Price couldn’t fault the captain. He, too, felt an imperative to reach Dremiks as quickly as possible. They still had no idea what Dwax was up to with his mysterious crate in the cargo bay, and they still had no idea if the alien was indeed the saboteur. Price very much wanted to avoid any more near-death experiences. He just wanted to get through this mission and back to Holly. The co-pilot checked to make sure the log correctly recorded their heading and speed before leaning back in his chair to relax. The head’s up display showed the latest radar and stellar cartography and would alert him in plenty of time if the ship veered too close to an object or destructive energy field. He literally did not have to lift a finger for the next two hours.
To forestall the inevitable boredom, Price liked to mentally plot their position and try to anticipate what the auto-pilot controls would do. An hour into his shift, he suddenly straightened in his chair. With deft movements, he pulled up more information on the display.
“Why in the hell would we turn there?”
“Sir?” Price’s sudden inquiry startled the junior helmsman out of his own reverie.
“Apologies, Petty Officer. I need all the data on our current course plot transferred to my station. Please include the latest telemetry from all sensors.” He didn’t wait for a response, but dove back into his calculations. The autopilot course projections showed a turn, fifteen minutes away, that would take them around a small asteroid cloud. That wasn’t troubling. What made Price squint in confusion was that the computer held the new course for so long that they would go nearly ten million kilometers out of their way. That was just slightly more than the distance between Mars and Neptune and would cost them over a week of travel. The logs indicated the course change had been authorized due to safety concerns—but the asteroid cloud was too small to have caused such a wide detour.
Delving further into the logs, Price found that Ensign Robertson had plotted the new course and over-ridden the navigational AI. His changes had been approved by the commander and the captain. Robertson was a freaking prodigy when it came to navigation. He did most of his calculations in his head—so Price found it very hard to accept that the young officer’s course plot was incorrect. The lieutenant checked his own work twice more, mindful all the while that the time until they changed course was rapidly dwindling. He finally gave up and called O’Connell to the bridge.
“This better be good, Lieutenant. I was having a lovely dream involving a beach.” She flopped into her chair
“Apologies, ma’am. Were there cabana boys?”
She glared at him for his flippancy, but she also automatically took in the course projections and calculations he’d been working on. She stared at the data. Price watched as her frown increased. “What the hell, Price? Why are we going that far off course?”
Somewhat relieved that the senior pilot was also confused, Price relaxed a bit. “That’s why I called you, ma’am. I keep working out the data and checking the sensors, but I cannot fathom what safety concerns would keep us on that heading for that amount of time.”
She grunted and accessed her own logs. Her initials were in the official record next to the amended plot, meaning she had approved it and forwarded it with a recommendation to the captain. Surely there had been a good reason to do so. “Huh. My notes say the asteroid field was twice as large and beyond it there was a pocket of magnetic disturbance.”
They both stared at the latest sensor readings. The delicate instruments that lined the hull of the
Hudson
had recorded, plotted, and logged every aspect of the current galaxy. They were now three minutes from the turn and only twenty thousand kilometers from the asteroid field.
“Do you see any of that?”
“Nope.”
“What the hell?”
“One minute to scheduled course correction, sir.” The junior helmsman and the two other enlisted crew on the bridge watched the pilots.
“Officer-of-the-watch, execute the turn, reduce power to half, and await further instructions.” O’Connell made sure her orders were recorded in the log before rising from her chair. “I’m going to go pick Robertson’s brain and inform the captain of the issues. “Maintain the new heading but cut speed until I figure out what’s going on.”
“Aye, aye, ma’am.” He transferred steerage command from the computer to his station. He blinked in surprise when the commander stopped and turned back to him.
“Good work, Lieutenant.”
Price nodded once and went back to work.
The commander found the captain in his office, listening to a report from Dr. Fortunas. She nodded politely to the scientist. “My apologies for interrupting, sir. I’ve encountered an anomaly with our current course.” She quickly gave the captain a summation of the issue. “I’m on my way to speak to Ensign Robertson, but wanted to check with you as well, sir. Perhaps your personal notes for the log could provide more information?”
