Haze, page 5
“Level Three.”
“Proceeding with transfers, Pilot.”
One step at a time, PrimeOne links the actual controls of the ship to Dan’s input jacks. He will not be aware of it during jump, but a portion of his cortex will be steering the ship in response to what his altered perception sees and feels out in the light.
“Ready, Pilot.”
“Over to me.”
He hears a click and the soft chime of a bell. The view changes.
Dan counts down the distance in his mind. Closer, closer still. Five, four, three, two, one …
“Now!”
The ship leaps in the perfect simulation of jumping forward and upward that gives the process its name. The stars disappear, the black sphere follows them into invisibility, and the ship itself fades away, taking his body with it. Dan rides the light—not that he is still Dan in any meaningful sense. The light itself shines gold, but in it blue streaks mark the currents and eddies of the “flow,” as pilots call it. Dan chooses a streak that appears stable and lies down on it—or rather, lying down is the only analogy that might apply.
For some while, that may or may not be time passing, the ship and the-Dan-who-has-melded-with-the-ship move forward, riding the blue light. All around them the golden light spreads out to a far infinity that no one will ever reach, while in the blue streams, currents form, swirl, and fade away.
The choice, the critical choice, comes next. Dan’s streak of blue light is running side by side with other streaks. They weave and dodge through dangerous eddies and swirls as they plunge onward. Far ahead, Dan sees a faint darkness that draws all the blue streaks toward it, spinning them, twisting them together, releasing them to spread apart again. Dan picks out the one current that runs straight and true. With a sidewise twist and a burst of speed, he joins it, melds with it, rides it as the darkness grows ahead.
Another sphere, as glossy black as obsidian, swells as it rushes toward them. Five, four, three, two, one …
“Now!”
PrimeOne drops him a level without waiting for an order. They have arrived in the serene dark with its floating stars. “Pilot, can you still function?”
“Yes. Level One.”
The stylized Map appears with its lines and dots. They have come through, and their destination lies some six hours cruising speed away. Dan can feel his body again, his shirt soaked in sweat, his skin aching with cold. One at a time, the AI breaks the links to Dan’s jacks and resumes control of the basic piloting functions. With each break more of his being and consciousness return to him.
“Time passed in shunt?”
“By my calculations, Pilot, 2.5 solstandard hours. The cesium clocks functioned perfectly.”
During the shunt Dan had no perception of time at all. Now that they’re out, he remembers the interval as lasting maybe twenty minutes. Shunt time shrinks, pilots say, like a piece of ice in hell.
“PrimeOne, inform the bridge that we’ve completed the shunt.”
“Very good, Pilot.”
His own words startle him. We have completed. I have completed. Oh god in heaven, we did it. I did it. I mean, well … shit! He starts to laugh, sits up, tosses his head back, and keeps on laughing.
“Pilot, Pilot! You are malfunctioning!”
Dan controls himself with a couple of deep breaths. “No, PrimeOne, I’ve never functioned better in my life. I need to report in to the bridge.”
“Should I call Chief Devit to assist you?”
“No. I need to walk out by myself. I need to walk out like the man I used to be.”
“I do not understand.”
“You don’t need to. I’m not sure I understand it myself.”
Dan puts on his boots, gets up from the bench, and manages to walk to the waiting elevator, He leans against the back wall for a moment’s rest while it rises. When the doors open to the bridge, he walks out on his own. “Jump successful, ma’am.”
Evans looks relieved. “Well done, Brennan. Go shower and eat something. PrimeOne and I can manage to find the planet without you. Chief Devit, you may leave the bridge.”
Compared to the long distances between planets in a stellar system, stargates lie close to their anchor planets. They exist beyond the edge of that planet’s gravity well along a line that runs through the planet’s center of mass perpendicular to the ecliptic of that system. To reach gates or return to the planetary spacedocks, ships cruise on thruster power for a varying number of hours. Reaching RE914-4th will take the Mary just over five hours at full thruster power and another hour to decelerate into a safe orbit—time enough for Devit to give Dan the attention he needs.
Devit sincerely approves of one feature of the merchant ship: their sleeping quarters. Or cabin, rather. He remembers the early days of their love affair and its frustrations. Where to get time alone? Only on shore leave was it safe. Onboard a standard Fleet ship, Devit would be sharing a narrow stateroom with three other noncoms. Dan would share with another junior officer in a slightly less narrow room. In this cabin, instead of sleeping one above the other on a narrow rack and sharing a WM down the corridor with several dozen other sapients, they sleep side by side in an actual bed, and each have a chair and their own WM unit.
As soon as they get in, Devit gives Dan his Haze tab. Dan has just enough time to take off his boots and lie down on the bed before he begins to drift off. Once Dan becomes somewhat conscious again, Devit will help him clean up. In the meantime, he takes the nearby chair to get some work done before they berth.
A discrepancy is nagging at him. Someone sabotaged the Scout ship heading for Morrison’s Star. When he first heard about that attack, he searched what records were available to him, but he could find no specific information about other attacks along that route. Now that he has access to PrimeTwo through the earjack, he can get a thousand times more data, not that all of it will be relevant.
