There was an answering murmur from exhausted crew, all the while crew locked down, pulled down covering panels for the consoles, all calmly.
Small under-console panels divulged weapons. The bridge crew armed itself, hand-weapons, a few heavier, to defend the ship’s heart and nerve center if it got to that. Jase might have read his captain’s training out of a rule book, but damn, Bren thought, he’d learned a few things on the planet, and he was ice calm.
Bren’s pocket comm vibrated. He said, without taking the device out publicly in Jase’s domain, “One hears, nadiin-ji. One believes the ship’s personnel are managing the situation very well indeed. Wait.”
The lift door opened. Security personnel arrived, the ship’s few remaining, in full kit, with breathing assist and antipersonnel armament.
“Four Guild enforcers are occupying my office,” Jase said with a hook of his thumb. “Fire suppression’s engaged. Captain’s signal’s gone dead and they’re for security confinement. My personal guard is sitting on the situation. Assist.”
Ship’s integrity was the ship’s highest law. Ship was country and family, even if they’d had their bloody fights. And station admin was only a cousin-relationship, when it came to that. Bren didn’t say a thing, only stood and watched the security team, clearly ready for some time, head down the short hall.
The executive offices security door shut across that view, protecting the bridge from whatever unpleasantness might break out of Jase’s office.
Jase stood still, pushing the earpiece firmly into his ear. The spy-eye was still running, but the white fog inside the office gave way to thermal image. Four armed men, each in a corner, clear as could be.
The door to that office opened. A barrage opened up, anti-personnels bouncing all over—astonishing in a small space. There seemed to be a deal of wreckage. The intruders flinched, went down under a continuing volley of pellets that richocheted off every surface in the small office and hit from every angle.
Two attempted a breakout. Bren stifled a useless warning.
The two dropped at the door, netted and shorted out, in every electrical contact exposed. A third went down, in split-screen, clawing at a suit control that didn’t seem to be functioning, and a fourth tried to bolt.
Security netted that one, too, right atop the other two, a struggling lump. It looked like Kaplan who hauled that one out and up.
It was over. Won. Bren let go a breath. His knees felt the weight of hours.
“Got the bastards,” Jase said quietly.
The bridge crew breathed, too, shoulders just that degree relaxing—but they were still armed, still waiting for orders.
“You can let them out, C1,” Jase said. “Get additional security to do a fire-check and a bug-check down there. Let’s not have any lingering problems.”
Definitely learned in his time in Shejidan, Bren thought. Banichi would declare it a fine job. Not finessed, but certainly well ended. They stood there, watching the search on the monitors, and he took a moment to report.
“Nadiin-ji, one believes the local matter is now aptly handled. Jase-aiji has done extremely well. One regrets to report Sabin-aiji’s signal has ceased for some undefined reason, but the internal threat is under arrest and destined for detention. Jase remains firmly in charge of the ship.”
Doors opened. Armored, masked security, Kaplan, Polano and Pressman among them, by the badges, dragged their prisoners out, four net-wrapped men, stripped of armor and weapons—men who looked far smaller and less threatening, in disarranged blue fatigues stained with sweat.
“Have medical look them over, inside and out,” Jase said. “Then tank the lot and have a look at their communications.”
“Yes, sir,” the head of the second team answered, and bundled the problem out of view of the bridge, lift-bound.
“C1,” Jase said quietly.
“Sir?” Crisp and proper.
“Once they’ve cleared the lift, I’ll go down and address the crew on two-deck. And for bridge crew,” he said, raising his voice, turning to make it carry. “Well done. Good job, cousins. Continue measures in force, pending further orders. We’ll go to shift change very soon now, with thanks.”
Relief went through the bridge crew on the gust of a sigh. Arms went to safety, a scattered, soft sound.
“Restore the boards for next shift and we’ll carry on, cousins. That’s all. I don’t know how this is going to affect the senior captain’s situation, but we’ve got the ship rather than losing it. And if they’ve got the fuel, we’ll figure a way to work this. It’s clear they’re not going anywhere. Resume operations.”
Crew began putting weapons away, clearing the safety covers from consoles. The bridge began to normalize operations.
Jase’s face had been flushed with anger. Now the sweat broke out and the flush gave way to pallor. Bren remarked that. But Jase didn’t offer to go to quarters, and Bren himself didn’t move. His legs felt like posts. The adrenalin charge was trying to flow out of him, fight-flight instincts having incomplete information from the brain, which said, with complete conviction, You can’t quit. It’s not done . They had an alien threat at their backs and station had slammed a stone wall down in front of them.
“Prisoners are secured in medical, captain.” That from C1.
“Assembly on two, C1, all shifts.”
“Yes, sir,” C1 said, and Jase said, from every speaker in the ship, and likely within hearing of the make-shift brig:
“ Captain Graham will address crew on two-deck, all attend, all attend. Three minute warning. ”
“Mr. Cameron,” Jase said.
“Captain?”
“You’ll do me the honor, Mr. Cameron. You can explain the atevi position. I know ours.”
Chapter 11
Two-deck’s corridors were crammed in every direction, a crowd from two-deck and likely from the crew section of three-deck converging on the lift from the moment they got off, crew standing, galley staff prominent in whites at the left, upcoming bridge crew in blues on the right, a scattering of security thrown in at random. Faces, Bren noted, were tense… every man and woman in the corridors having heard as much as Cook’s staff had had to give.
“C1,” Jase said. “Route my comm to two- and three-deck intercoms.” Intercom immediately came live. Jase’s next utterance went out over the speakers, making the voice omnipresent, distant as he was from the remoter rows of cousins and crew. “ You know by now the senior captain’s gone to station, and that station sent on some investigators. They pushed. They’re in medical. They’ll be in the tank until we get the captain back .”
A cheer. That curiously rattled Jase. A cheer hadn’t been in his plans. Or his self-concept.
“ Mr. Cameron’s here in support of ship command. ’Sidi-ji does support us. ”
Second cheer. Jase was further rattled. He never had been a great speaker. He didn’t have the killer instinct and he never knew when to quit. He slogged on, gathering force, if not eloquence.
“ So we’re going to get the captain back ,” Jase said. “ But we’re not helpless, meanwhile. We’ve got fuel to maneuver if we have to and remember we’ve got the only pilots who actually know how to handle this ship, never mind what anybody on station may have studied up in some simulator. They can’t give us orders .”
Third cheer. Which threw Jase completely off his pace.
“ I’m no great shakes at the boards ,” Jase said. “ And I’m not the senior captain by a long shot, which I know. I also know everybody aboard wants to be out there on deck doing something, and everybody wants to get onto the station, some of you with cousins to find; and everybody wishes station was what it used to be, but it isn’t, and we can’t, and I can’t. So I’ll tell you what my policy is, which is, first of all, no more secrets, so long as we’re in this mess .”