubled by our caution, our deliberate pace, always restocking at the Fetches and our use of cruising versus battle speed. Were she in charge, our safety margins would be far less.

  I nodded. “She is a Marine. Hey diddle-diddle, straight up the middle.”

  She smiled. “If by that you mean that she is inclined to aggressive action with a high risk tolerance, I agree.”

  “It’s more poetic the way I said it.”

  “In any event, if Taiko is discovered, it will alter the dynamic here.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “I control the ship,” Maauro said. “Delt and Dusko are ours. Olivia has followed our lead without dispute. She has had to. If Taiko is here, that may change. She will have more assets, perhaps decisively so.”

  I studied Maauro. “You suspect her of something?”

  “No more or less than usual,” Maauro replied. “You are my priority and I am yours. Olivia has a different agenda; she serves the Confederacy first and foremost. It is the thing that keeps us from being truly networked. Given a choice between our interest and theirs, she will choose theirs.”

  I hated the truth of that. I’d fought beside Olivia and liked her. Hell, I’d made love with her. It hurt to believe that I couldn’t trust her, at least not beyond a certain point. It was also good sense.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked.

  “What we came here for. To find Taiko, gain intelligence on this threat and, if possible, destroy it. But we are Lost Planet and she is not. We must always be the ones in control of our destiny. Of how much, and how far, we risk ourselves. After all, humans are your people, and serving the Confederacy serves our interests. For now.”

  “Yes,” I replied. “Neither of us wants to risk our freedom.”

  She nodded. “Just so. I am not urging any course of action against her, or anyone else, but I never forget that Candace’s first reaction to me was that I would be best off in a Confederate lab, possibly as parts. There is technology in me that wars would be fought over. Only the certainty that I would inflict appalling damage on the Confederacy prevents their trying. But here we are alone, in the great dark, with a Confederate warship and an operative I respect too much to ever take lightly.”

  “Agreed,” I said. “I presume you relayed some of this to Dusko.”

  “He follows my orders. I am the greater power in his mind.”

  “I’m hesitant about talking to Delt. I’m as sure of him as I can be of another man. But…”

  “But Olivia is among the most beautiful of women, and in at least the beginning of a relationship with him.”

  “Relationship is overstating. The find each other fun, but neither of them is the type to settle into a relationship with one person. Olivia’s career is her first love. As for Delt, well I’ve never know him to stay more than a few months with any woman. Still I wouldn’t go to him unless there was a real case to be made.”

  “He will not hear a word against her?”

  “Not unless there’s evidence.”

  She nods. “Hopefully there never will be. Shall I inform the others of the contact?”

  “Yes, call everyone to the galley. It’s the easiest place to get them all together.”

  Maauro’s voice sounded from the ship’s speakers. “All Stardust crew and passengers to the galley.”

  “And you didn’t even move your mouth,” I said, as we headed out.

  “I’m a woman of many talents,” she replied.

  “Oh?”

  “Perhaps you will see some of them later.”

  “Sounds intriguing.”

  When the others arrived, Maauro told them of the fragment of code she had detected. “It is a single degraded incomplete character. It could have come from Taiko or from some other vessel that passed through here recently. As unregulated as Piola Sector was, it’s impossible to say.”

  “No one else pushed this far out,” Olivia said.

  “No one,” I said, “who reported it. But wildcatters, guild ships and free traders trying to hide any finds they made, may well have.”

  “How do we find a warship that is actively hiding in an uncharted solar system?” Olivia growled, looking out of the bridge at the hard white stars as she tapped her fingers.

  “Not used to looking for ships, Ground pounder?” Delt said.

  “I’ll pound your head in the airlock door if you call me that again.” There was no heat in her voice, and the look she gave him was merely playful.

  “No need to be embarrassed,” Maauro added from where she stood also examining the stars. “You are the only one without a deep space certificate.”

  “I can fly,” Olivia responded, with what I felt was touch of sullenness.

  Maauro gave her a curious look. “So you can, but your and Delt’s skills are primarily aerospace.”

