Chapter Ten
"Detection. Ship track."
Belazir t'Marid looked up from his crash couch where he had been rerunning a tactical manual on the screen.
"What signature?" he said.
"Ion track, very faint," Baila said. "Could have been weeks ago."
Belazir ran his hand through the long blond mane of his hair and cursed inwardly. The second in two days, he thought. They were getting into well-traveled space, despite the fact that their data showed little or no settlement in this area. The centuries-old Grand Survey reports listed no inhabitable planets, although there was a nebula with potentially valuable minerals. There must be a regular traffic now, perhaps habitats or small space colonies. Dangerous, very dangerous.
A time would come when the Kolnari would not have to skulk around the fringes of known space, biding like scavengers. But that time was not yet.
"Reduce speed," he said. "Pulse message to the consort ships. Keep formation on new vector." That form of communication was so short-range that it was undetectable. "Anything more on the subspace monitors?"
"Plenty of nearby traffic, but mostly encrypted," the intelligence officer said. Belazir nodded. Perfect codes were an old phenomenon, available to anyone with decent computers.
"And the prey?" he asked.
Baila shrugged. As she was almost as well-born as Belazir, he decided to let the informality pass unreprimanded. Also, she was daughter to a staff officer of Chalku's.
"The track is firm and hot," the woman said. "We gain, at an increasing rate. Signs of deterioration, as one would expect from old engines heavily stressed-sublimated particles from exterior drive-coils and cooling vanes. She cannot survive much longer."
"Much longer, much longer! You've been saying that for days!" Belazir snarled, starting half-erect. The junior officer's eyes dropped before the captain's lion stare. Belazir sank back, satisfied that deference had been restored.
"Transmit to all vessels," he went on. "Maximum alertness. We strike hard and then we run. Plasma tells no tales."
"Dad, I'm not going," Seld Chaundra flatly told his father.
The head of SSS-900-C's medical department looked up in surprise. For a moment, he tried to fit the words into a context that made sense as his hands continued automatically packing a carry-all for his son's trip. Then he shook his head. He was very tired. Since the announcement was made two days ago, there had been absolute chaos in the station. Literal chaos in some instances, and sickbay was full of injuries, everything from carelessness through flare-ups to attempted suicide.
"Do not make troubles now, son," he said. "There is too much to be doing."
"I'm not going, Dad," Seld said again.
Gods, but he looks like his mother, the doctor thought with despair. She had had exactly that set to her jaw when she decided to stand on an issue of principle. And I could never convince her of her error when she looked like that, either. Fortunately, he did not need to convince his son, who was still a minor.
"Yes," Chaundra said, "you are going. I need for you to go."
"Well, I need for me to stay!"
Chaundra grabbed his son by his upper arms and shook him gently. "You're all I've got, Seld. You're the most important thing in my life and I've got to keep you safe." He pulled out his ace. "It's what your mother would have wanted."
Seld's red-headed temper flared and, for the first time in his twelve years, he contradicted his father. "No, she wouldn't! She'd say what I'm gonna say. You're all I've got, and if you can't be safe then I've got to be with you!"
He pulled his son to him in a fierce hug to hide the sudden glisten of tears in his eyes. Then he sank into his armchair, covering his eyes with his hand.
"Yes," he said thickly, "that's just what she'd say. But," he pointed a finger at Seld, "she'd be talking about herself, not about you."
"Dad…"
"I have packed one change of clothes, two changes of underwear and one," he held up one finger for emphasis, "thing you can't bear to part with. I'll be back in half an hour to walk you to the ship."
"Dad!"
"Half an hour." He stood and left. There are times when a man must weep alone.
"Joat!" Simeon said in exasperation, "Answer me! I'd hate to have to send someone in there to flush you out."
He heard laughter echo softly then, from somewhere in the ductwork. Damned tunnel rat, he thought in exasperation. She had rigged the sensor in her room to show her present and he was still trying to figure out how it had been done.
"You know they wouldn't find me."
"C'mon Joat, you've got to go. Channa has packed some of your things. She'll meet you at the lock. You're one of the lucky ones. You don't have to wear a suit and travel in the hold for the whole trip."
"Hunh. Done it before."
"Well, you don't have to do it now. Come on! They're leaving in fifteen minutes."
"I'm not going."
"Perhaps I left something out here? Pirates, heavily armed, almost certain death and destruction? Did I mention any of those?"
"You need me," she said simply.
"Yeah," he said slowly after a moment's pause, "but I think I should do without you for a while."
Joat came into view, grinning. "You are so soft," she said and shook her head. "You need me because no adult except you knows this station the way I do." She crossed her arms smugly. "This is my home, too, and I want a crack at defending it. Besides, I'm not about to deliver myself to Dorgan the Gorgon." If she's still alive. Those demonstrators looked mean. "So here I stay!"
"Joat, is avoiding Ms. Dorgan and the orphanage worth risking your life for?"
"You better believe it!" That forced an unwilling chuckle out of Simeon.
"Look, Joat, no more kidding. Channa and I are fighting for our lives. If we have to worry about you, too, it might make that last little bit of difference and get us killed. We can't afford distractions from a kid."
Joat's lips went white. "You fight dirty," she whispered.
"I fight to win," Simeon replied.
"Well, so do I!" Joat shouted. "And I'm alive, aren't I?" She paused for a moment, breathing hard. Then the urchin grin came back. "I've got an instinct for this kinda thing. Trust me." She took a step back and disappeared.
I wish I knew how she did that, Simeon thought. It would come in handy when the Kolnari get here.
"Channa's expecting you on Boat Deck!" he called after her.
A voice filtered in from nowhere. "Tell her I'll be seeing her."
"Detection… ship detected! Ship detected! Captain to the bridge!"
Belazir t'Marid had been kneeling between his wife's thighs, with a heel in each hand.
"Demonshit!" he swore, diving off the pallet and toward his clothing. The woman-she was his second wife, and a third cousin-cursed antiphonally, rolling away in the other direction.
"The Divine Seed damn them," she said, hopping on one leg as she stuck the other into her skinsuit.
"Easy for you to say," he snarled and kicked at her, struggling with the humiliating and acutely uncomfortable process of getting into space armor in a state of arousal. Then he raised his voice. "Battle stations, full alert. Brief me."