Blowing the station up with people in it—even if one was Braddock—wasn’t palatable.
“Small-scale demolition? Take out the archive?”
“The way we were going to do it if we got cooperation. We do it without. We’re going to have to call on five-deck again to do this. Can Banichi and Jago do it?”
“If I go.” It was the last job he wanted, but he’d been helpful in the last try, and he was prepared to be stubborn. He saw refusal shaping Jase’s next word and he was faster. “If I go, Jase. What do you want, the whole mission stalled out because some scared stationer with a gun wants to fight my bodyguard, when if I was there it wouldn’t happen? We’ve got our routine down pat. We can do this.”
“You’re essential with the hostage.”
“What’s essential is to get him, alive, back to his ship. That’s already set up. He’s stuffed on tea cakes, happy as a freshman on break, and if I’m delayed, you can take over communicating with him—in your spare time.”
“The hell.”
“You ask for Banichi and Jago, you get me .”
“ They wouldn’t understand that.”
“I do. And you do. That’s enough.”
A deep, frustrated sigh. “Plan it,” Jase said.
“They already have, I’m relatively sure. We’ll review it, in light of what we know now.” He cast a look at the ticking reply window. Expected that reply any second. But the other side had to get organized to answer, and decide how it was going to answer…
Not that great a delay, however. Almost as the reply clock went negative, lines began to appear and assemble on that monitor, at C1’s station, mesmerizing process, line by line develop ment of an image. Bren couldn’t make out what it was yet, and meanwhile something had begun nagging him. “Sabin took most every security-trained crew member we had, except your bodyguard. If Braddock had to try to counterfeit her orders, she’s clearly not cooperating. Her com went silent—but I think we should take into account the possibility she’s not dead and not confined.” Sabin was a direct thinker, set a goal and go for it, no diversions. “She may have made a try at the fuel port. Or some target she thought she could get to with twenty men.”
Jase’s eyes, distracted by the com panel, shifted to him, flickering in rapid thought. “Jenrette.”
There was a man who’d gone initially to Braddock. Bet on it. Maybe sent to him—but certainly working for him. He’d betrayed Sabin and his shipmates. Or they couldn’t read character.
“She’s capable of sending Jenrette to Braddock,” Jase said, “to see how Braddock received him, and maybe what Jenrette would do next. Then Braddock sends him to us.”
“Or maybe she sent him precisely to disinform Braddock. She sends Jenrette to tell him one thing and she does something else, and doesn’t turn up in station offices.”
On the screen lines marched on, making a shape. Two beings facing one another, empty hands uplifted, one human, one Prakuyo’s kind.
“Echo it to them,” Bren said. Message received. “It’s good. I think it’s good.”
There was an uncharacteristic stir on the bridge, an infinitestimal head-turning, a collective deep breath.
“A good guess where the senior captain might have gone if she’s able,” Jase said calmly. “Either the fuel—or Braddock.”
“Captain.” C1. “Lt. Kaplan.”
“Go,” Jase said, and a man in a cold-suit appeared on monitor 3.
“Captain?” Kaplan said. “Captain, there’s action going on. There’s ten, fifteen people and God-knows all sort of baggage coming out the section doors, and we shot a safety line over there, and it took, but this doesn’t look orderly, not half.”
“Two at a time, Kaplan, no baggage, no hand baggage,” Jase said. “C1, get the cargo chief down there. Everything and every one scanned through.” Deep breath. “It’s started— if this isn’t one of Braddock’s gifts.”
It wasn’t good. It wasn’t when they’d have chosen to have it happen.
“All we can do,” Bren said.
“Kaplan,” Jase said. “Kaplan, cargo team’s coming. Keep it slow and calm. Route the cars to three-deck, no detours. If anybody needs medical, we’ll send medical to them—no way any stationer gets loose off three and four-decks.”
“Understood, captain. There’s kids in this lot. There’s an old man. They don’t look hostile. The old man’s got one of our fliers. But there’s more coming.”
“Boarding pass,” Bren said under his breath. “I told them it was a boarding pass.”
“Calm and easy,” Jase said. “Calm and easy, Kaplan. Be gracious.”
“Yes, sir,” came back, and in the background of that picture another suited figure, Pressman, most likely, was looking out the open lock.
“Shift to C2 and monitor,” Jase said to C1, and shot a glance at Bren. “A conspicuous gold-plated disaster is what they want, create a mess for us. They’ve taken our warnings and devised their own solution. And after the old man and the kids—bet their operatives will be in there.”
“Or a handful of security guards bent on getting their relatives out. Where I dropped those brochures—God knows which; and damn the timing.” He’d have wanted his own team out and clear; and they wouldn’t be. “We’ll have to go through them to get into the station. No question. We’ll have to lock the doors open to get back.”
“Can’t be helped,” Jase said. Something about the captaincy settled a look on the wielder, and Jase had gotten to have it—a furious, measuring glance, the distracted habit of a man tracking a dozen emergencies at once. While the image on the monitor took shape: Ship. Station .
Meanwhile the lift had arrived, crew coming up, Bren thought. But brisk steps presented Gin Kroger, in cold-boots and parka, still frosted from working God-knew-where.
“Heard there was a meeting up here,” Gin said. “Heard you were involved.” With a glance at Bren. “I’ll guess we’re going to do something.”
“We’re going to do something,” Bren said.
“We’re going in,” Jase said, “And we’ve got passengers coming on.”
Gin held up a disk. “Image. Fuel lock. Enhanced photo. Give me a suit and we can drill it.”
“Disable it?” Jase asked.
“Maybe,” Gin said. “ Maybe . I want a suit. I can stealth it with a spray can.”
“No,” Jase said.
“We can spend ten hours re-rigging a robot to reach into that angle while people are hammering at our doors or I can sneak out there with a hand-drill and do the job in half an hour.”
“A hand-drill.”
“This goings-on is the best cover we’re going to have,” Gin said, “right now, in the ship’s shadow, while the Guild’s busy with people trying to get to us. I can get in there, myself—”
“No way in hell, Gin!”
“Look, there’s a reason I’ve got the doctorate, captain, sir. They’re not going to blow that tank up. It’d take out the mast, which would take out the whole station. If the contact trigger’s tripped, the only kind of explosion they’ll want is to crank up the pressure and blow the explosive bolts: the tank’s already got provision to blow out if there’s a serious pressure anomaly, precisely to protect the mast integrity. The whole sensor system that runs it is just a limited kind of robot: that’s what they’ve rigged into. I know what I’m looking at in our remote images, and I’ve been talking to the atevi, who are very good at this sort of thing. They say the same. It all depends on power to that system, which I can take out.”