  “And,” Delt said, waving a finger. “I had a deep space certificate when I was military. Shouldn’t have let it lapse.”

  “Given that it was a Confed certificate,” I said, “it might have been hard to do in the middle of a rebellion.”

  “Always Mr. Picky-Pants,” Delt said.

  Dusko looked at Olivia, who was silently fuming. “It’s like this all the time around here.”

  “But to answer your question,” I intervened. “We have been scanning with passive sensors as we head inward. We’re going to air-brake using the super giant Maauro discovered yesterday. Since we lost the Fetch to the Beast, I judge it best to go back to our old fuel scrimping ways.

  “The question is where to search and do we go to active sensors, which would tell anyone and anything in the system that we are here.”

  “While the distances are vast,” Maauro added, “there are only a few logical places for the cruiser to be. We saw no sign that she was near the inbound jumppoint, either orbiting or as wreckage. There appear to be only two planets in what humans rather curiously call the Goldilocks zone. Both are marginal at best though.

  “Because we do not know how often Taiko jumped, or where it may have been in its voyages, we do not know how much relative time she has spent out of the universe. However, even a long-range cruiser such as Taiko must be nearing her operational radius maximum, especially if she has engaged in multiple combats with the Beast. The only way to enhance her operational time would be to resupply with raw materials on a terrestrial world.”

  “Wouldn’t it be faster to go to active sensors and start broadcasting a call to Taiko?” Olivia challenged.

  “It would,” Maauro answered, looking out at the stars.

  I held my chin in my hand and leaned against the table, massaging tight jaw muscles.

  “You’re unhappy,” Olivia said. “I recognize that gesture.”

  Maauro’s head snapped around, and she stared at Olivia, who did not appear to notice. Delt looked at them both, puzzled.

  “Yes,” I said. “Once we go active, anything here will know we’ve arrived. As for probes—we only have the pair. They’ll auto return to the ship, but only if we don’t have to do an extreme maneuvering while they’re out. No scoutship really counts on recovering probes and we have no way of getting more. Like torps, they aren’t on the Fetches.”

  “So it’s a commitment and risk,” Olivia pressed. “But we are here to find the cruiser and either gain intel on this threat, or end it. You have a tendency toward the slow and safe, Wrik.”

  “I do,” I replied, trying to keep an edge out of my voice, “because we’re one small, lightly-armed ship far from home. We probably don’t get more than one mistake, if that.”

  “Too much caution impedes the mission,” she replied.

  “So does dying.”

  Dusko snorted a laugh.

  “After we decelerate at the gas giant, may be the best time to deploy active sensors and the probes,” Maauro said.

  “If there is a threat here,” Olivia said, “wouldn’t it be better to learn of it before we dump speed for entry into the inner system?”

  I looked at Maauro, but she said nothing, and I realized that she was leaving the decision entirely to me.

  “OK,” I said, “active full scan, deploy the probes and start broadcasting a call to Taiko now. If we are going to raise our EM signature that much, might as well go full out.”

  “In for a penny, in for a pound,” Delt quoted. “Kinda glad we are through with the sneaking around stage.”

  “Good!” Olivia said. “When do we start?”

  Maauro gave her a cool look. “Active scanning commenced when Wrik said so, as has the message to Taiko that we are here. I am uploading best course options for our probes as fast as they can take it. Launch in 2.3 seconds.”

  “Oh,” Olivia said

  There was as small shudder. “Probes away,” Maauro said. “Nothing on active scan, but I would not expect a contact for many hours. While we have narrowed the search zones, the area is immense, assuming that we have narrowed them properly.” She resumed sipping her tea.

  Hours passed, as did dinner and the myriad tasks of keeping our small envelope of air, heat and food operating even in a ship with Maauro’s AI and her rarely seen bots, working to keep us spaceworthy in the bowels of the ship. Finally, Maauro and I turned in. Though in a ship with an ever watchful AI monitoring every instrument onboard, there was no reason to set watches, I knew Delt was on the bridge, working as usual on his deep space First Mate’s certificate. Olivia was probably there too, or in the gym, prowling the deck like a frustrated tigress.

 

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