"Anything of interest going on?"
Harking shrugged. "Not really. I spotted a slave confrontation, but I didn't see any bodies when I got back to the spot, so I presume the overseer didn't kill anyone. Oh, and I caught a couple of patrols, too. Three Skyhawks each, flying standard formation. Again, it looked pretty routine."
"Good," Chakhaza said absently. "Tell me, have you ever heard of a woman named Laura Isis?"
Harking searched his memory. The name definitely seemed familiar- "Someone from Maintenance?" he hazarded.
Chakhaza shook her head. "News reporter."
"Oh, of course," Harking said, nodding as it suddenly clicked. He'd read her name or seen her face on a hundred different stories coming from the front lines of the war. The woman really got around. "What about her?"
"She's on her way."
Harking blinked. Minkta was about as far from the fighting as you could get and still be in theoretically disputed territory. "On her way here?"
"Yes," Chakhaza said, her expression suddenly unreadable. "She's found out about Lieutenant Ferrier."
An old knife Harking had thought long gone twisted itself gently into his gut. "Oh," he said, very quietly.
Something that almost looked like sympathy creased through the lines and scars on Chakhaza's face. "I'm sorry," she said. "I know what he meant to you. But Supreme Command has issued orders that we're to give her the whole story." She paused. "I thought you might prefer to be the one to handle the job."
Harking's first impulse was to turn it down flat. To have to go through all those bitter memories again ...
But if he didn't do it, someone else would. Someone who didn't know or understand the big picture, who might paint Abe Ferrier as an ambitious glory-grabber or a delusional lunatic. "Thank you, Commander," he said. "I'd be honored to speak with Ms. Isis."
Chakhaza gave a crisp nod. "Good. Her transport's due in thirty hours. Try to work her around your regular duty shift if you can; if she insists on setting her own timetable, let me know and I'll try to shuffle people around to accommodate you. Any questions?"
"No, ma'am," Harking said.
'Very well, then," Chakhaza said. Just as happy, Harking guessed, that she wouldn't be the one sweating it out in front of Ms. Isis' recorder.
Especially since she was the one who'd bought into Abe's plan in the first place. Had bought into it hook, line, and cautiously enthusiastic sinker. "Dismissed," she said. And had then sent him to his death.
Laura Isis was pretty much as Harking expected: mid-thirties, dark blonde, still petite but with a figure that time and gravity were starting to pull at. The quick smile and probing eyes were as he remembered from her various news appearances.
But there were also differences. Her hair wasn't as professionally coifed as it inevitably was on TV, her cheekbones not nearly as sharp, and her clothing far more casual. She was shorter than he would have guessed, too, barely coming up to the shoulder boards of his dress uniform, and that quick smile seemed somehow to have a hard edge to it.
And there was something oddly wrong with the left side of her face. Something he couldn't quite put his finger on... .
"Welcome to Defender Fifty-five, Ms. Isis," he greeted her as she passed her bag to one of the hatchway guards for inspection and came toward him. "I'm Ensign Jims Harking. Commander Chakhaza asked me to act as your liaison and assistant while you're on the station."
"Thank you," she said. "It's nice to be here on Elvie."
There must have been something in his face, because she smiled again. "Or do you use a different private name for your station?"
"No, Elvie is it," Harking said. "I was just surprised you knew it."
She shrugged slightly. "I've been hanging around the military since the war started," she reminded him. "And not just the upper brass. I know a lot about how the common soldiers and starmen think and behave. Did Commander Chakhaza tell you why I'm here?"
The abrupt change in topic didn't catch him by surprise; it was a technique he'd seen her use on camera many times. "Yes, ma'am, she did," he confirmed.
"And did she assign you to me because you know a lot about the Ferrier operation?" she went on. "Or because you know very little about it?"
He looked her straight in the eye. "She assigned me because Abe Ferrier was my friend."
"Ah." If she was taken aback by his response, it didn't show. "Good. I presume you have quarters set up for me?"
Harking had hoped to get the interview over with as quickly as possible, which would have let him start the process of putting the ghosts back to sleep that much earlier. Perversely, Isis decided she wanted a tour of the station first.
"... and this," he said as he gestured her into his usual duty station room, "is the Number One Photo Room. This is where we take all the high-mag telephotos of the Sjonntae outpost and vicinity for analysis. The telescopes themselves are through that door over there."
"Ah," Isis said, stepping in and looking around. "So this is the real nerve center of Elvie's mission, is it?"
Tsu, had he been on duty, would undoubtedly have made some unfortunate comment in response to that one. Fortunately, it was Cheryl Schmucker's shift, and all she did was lift a silent eyebrow in Marking's direction and then return to her work. "Hardly," Harking told Isis stiffly. "All we do here is take the photos. It's the analysis group's job to find a hole in the Sjonntae defenses."
"Of course." Isis looked around at the controls and monitors for a moment, then crossed toward the telescope room. Harking was ready, and got there in time to open the door for her.
Inside, it was like another world. The whole outer wall was floor-to-ceiling hullglass, with a dozen different telescopes lined up peering at various angles through it. Taking care not to touch or jostle anything, Isis stepped to the guard railing and leaned on it, gazing out at the silent black circle of the planet far below. It was full night down there, the darkness alleviated only by the clusters of mocking lights from the Sjonntae fortress and protected territory. To the far right, an edge of blue-green showed where the dawn line was beginning to creep across the landscape.
Dawn for the Minkters. The beginning of another day of servitude to their Sjonntae masters.
They hated them, the Minkters did. Hated them with the kind of passion only an enslaved people could generate. There had been at least four attempts at revolt during the time Defender Fifty-five had been up here. All had been easily crushed, of course. Organized crowds of Minkters whose only weapons were rocks, spears, and crossbows were no match for armed Sjonntae Sky-hawks. And each time the humans of Defender Elvie had watched in impotent rage. The only sky-to-ground weaponry the station had were its missiles, which would have indiscriminately killed attacker and defender alike.
Which was yet another reason Abe had pressed so hard to be allowed to go down there. The Minkters were certainly intelligent enough, but they were unschooled in the ways of mass warfare. If someone with military knowledge and training could get them organized—
"And have they?" Isis said into the memories.
"Have who what?" Harking asked.
"The analysis group," she said, "You said they were looking for a hole. Have they found one?"
Harking grimaced. "No."
"Why not?" Isis asked. "You've been here for almost three years. What's the problem?"
A diplomatic answer was probably called for, but Harking was fresh out of stock. "The same problem that's been killing almost a thousand humans a day since this damn thing started," he told her bluntly. "Between the damper field and the Shadows, they've got about as impenetrable a planetary defense as you could ever come up with."