He forced himself to pour a cup of tea, add milk and then take a sip. It tasted fetid. Fred watched him with some amusement, then leaned forward and recovered the terminal. Kurt cursed himself for not pocketing it, even though he rather doubted it was the only copy in their hands… whoever they were. Reporters wouldn’t use blackmail as a source, would they?
“Excellent,” Fred said. He made a show of rubbing his hands together with glee. “You have a choice. You can follow our orders or your little porno show becomes the subject of the nightly news. I imagine that millions of people will download the videos in the first few minutes. Your partner has been quite honoured since Ark Royal’s first return to Earth and… well, do you know how much Playboy offered her for a nude photo-shoot?”
“You’d be sued,” Kurt pointed out, weakly.
“Ah, but you would have to find us first,” Fred countered. “And who are we?”
Kurt said nothing.
“You will be departing on Ark Royal within the week, we believe,” Fred said. “One of us will be accompanying the fleet. You will be given orders and expected to carry them out, whatever the risk. Once you have returned to Earth, all copies of the recordings will be turned over to you and you will be free.”
Kurt gritted his teeth. He wanted to punch Fred, to knock that smug smile off his face, but he knew it would be pointless. Fred could destroy him and his family, just by uploading the footage to the datanet. By the time it was removed, if it ever was, his life would have been ripped apart. He’d be lucky if he was merely kicked out of the Navy…
And there was Rose too. She’d admitted she wanted to stay in the Navy for life, even though she only had a few years of starfighter piloting left. She could become a CAG in her own right or switch to command track and aim for carrier command. An experienced starfighter pilot would make a good carrier commander. But it wouldn’t happen if the recordings were released. She’d lose her career, at the very least. At worst, she’d join him in a detention cell and then a clean-up crew.
He took a breath. “How do I know you’ll keep your word?”
“You don’t,” Fred said. “But what I will say is this; you can refuse now and have your career ruined, or you can do one simple job for us and then you will be free, You will have literally nothing else to offer us.”
“I don’t trust you,” Kurt admitted.
“Of course you shouldn’t,” Fred said. He reached into his belt, then produced a card, which he passed to Kurt. “You will receive a message from this account, every so often. When you get it, go straight to the observation blister and wait. You’ll get your orders there.”
He picked up the static generator and dropped it back in his belt, then finished the mug of hot chocolate in one swallow. “It’s been a pleasure meeting you, Commander,” he concluded. “And I hope your career continues to rise.”
Kurt watched, helplessly, as Fred rose to his feet and walked off, leaving a handful of coins on the table. They were Luna Currency, Kurt saw; usable everywhere and damn-near untraceable. Fred couldn’t have made the point more blatantly if he’d tried. There was no way Kurt could find him and his associates for himself — and, without any way to get at them, he had to do as they said or accept losing everything.
He cursed himself as he finished his tea. If he hadn’t been so convinced they were going to die, he told himself, he would have refused Rose’s advances. He hadn’t been on the outs with Molly at the time… had he? But he’d survived the battle and he’d kept the affair going, despite the ever-increasing risk of being found out. And now disaster had finally fallen.
If he made a full confession, the blackmailers would be caught. Fred had told him that at least one of them would be on the starship. They could set a trap and catch him. But it wouldn’t be enough to save his career, even if Rose was spared. And he wouldn’t be able to support and protect his family if he was discharged from the Navy.
He didn’t have a choice, he knew. He had to do as they ordered.
His terminal bleeped. It was a message from the Commandant, informing him that fifty-two trainee pilots had accepted the offer of an early start to their duties, despite the risk. All of a sudden, it seemed utterly unimportant.
You fucking idiot, he told himself, savagely. What the fuck were you thinking?
Chapter Eleven
“Admiral,” Janelle said, “Ambassador Melbourne and his staff just signalled us. They’ll be landing within thirty minutes.”
“Finally,” Ted muttered. He’d hoped to have the ship ready to go before the planned deadline. Instead, the Ambassador and his staff had cut matters very fine indeed. “I’ll be down in the shuttlebay to greet them.”
He had no doubt, as he pulled on his dress uniform, that the Ambassadors would expect a full greeting party. But they were going to be disappointed. Ted couldn’t justify pulling a honour guard of Royal Marines out of Marine Country, let alone divert his senior officers from their duties to greet the Ambassadors. Instead, it would be just him. If nothing else, it would give him a chance to see how the Ambassadors reacted to what they would probably consider disrespect.
“Don’t forget your cap and sidearm,” Janelle warned, as Ted inspected himself in the mirror and reluctantly concluded he looked presentable. “And you should wear your medals, sir.”
“No, thank you,” Ted said. He’d been given several medals by Britain and dozens more from all around the world. There was no way he could wear all of them on his chest, certainly not in a public gathering. Protocol officers were still having fits over precisely how many medals he should wear at any one time. “There’s no point in trying to impress them.”
He sighed. Janelle had been moved into his cabin, her own having been assigned to one of the Ambassadors and his aides. The first person who joked about it, he had promised himself, would be spending the rest of the cruise cleaning toilets with a toothbrush. But it did have the advantage of allowing him to keep an eye on Janelle. She was still doing her duties, but it was clear her mind was elsewhere. Perhaps leaving the solar system entirely would be better for her.
“They’re almost here,” Janelle said. “The shuttlebay is preparing to receive them.”
Ted nodded, then walked through the hatch and down towards the shuttlebay. Janelle followed, dogging his heels like an overeager puppy. Several crewmen saluted him as he passed; others, carrying large boxes of spare parts and other components, merely nodded. Ted smiled, remembering the days when he had been a junior officer. They’d competed to carry the larger boxes, knowing it spared them from having to salute every superior they met along the way. It was astonishing how many junior officers thought they were the first ones to invent that dodge.
And it keeps them busy too, he thought, wryly.
He stepped through the airlock into the shuttlebay, just in time to watch as the shuttle nosed its way through the hatch and settled to the deck, the giant shuttlebay doors closing behind it so the compartment could be pressurised. The shuttle looked older and more battered than he would have expected from a diplomatic shuttle, but all forms of aerospace transport were in short supply right now. Chances were the original craft had been detailed to recovery work and hadn’t been returned to their owners yet.
“The shuttlebay is pressurised,” Janelle said. “Admiral?”
Ted sighed. Having reporters onboard his ship had been bad enough, but he knew from scuttlebutt that ambassadors could be worse. They combined the very worst of politicians and reporters, wanting to have things all their own way while being too ignorant to understand just what they were giving away. Or maybe he was just being paranoid. He knew the British Government wouldn’t have selected an idiot or a team of idiots to handle delicate negotiations with the aliens. The files had certainly suggested otherwise.