Reedy’s eyes went wide open. She started tapping the desk to get their attention. “Sir,” she said. “There’s something you should…”
“Not right now,” said Max.
Lukinov frowned at him. “Now see here-”
“No, you see here. Has the captain been informed of this?”
“Not yet,” replied Lukinov.
“You invite some grunt in here to listen to information that will certainly be classified top secret before you notify the captain?” He sneered at Lukinov, pausing long enough to listen to the scientists talk. “You can be sure that my Department will file a record of protest on our return. In the meantime, I better go get the captain.”
Lukinov popped out of his seat. “No, I’ll do that. I was just planning to do that anyway, if you hadn’t interrupted.”
“Sir,” repeated Reedy. “Sirs.”
“Ensign,” said Max, “Shut. Up.”
The ensign nodded mutely, her eyes shaped like two satellite dishes trying to pick up a signal.
“I’m coming with you, Lukinov,” Max said.
“No, you aren’t, Lieutenant,” snapped the intelligence officer. “I’m the one man on this ship you can’t give direct orders to and don’t you forget it.”
Max saluted, a gesture sharp enough to have turned into a knife hand strike at the other man’s throat. Lukinov stormed out of the room. Max turned back to the ensign, who simply stared at him.
“They just broadcast the complete specifications,” said Reedy. “They were checking for field deformation-”
“I know that,” said Max. And then he did something he never expected to do, not on this voyage. He said aloud the secret intelligence code word for “render all assistance.” Silently, to himself, he added a prayer that it was current, and that Reedy would recognize it.
“Wh-what did you say?” she stammered.
Max repeated the code word for “render all assistance” while he pulled off his earphones and reached in his pocket for his multi-tool. His fingers found nothing, and he realized that it had been missing since his attack. “And give me a screwdriver,” he added.
Reedy handed over the tool. “But… but…”
Max ignored her. In thirty seconds, he’d disconnected the power and disassembled the outer case of the radio. “Give me the laser,” he said.
The ensign’s hands shook as she complied.
“I need two new memory chips and the spare pod.” Reedy just stared at him, uncomprehending. “Now!” spit Max, and the ensign dove for the equipment box.
Max shoved the loaded chips into his pockets and snapped the replacements into their slots as Reedy handed them over. The radio was still a mess of pieces when someone rapped on the door.
“Stall them!” hissed Max.
The rap came again and the door cracked open. Rambaud pushed his head in partway. “Here’s your palm-pad, sir.”
“I’ll take it,” said Reedy, grabbing it and shoving the door shut on him.
“Thanks!” called Max. He’d lost one of the screws, and when he looked up from the equipment to see if it was floating somewhere, he was temporarily disoriented. His stomach did a flip-flop and his head spun in a circle. “Shit!”
Rambaud pushed back on the door. “Are you safe in there, sir? I’m coming in.”
Reedy wedged herself against the wall to block the door.
Max heard a plain thump as Rambaud bounced against it. He saw the screw floating near his ankles and scooped it up. He fixed the cover and powered the machine up again. Reedy grunted as the door pushed against her, cracking open. “I’m fine,” Max said loudly.
Rambaud nodded, but he stood outside the cracked door peering in.
Reedy panted, caught herself, controlled it. A thousand questions formed and died on her lips. Max had taken the leap, and now he had to see how far that leap would take him.
“Ensign,” he whispered.
“Yes, sir?”
“From this moment forth,” his lips barely moved, “you will consider me your sole superior officer.”
Her eyes jumped to the door. “Sir? But-”
“That is a direct order.”
“Yes, sir.”
“You will not tell anyone-”
But he did not get the chance to tell Reedy what she should and shouldn’t say. The door swung open and Lukinov entered, followed by Captain Petoskey. Lukinov grinned like a party girl full of booze. “Wait until you hear this,” he said. He put his headphones on, and handed one to Petoskey as Reedy slid quickly back into her place.
They listened for a moment. Petoskey squinted his eyes, and rounded his shoulders even more than usual. “Sounds like they’re bringing the shuttles in, getting ready to leave. Radioing a safe voyage message to their other ship. What was I supposed to hear?”
“They’re testing a new deflector for wormhole defense. If we attack their ship and kill them, we can take it. Their other ship will be stuck in-system and we can nuke them.”
“Captain,” said Max.
“Yes?”
“I didn’t hear any evidence of this deflector. I can’t recommend an attack.”
Lukinov frantically punched commands into his keypad. “Let me back up to an hour ago.” His face went as blank as the records he was trying to access. “I can’t seem to find it. Reedy, what’s going on here?”
“Sir,” she muttered, with a pleading glance at Max, “uh, I don’t know, sir.”
“She’s covering up,” said Max.
Three faces stared at him with variations of disbelief.
“Look at the battery, it’s not properly grounded.” It was an awful explanation, but the best that Max could come up with on the spot. “Reedy was moving some equipment around, hit it with something. I didn’t see what. Sparks flew and the screens all went dead. She got them back up right away, but she probably wiped the memories.”
“Ensign,” Lukinov said coldly. “Explain yourself.”
Reedy’s mouth hung open. She didn’t know what to say. Betrayal was written all over her face.
Petoskey took off his headset. “Lukinov, I trust you to take care of this. Nikomedes…”
“Yes, sir?”
Petoskey couldn’t seem to think of any orders to give him. “I have to go talk to Chevrier. We have our mission. With the second ship out of the way, we have to prepare to dive.”
Max followed Petoskey out into the corridor, but returned to his room to stash the stolen memory. Only two things mattered now: getting the information to his superior, and keeping Lukinov from getting it to his. It needed to be used as a defensive weapon, not as an excuse to start a war. Lukinov had access to the radio and official channels. Max didn’t. That stacked the cards in Lukinov’s favor.
He had to do something with it soon, before they jumped to Adarean space. And he had to hope that a baby-faced ensign just out of the Academy didn’t fold under pressure and give him away. It was like a game of Blind Man’s Draw. Max had already put everything he had into the pot.
There was nothing else he could do at this point except play the card that he was dealt.
Meal time. Max sat by himself, as usual, at his own narrow table in the galley. Even the trooper guarding him sat with some of the other crewmen.
Lukinov entered, saw Max, and came straight over to him. “Reedy won’t say that you were lying, but you were,” the intelligence officer said. “Not that it matters. The machines are buggered, the data’s all gone. Even Burdick can’t find it.’
Max had a blank sheet in his pocket. He pulled it out, and a stylus, and passed it over to Lukinov. This was the way duels were proposed at the Academy. According to the Academy’s cover story, it was the way Reedy had arranged to meet with Vance.
Lukinov looked at the sheet, then scratched “observation room” and a time two hours distant on it. He pushed it back over to Max, who shook his head, and wrote “reactor room.”
“Why there?” asked the intelligence officer.
“They’ve got cameras there, but no mikes. It’s off limits to Simco’s troopers, but not to us. We won’t be there long.”
“So this is just to be a private conversation? I should leave my weapons behind?”
“I wish you would.”
“More’s the pity,” said Lukinov, and stormed out.
Max was putting his tray away, trying to resolve his other problem, when Simco came in. “Lukinov won’t let us throw the ensign in the brig, not yet. But he thought it was best if I stuck with you personally in the meantime.”