“This is Mr.—” Bren hesitated, trying to keep it social, ridiculous as it all felt, and he wasn’t sure what level of inanity might just be too much. “Didn’t catch the name, sir.”
“Esan,” the agent said, giving the two occupants his long, flat stare.
“Mr. Esan,” Bren amended the introduction, stupidly cheerful. “Mr. Esan, here, is giving the ship the once-over before we do the formalities. Captain Sabin’s on station doing whatever’s necessary. Captain Graham says I should just tour him around.”
The two crewmen weren’t stupid. And in this corridor of all corridors they’d likely gotten cook’s warning and knew they were the lucky people to deal with a ticking bomb.
“Glad to meet you,” one said, and moved forward to offer a hand.
Esan flinched, oddly enough. Didn’t take the offered hand. Then did, as if the crewman were holding something objectionable… or contagious.
Well, well, well.
“Benham,” the crewman said, doggedly cheerful. “Roger Benham.” He indicated the second, younger man. “My cousin Dale. Welcome aboard, Mr. Esan. It’s good to meet somebody from Reunion.”
“Hard voyage?” Esan asked.
“Oh, average,” Benham said. “Glad to meet you. Esan. Aren’t any Esans aboard.”
“We all took to station,” Esan said grimly, and walked out.
Bren stayed with him. Kept cheerful. And stupid.
“Much the same with the rest of this?” Esan asked—meaning the doors. Having found nothing subversive.
“All the same,” Bren said. “Well, except the storerooms. We can go back there if you like.”
“Bridge,” Esan said. He seemed to be listening to someone. Muttered a quiet, “Yeah,” to that someone at the other end.
“Yes, sir,” Bren muttered, wondering at what time something might go very wrong upstairs and Officer Esan might simply level that rifle and shoot him without warning. The policy decision on this one was more than the dowager and Banichi and Cenedi: Sabin might start something, if she sent word; and Jase might, if he decided he had to move. And something up on the bridge had clearly changed.
Suddenly.
“Back to the lift,” Esan said.
“Yes, sir,” Bren said, and led the way, beginning to think of the gun in his pocket, thinking if things had gone wrong up there he could prevent reinforcement—but getting his electronics up to that deck could give Banichi and Cenedi direct information about the situation. He sweated, trying to figure.
The lift was quick in coming. He boarded with Esan, punched in the bridge, and kept bland cheerfulness on his face, stupidest man alive, yes, sir.
Not a word. Esan was listening to something.
“What’s going on?” he asked.
“Meeting in the captain’s office,” Esan said.
“Yes, sir,” he said, deciding not to shoot Esan through his coat pocket. A meeting. His heart settled marginally and he was ever so glad he’d gotten that picture out.
The door opened, letting them back onto the bridge. “Captains’ offices are this way, sir.” He stuck like glue, his stupid, cheerful presence guiding the way.
The bridge crew was still pretending to work. They drew stares. The tension was palpable as they walked the short distance from the lift area, past the bridge operations area, into the administrative corridor. Jase’s men were there, Kaplan and Polano, armed, that was worth noting. Armed, but outside, looking anxious while Jase was, evidently, inside.
“Here’s where, sir,” Bren said, and Kaplan opened the door to let Esan in.
Jase was secure behind his desk. Two of the investigators were sitting in chairs in front of it, one standing in the corner. Esan made four.
“Mr. Esan, is it?” Jase rose and came around the corner of the desk, offering a hand. Esan confusedly reciprocated.
Then Jase turned a scowl, aimed at Bren. “Mr. Cameron.”
“Sir.”
“Out!”
No question. Bren ducked back for the door, fast as any offending fool.
Jase stalked to the door in pursuit. “Cameron, you stupid son of a bitch! What the hell are you doing?”
A bewildered investigator started to intervene. But Jase shoved Bren back hard, dived out after him, whirled and hit the door switch as the man tried to come out.
The door shut. The investigator had skipped back: security doors meant business. Kaplan immediately hit lock .
And that was, if not that , at least an significant improvement on the ship’s onboard situation.
Bren let go his breath. Jase straightened his jacket.
“Good job,” Bren said shakily, and in Ragi. “The intruders are now contained in Jase’s office, nadiin-ji.” He was astonished and relieved, quite astonished at himself, and Jase, and Jase’s team. He didn’t know what precisely what they were going to do about the morsel they’d just lodged in their collective gullet, but they’d defended the ship from capture. They’d won. Themselves. The human species had won one.
Jase gave an approving glance to Kaplan and Polano: “Well done. Well done, gentlemen.” Pressman, the third of Jase’s men, appeared from a little down the corridor, out of Ogun’s office, with a rifle.
“Any word coming from Sabin?” Bren asked.
“No,” Jase said sharply. “Her signal’s quit. And these bastards aren’t getting off this ship until there is word.”
Not good news. Not at all.
“Everything all right down on crew level?” Jase asked.
“Everything but third-shift crew stewing in their cabins.”
“We’ll fix that,” Jase said, and led the way back into the bridge area, into the middle of the bridge. “Cousins,” Jase said to all and sundry on the bridge, “the problem is now contained. C1, kindly continue jamming any output or input from station. Then give me contact with my office, intercom image in my office to monitor thirty-two, with audio.”
“Yessir.” C1 cheerfully punched buttons, and began the process.
Jase picked up a handset and thumbed in a code. “Gentlemen.”
Bren stood by, watching the monitor, on which one saw four armored station agents battering the office door with rifle butts—and asking himself how, if they had begun jamming, they were going to hear from Sabin at all.
They would not, he feared.
“Mr. Becker,” Jase said.
Battering stopped. The group looked at the desk.
“Our captain’s signal has ceased,” Jase said. “You are now jammed, gentlemen. Turn in all armament and electronics and cooperate with Phoenix authority, and we’ll negotiate for your return to your own command. The same authority that established Reunion in the first place is now in charge of this station, and will be in charge, and I advise you not to disarrange my office, gentlemen, since I may be judging your case.”
Bren earnestly wished he had a tap into what Jase received on his earpiece.
“That’s all very well, gentlemen,” Jase said, “but you’re on our deck, this ship maintains its own rules, and I don’t give a damn about your local regulations. Turn over your weapons and peel out of the armor. To the skin. You’ve far exceeded your authority and my patience, and unless I get a direct countermand from the senior captain, not likely under current circumstances, the lot of you are under close arrest.”
One man moved. Leveled a gun at the door and fired. The sound reached the corridor.
Jase punched one more button. “Kaplan? Fire suppression, B4.”
The view on screen clouded. Instantly.
The intruders had, Bren recalled, masks among their body-armor. They surely had internal oxygen. They surely were going to use that resource, fast.
“Gentlemen,” Jase said, “I’m going about other work. Advise me when you’re ready to comply with instructions. I know you’re on your own air. But we can keep the office in fire-suppression for the next century or so. And if you do succeed in breaching that door, gentlemen, be assured you’ll walk into worse. Would you like to negotiate at this point? Or do you want to be carried out after your air runs out? Because I’m prepared to hold out until the next century, but I don’t think you’ll last near that long.”
Bren didn’t hear what the men answered. But Jase seemed grimly pleased.
“C1,” he said, “take precautions, condition red.”