PrimeTwo raises no objections. It apparently dislikes being a backup. “When I was brought online, I was set up to be active. Waiting for a possible emergency is not activity. I am a Prime, not a Research Unit!”
“Very true. Let’s see if the onboard archives have what I need. First search. Attacks on ships traveling to or from Morrison’s Star in the past five solstandard years.”
It takes only a few seconds for the AI to bring up a list and transfer it to Devit’s PL. In the designated time period, one large merchanter ship beat off a pirate attack. One small merchanter was taken for ransom by a group called the Blood Vigilantes. They demanded newsvid time to publicize their cause—a rebellion, as they called it—against the Throwback-dominated Fleet. They did give the crew back once they’d gotten what they wanted, but they kept the ship. Twelve other small ships disappeared, either taken by pirates, the most likely explanation, or lost in jump space. The most recent attack was the sabotage of Scout 724.
“No other attacks on Fleet ships?”
“None, Chief. Shall I widen the time period?”
“Not in detail. Find this answer: Did pirate attacks on all types of ships suddenly increase, and if so, when?”
“Yes. The first occurred six years ago. Before then there were none.”
“Next question. How do supplies and shunt message packets reach the Repositories?”
“A private company, the Morrison Line, has those contracts.”
“I see that none of their ships have been attacked by pirates in the last two years.”
There is a pause, a searching of data. “Yes. Two years ago they received a special dispensation from the Rim Council to operate two armed escort ships. One of these ships accompanies each commercial vessel to the stargate. I am sending the specifications of the escorts to your PL. Their commercial ships also have standard armament.”
Devit checks the specifications data. The escorts carry enough hardbeam laser cannon to deter a pirate vessel, especially if they act in concert with the armed ships they’re guarding.
“These escorts …. How did they get into private hands?”
“No company would continue to service the Repositories without some sort of protection. They feared the Blood Vigilantes as much as the pirates. In one report I have accessed, the sentence “someone knew what codes to punch in” occurs. I do not understand this phrase.”
“It means bribery. The company paid someone on the Council to get their deal done.”
“I have filed that data in my banks. The report goes on to state that the escorts are under supervision by the Fleet. Their armaments are checked at the Fleet Main Base on Central every solstandard year.”
“Sai, things make more sense now. A Scout might be able to handle a pirate attack on its own. A Scout and one of those escorts could handle anything a pirate could throw at them. So they—whoever wanted to stop the ferry mission—tried sabotage instead. PrimeTwo, another question. That list of attacks mentions one unsuccessful pirate raid on a big merchanter and then a ship hijack by the Vigilantes. Find details of those two events. I need descriptions of the hostile ships. The one that attacked the merchanter and the one manned by Vigilantes for the hijack.”
“I have found the required data. The incidents were widely reported on newsvids. Do you want the visuals sent to your PL?”
“No. Direct to the holo screen in this cabin.”
The holo screen clicks and displays a pale fog, which divides horizontally to display two images of military starships, taken broadside—long cylinders with a bulky conical bridge compartment at one end and a lump of the engine room at the other. In between would be the crew compartments, and somewhere deep inside, the pilots’ pod. Once they would have been sleek and formidable with gleaming armor. Now their skins are pitted, much mended and scoured by debris, but they still sport cannon turrets like stray hairs at regular intervals down their length.
As Devit studies the images, he spots some interesting details. Too many of the marks and blemishes match on both ships.
“PrimeTwo, can you zoom in?”
The screen changes to a close view. The ships have different ID codes embossed on their sides, but Devit finds what he suspects. On one, the outer hull’s plating under the ten-meter-high symbols of the ID has been melted smooth, then allowed to solidify, leaving little shiny dots and streaks between the numbers and letters of the brand-new code. They are the same ship, not two different vessels.
“Looks like a former Class Four destroyer, decommissioned from the Fleet maybe a hundred solstandard years ago. It must have changed hands a couple of times since then.”
“You are correct, Chief.”
“Are the ID numbers of ‘both’ vessels registered?”
“No. They appear on no registry. They are both false.”
“This ship was used to carry out two raids. The first was the piracy. The second was the hijack. Can this question be answered? Did the same crew carry out both raids?”
“I can find nothing but speculations. The most common speculation is that the Vigilantes hired the ship and crew for their mission.”
“That’s got to be expensive.”
“No firm data exists. However, the probability that the cost was high is over 90 percent. Addendum: Changing the registry numbers on the ship would also be expensive.”
“You bet. Very.”
And just who’s paying for all of it? Devit sees no reason to waste his breath asking that question. Anyone with that kind of money bought their privacy along with the jobs.
“Last question. Have the authorities made any progress in finding the planet or dock system that is the home base for these raiders?”
“No. The only logical speculation is that a hitherto unknown stargate must exist near the location of these raids. No one has been able to find this gate. Gates do not seem to be visible by any ordinary means. The territory in which a gate might exist is extremely large. Not even a starpilot could locate it from a distance.”
“True. It’s not like anyone could see the damn thing even if they were passing right by it.”
