The pirate ship had quite obviously not expected to run through the wormhole and find not one, but two Protectorate ships in the immediate vicinity. However, the Protectorate was not in the best situation for dealing with interlopers, either. The
Stillwell
must have been reluctant to leave its post near the other wormhole, because it hadn’t moved. The
Domtaw
had other problems on its hands, if they were still incommunicado with the crew on the surface of the Chron moon.
“The Admiral’s bawling him out, but good,” Baden said. “Citing Protectorate regulations and making all kinds of threats. Already forbade him to re-enter the wormhole and told him he can’t stay here, either. The pirate told Woodroct he’s not in a position to enforce any of that, and—”
“Baden, I’m ordering you to—”
“Wait!” Baden swung around to face me, losing the impish grin he’d worn as he listened in and reported. “The pirate’s saying he has an important message for you. About your mother.”
“Mother?”
Damne.
“Get me a line to Admiral Woodroct. Preferably one the pirate can’t overhear, if that’s even possible.” Lanar would owe me big-time when this was over.
“Admiral?” I said, when Baden gave me the nod. “Admiral, this ship is known to me, I’m afraid. At least—well, let’s just say I’ve had encounters with it before. I have not had actual contact with anyone inside it and had hoped to avoid that. This is the ship I was afraid might be following us when we were waiting to make the skip into this system.”
He didn’t respond, so I went on. “It appears this person or persons must have tracked us through the wormhole, despite my best efforts to avoid that. For that, I apologize.”
The silence from the
Domtaw
stretched out. Then, “Captain Paixon, the individual in command of this interloper vessel, who has so far refused to identify himself, says he has a personal message for you regarding your mother. That he knows who you are and knew where to find you makes me inclined to believe that part of his story, although anything else he says is suspect. Frankly,” and I thought I heard the Admiral sigh, “I can’t do much to him at this point unless he poses an actual threat. I’m still trying to re-establish contact with our people on the moon. So if you want to talk to him, I won’t stop you. I’ll tell him to keep his distance from this moon and stay clear of the wormhole, and then forget about him for now if he follows those orders.”
“Fine with me,” I said, and at that moment I felt a little sorry for the Admiral. He was definitely having a bad day.
“Baden,” I said, “I’m going back down to the galley and try to finish my supper. If this guy contacts us, patch it through to me there. Don’t initiate contact—let him come to us. Rei, you have the chair.”
I didn’t leave Hirin in charge because I knew he’d want to come with me and honestly, I wanted him to. Whatever this pirate had to say to me concerning Mother, I didn’t want to be alone when I spoke to him.
And it wasn’t long before he sent a message. Audio only, with some kind of scrambling device hooked up to distort his voice.
“Captain Paixon?” it stuttered.
“That’s me,” I said. “You have something to tell me about my mother. And I know you’re working for PrimeCorp, so don’t try and hand me any
merde
about that. I’m only listening while you’re saying something that interests me.”
“Oh, this should interest you, Captain. It would be in your mother’s best interests if you could convince her to negotiate directly with PrimeCorp on the nanobioscavenger issue.”
The voice-camouflaging intrigued me. Why would they do that? Was it someone I knew?
“PrimeCorp is already on the Protectorate’s scans,” I said. “What happened on Vele proves that. I would think they’d have more important things on their minds after that.”
“Consider it a safety issue. Think about it; maybe PrimeCorp needs the information your mother has now, more desperately than ever.”
My throat felt tight. The words were so cold and matter-of-fact, especially spoken in that mechanical, inhuman voice. “And whose safety are we talking about?”
“Let’s just say that if certain information came into their hands via a different route—say, released onto the free nets—they might feel their position would be stronger if your mother were out of the equation altogether. You should suggest that to her the next time you see her.”
Without saying another word, I shut down the connection with shaking hands. PrimeCorp was openly
threatening
Mother! Did they plan to move against her if she released her data onto the open nets? Hirin came over and put his arms around me, and to my surprise it didn’t do the slightest bit of good.
“We can’t stay here and wait for Cerevare now,” I said, leaning my head against his chest. “I have to get to Kiando and warn Mother, and get a message to Lanar.”
“Agreed. But I thought the Protectorate was clamping down on PrimeCorp. Why would they risk something like this if they know they’re being watched? And they have to know you’ll go straight to Lanar with it.”
“They’re desperate? They’re bluffing? I don’t know. Maybe planning to deny the whole thing? This guy could be a scapegoat, like Dores Amadoro.” I picked up my half-eaten supper and tossed it into the recycler. Delicious or not, I’d lost my appetite.
“Or they’re setting a trap,” Hirin mused. “Frighten you into running straight to your mother, and then follow you. They might not actually be planning violence against her, but they still want to know where she is.”