Frowning, Captain Hill checked. “I see only a notation that you forwarded the changes with a recommendation for approval. Find the ensign immediately, Commander, and clear up this matter. Price is still on duty?”
“Yes sir. I had him make the turn as planned. We can continue with the modified course as long as necessary, obviously, but I’d rather not lose the entire week’s travel if we don’t have to.”
“Agreed. Please keep me informed of your progress. Dismissed.” The captain kept his log open while Fortunas resumed his report. The course change was only a few days old. The most obvious reason for the discrepancy was that Robertson’s data on the asteroid field and magnetic disturbance was inaccurate. The date of the change hung in Hill’s thoughts, taunting him.
“Captain?”
Hill tried to focus. “Sorry, doctor. I am listening.”
“But a remarkably smaller asteroid field is far more interesting than soil acidity and water conservation. I
do
understand, Captain.” Fortunas paused, considering his words carefully. “I’ve often observed young Nate hard at work with star charts. We have to rely on Dremikian cartography of these systems. It is eminently conceivable that the information he used was incorrect.”
“That’s what worries me, Doctor. Was the data incorrect due to simple error or maliciously altered to slow our progress?”
Fortunas tilted his shaggy head to one side. “Why would anyone want to
slow
our progress?”
“I keep asking that same question.”
***
Ensign Robertson presented the commander with his charts and the computer simulations. She reviewed his data and confirmed that the charts were grossly inaccurate. She felt a nagging suspicion about the difference between reality and the Dremikians’ information, but had no firm theories to present to her captain. After assigning the ensign a detailed review of all star charts, O’Connell made her way back to the bridge. Her interrupted nap was beginning to catch up with her—that was the only excuse she could fathom for her paranoid thoughts.
She was shocked to learn the captain shared her doubts.
“I saw the charts myself, sir. They have all the usual markings. I highly doubt they are forgeries.”
“Not that you, or any of us, would know what to look for in a good forgery.”
She shifted her weight. “It is a mystery sir, but one without a pressing time constraint. I’ve assigned Robertson to review all the upcoming system charts. I’ll have Price enter this less oblique route,” she waved her hand to indicate the information she’d just transmitted to the captain’s tablet. She paused, chewing her bottom lip as she thought. “Should I have Guttmann increase patrols in the engineering sections? If someone is trying to slow us down…”
He looked at her sharply, but shook his head in the negative. “No, I don’t want to arouse suspicion among the crew or colonists. You and Price keep a look out, the same for Guttmann. Anything that raises the slightest suspicion I want to hear of it, understood?”
“Aye, aye, sir.” She left the captain’s office knowing that she would be unable to return to her nap. Saboteurs, altered charts, plots, and the possibility of plots had her chewing her lip until she tasted blood.
Chapter 15
Maggie hated scheduled maintenance. She really hated scheduled maintenance when the lander in question hadn’t been out of its secured docking station in months. She turned up the volume on her music and hummed along while walking the surrounding deck. With the sound booming in her ear drums, and her mind only partially on her task, her feet started to follow the beat. It wasn’t long before her red head bobbed in time with the music while her hips swayed along.
Swede, busy with his own task, didn’t notice until the sharp voice of his captain intruded into his thoughts.
“What in the hell is she doing now?”
The lieutenant didn’t need to ask who the “she” in question was. He shot a quick glance over his shoulder. With a fleeting grin at his captain he went back to work. “Dancing, sir.”
The captain stood and watched as his second in command slithered and sashayed around lander 3. He hadn’t actually ever thought about her dancing. He had to pause and let his mind catch up. The deck crewmen were in no such quandary. Several were out-right staring.
“Well, make her stop or no work is getting done in here today.”
Swede shook his head. “I respectfully decline to follow that order, sir.” His grin was not at all fleeting when he saw the look the captain gave him. “I like all my parts in working order, sir. She’s not hurting anyone right now.” He choked back a laugh when the captain’s left eyebrow shot upward. “Well, nothing a few dozen cold showers won’t handle.” He turned and leaned against the lander he was working on. “Kind of shocking, eh?”
The captain was watching O’Connell again. “What’s that?”