A realization hits Devit like a slap. No other starpilot, maybe, but the one pilot who could see a new gate from meld is lying sprawled, and mostly naked, on the bed beside his chair.
Dan has one arm bent over his face to hide his eyes. When Devit turns the holo screen off to spare him the light, Dan lets the arm fall back by his side. His eyes are half closed, but he looks at Devit for a moment and smiles before fading back into the Haze.
After Devit ends his session with PrimeTwo, he leaves the cabin and makes his security circuit for the Designated Night Hours. He goes down the sky tunnel that connects the ship to the dock; checks the airlock at the tunnel’s far end; double-checks the cables and hoses bringing the dock’s power, water, and air to the Mary’s berth; returns and checks the inner airlock. Back on the bridge, he makes sure each station’s been put in proper lockdown. He’s just finishing when a yawning Captain Evans steps out of the elevator. She will check the command station herself.
“All secure, ma’am.”
“Noted, Chief. You can go off duty now.”
“Thank you.” Devit hesitates before he continues. He and Evans have served together for over twenty years, both in peacetime and in combat in the H’Allevae Wars. The demands of strict protocol between them tend to fall away, but there are limits. “Permission to speak freely, ma’am?”
“Of course. About Brennan?”
“Yes. We’re sharing a cabin. He’s an officer. I’m not. Is this acceptable to you?”
“I would have said something before this if it wasn’t.”
“But regulations—”
“That’s why your official assignment is Brennan’s personal bodyguard.” Evans looks away with the glazed expression that indicates her function has brought up a document. “Here it is. Section 9-B. This assignment requires Designated Day twenty-four-solstandard-hour duty.” Evans blinks and dismisses the document. “If anyone tries to report you for fraternization, I will point out that Brennan is essential to our mission’s success, and you are essential to Brennan’s safety.”
“Thank you, ma’am.”
“The Fleet’s always been somewhat flexible about this issue. It’s one of the few rules it is flexible about. The Kar-Li influence, I suppose, with those chaotic marriage packs. Perhaps that’s one reason why that wretched admiral thought he could coerce Dan and get away with it.”
“And Dan paid for it, not him.”
“Exactly. An outrage all around. Very well. Finish your security check, and I’ll do mine.”
Devit checks the habitation decks before he returns to the cabin. When he comes in, Dan is moving in his sleep, maybe dreaming, maybe simply seeing things that aren’t there. Devit gets undressed and lies down. In his drugged sleep Dan whimpers. Devit turns toward him and gathers him into his arms.
For some days, Lieutenant Santreeza has been working on a full security review on the enormous Special Ops AI system. By accessing shadow files and partial data remnants, she finds the evidence that shows that some unauthorized person has been trying to gain access to the area devoted to the stargate rumors mission. Could that someone be the mole who found the information about the Scout ship that was sabotaged? As a top grade security specialist, it’s her job to find out. She’s discovered a fragment of an authorization request that includes two numerals of a staff ID number but no indication of where in the standard twelve digits of such ID they might lie.
“FleetOpsA, are you online?”
“Yes, CyberOp. Fully operational.”
“Scour this location again. Look for stray letters of the TechSpeak alphabet.”
“Working. I have found an F in close proximity to the two numerals. I cannot find any others.”
“Double-check. Is that capital F or small f?”
“Capital F.”
“Excellent. Now bring up personnel rosters.”
Scant evidence, but Santreeza knows how to use it. She calls in Captain Dal to see the final results. “Ned Ferst, new employee, recently got a bad review. I’ve gotten into his Bureau phone log. He has a couple of unauthorized contacts, one yesterday, Planetary Time.”
“Keep going, Santreeza. I’ll put our action team on alert. We should probably bring him in for an interview.”
“He’s not on-site. Let’s see what I can find. I’ve got his contact’s name, but no details. Yet.”
In a solstandard hour, Santreeza has everything they need to get warrants from the Bureau’s tame judge, one warrant for Ferst, the other for the contact, Karski, an employee of an interstellar shipping company called Speed Shunt. The two of them have arranged a meeting this afternoon in a nearby public park. When the three-person action team sets out, Santreeza stays in the office and watches with Captain Dal through the security cameras that the team members wear.
In the slightly blurred and faded images, the team meets two local police officers. Together they troop across the green lawn to a park bench where two men are sitting, apparently having an intense conversation, since neither notice five uniformed officers heading straight for them. They never move either.
With a sick, cold feeling Santreeza realizes the truth just as the team captain reaches them. The image moves into close-up. Their smiles aren’t good humor, but mouths twisted in rictus. The normally brown skin of their faces and hands has turned a deep burgundy from the underglow of suffused blood.
“Oh shit. We’re too late.”
“It certainly does look that way.” Dal gets up with a small shudder down his flexible length. “Well, I won’t need to supervise an arrest. Whoever these two were working for, they’re apparently quite serious about covering their tracks.”
“They sure are. I’ll log off.”
“Write me a report, and I’ll review and comment for the brass upstairs. I’ll have the action team interview staff here to see if we can find Ferst’s motivation. And see if you can dig up more data on Karski.”