“That flight deck fatigues can look so damn good.” Swede’s laugh echoed in the bay as he ducked the open-handed swat the captain aimed at his head. Still chuckling, he tried to assume a somewhat more proper attitude. “I suppose I should be the one to stop her. Anyone else she’ll flay alive.” His eyes sparked with mischief as the captain pushed away from the lander and stalked across the bay. “Works every time,” Swede muttered before returning to his check-list.
Since O’Connell hadn’t noticed Swede’s booming laugh just a few seconds before, the captain was reasonably sure that he could shout himself deaf before she heard him over her music. He waited until she ducked behind an engine casing then stepped into her path. She popped up on the other side of the engine and gasped.
Maggie was still not happy with her afternoon’s task, but the music made it bearable. She didn’t have to worry about Ryan Hill giving her the creeps, Cassie nagging her about some medical issue, or the captain glaring at her every move. She bounced up from under the starboard engine and promptly flattened herself back against it. Where the hell had he come from?
Captain Hill stood so close that he had her pinned with her back to the engine. His arms were folded across his chest. His uniform was immaculately crisp, without a wrinkle or smudge. That damned eyebrow of his moved fractionally higher.
She was... grimy. Curls, sprung free from her braid, hung over her ears and at her temples. Grease smudged one cheek and clotted under her nails. The soft “o” of surprise her mouth formed when she nearly ran him down was replaced with a pursed lip pout. Her nose wrinkled slightly as she glared at him. It was the most incongruous sight the captain had seen in months: pouting, pixyish, features on a grease-streaked harridan.
“What?”
“You’re distracting the crew.”
“Huh?” Her nose wrinkled further before she leaned sideways to peer at the bay behind him. If anyone had been watching, he was studiously back on task and pointedly ignoring the conversation between captain and second in command. “Yeah, they look it.”
“Doubting me?” Just for a second she could swear his mouth quirked into a smile.
“Dancing’s not against regs.”
“It is when you do it.” He had to work very hard to bite back the smile caused by her look of shock. “Hurry up. You have simulator work with the civilian lander pilots in forty-five minutes. When you’re done with that, I want to speak with you about an idea I have.”
“Bleh.” She slid past him without further comment. He watched her finish her walk-around. The image of her dancing in dirty flight deck fatigues would trouble him for days, and nights, he was sure.
Oh, wow. I definitely needed some female company if I’m so desperate that I’m thinking about her like
that.
***
“Hi.” Cassie Ruger leaned against the counter trying to appear casual and in the process completely missing the entire point of “casual”.
“Good afternoon, Doctor.” Doctor Fortunas swallowed the laugh caused by the woman’s forced manner. “You are in the way, pixie.” He gripped her waist, picked her up, and placed her away from his workstation. He gave in to a chuckle when she slapped, ineffectually, at his hands.
“Excuse me! I am not a teacup to be man-handled! Do you treat Clara this way?”
He made a tsk’ing noise. “Not a chance.” In a mock whisper he added, “She bites.”
“Bloody right I do. Give him a good chomp, he’ll leave you be, Cassie.”
“Back to work, you!” His voice was stern and harsh with all the natural guttural undertones of his native language, but the dark blue eyes under his white eyebrows twinkled with mirth.
She stayed out of arm’s reach, but Cassie still shadowed him. “So?”
With a shake of his head, Ben smiled condescendingly. “I’ve learned nothing. You won’t either if you keep being so damn obvious.”
Pouting, she wrinkled her nose. “I’m obvious?”
“Endearingly so, yes. Espionage just isn’t in your blood, dear. Stop trying so hard.” He frowned at the results on his tablet. “Nothing is certain, even in science.” Tossing the tablet down in frustration, Ben rubbed his forehead with one finger. “It is possible that the captain and commander aren’t hiding anything from us.”
Oblivious to how closely the older man watched her expressive features, Cassie rushed to disagree. “No, there’s something going on. It wasn’t just the tension arising over the death of her aunt. I’m not really sure why that caused a ruckus, anyway. This is something more. Price and Guttmann are on edge as well. Price has actually forgotten to be an asshole on more than one occasion.” She smiled at Ben’s chuckle. “I know, not exactly admissible evidence in a court of law, but you agreed with me that they are all acting very odd.”