That gave me a moment’s pause. I’d been worried that I’d already done that once. “Maybe I should tell Woodroct, see what he thinks. He’s Protectorate, after all—”
I didn’t get to finish, because once again Fate had other plans for me.
“Captain, a ship just came through the wormhole—not the one from Delta Pavonis this time. The one the other Protectorate ship is guarding,” Yuskeya said briskly.
“
Kristos
,” I swore. “I’m on my way.”
“ALL SCREENS ON
,” I snapped as soon as I reached the bridge. “Full perimeter view from the ship. Viss?”
“Here, Captain.”
“Everything ready to move at a word from me.”
“Already done.”
I saw that Cerevare was on the bridge with everyone else. Like a good passenger, she’d taken a seat out of the way and sat quietly watching the proceedings, but her furred face was drawn with concern.
With all the screens turned on, the bridge of the
Tane Ikai
took on the appearance of a surveillance vessel. “This one,” said Rei, and the magnification on one of the starwise screens increased. The vessel that had come through the wormhole hurtled in our direction. The NPV
R. Stillwell
moved slowly out of position to follow. It had taken them by surprise, apparently, and blasted past the waiting ship. The newcomer had a configuration I didn’t immediately recognize, which might have surprised me if I’d been capable of more surprise at that point. The vessel was long and blunt-nosed, with a sunburst of fins at the tail end and a sleek body.
“Lots of chatter between the Protectorate ships,” Baden reported. “It’s encrypted, but I could break it pretty easily. Should I?”
“Better not,” I ordered. “Not yet, anyway.”
“It probably consists of a lot of ‘
Sankta Merde
!’ and ‘What the hell is that?’“ Hirin said with a tight grin.
“I could tell them what it is,” Cerevare said evenly. She slid out of the skimchair and glided closer to the screen. “It is a Chron ship.”
“What?” Yuskeya’s long plait of dark hair swung as she whirled to face the Lobor. “Are you certain?”
Cerevare nodded. “It is my job to be certain of such things.”
“
Dios
! There’s a second one!”
“Can you get a closer view?”
Rei nodded and with a few strokes had enlarged the image of the second ship to twice the size.
This second ship looked nothing like the one Cerevare had identified as Chron. It was all dark angles and sharp protrusions as it snaked across the starfield in apparent pursuit of the Chron ship, but something else about it caught my eye. Despite its angular shape, the vessel had a shimmery, unstable appearance—almost as if it were
gelatinous
. Again, I didn’t recognize it as anything I’d come across in Nearspace before. I pulled up the Nearspace registry on my datapad to see if I could spot a match.
“Incoming from the
Domtaw
,” Baden said.
“
Domtaw
, this is the
Tane Ikai
.”
“Captain Paixon, this is Lieutenant Praveen. We’re not sure what’s happening here. Please move your ship a safe distance away.”
I resisted the urge to ask what that distance might be.
“Affirmative, Lieutenant,” I said. “Rei, set a course for the far side of the moon. Use the burst drive. I want to get it between us and whatever’s going to happen here.”
“Aye, Captain.” She didn’t take her eyes off the screen or the pilot’s board. The
Tane Ikai
leapt away from the current path of the oncoming Chron ship, as the
Domtaw
moved to intercept it.
“What about the pirate?” Rei asked.
“He can worry about his own
azeno
. He’s the Protectorate’s problem, not mine. Now, everyone find a seat,” I ordered. “This ride might get rough.”
Maja slid into the empty skimchair next to Baden, but Cerevare didn’t move from the screen displaying the Chron ship. Hirin crossed to her and gently led her to sit down. Her eyes didn’t leave the screen.
“I never expected to see one in my lifetime,” she said in a voice that was little more than a whisper.
“Any communication from either alien ship?” I asked Baden.
“Nothing.”
“I think they’re scanning,” Yuskeya said. “I’m picking up something from their ship, but I don’t know exactly what it is.”
“They’re changing course,” Rei said. “If I had to take a guess, I’d say they’re moving toward the moon.”
“After us?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. They’d have a more direct intercept course to us.”
“Keep getting us out of the way,” I told her. “The torps we’ve got on board won’t be more than fireworks if these folks decide to light it up with each other.”
Admiral Woodroct must have seen the change in course as well, because the
Domtaw
also turned back toward the moon. It was no match for the speed of the Chron ship, however.
There was too much happening on too many screens to easily keep track of it all, but the scenario was this: the Chron ship speeding toward the operant moon (where presumably the
Domtaw’s
people still were), the
Domtaw
moving to try and intercept it. Further behind, the
Stillwell
hurtling after the Chron ship, and behind that, gaining fast, the dark mystery ship that had emerged last from the second wormhole.
And us, trying to get the hell as far away as possible from whatever was going to happen. While still, I admit, keeping it all in view, because it was damned interesting.
I was studying the dark ship, which I already unconsciously thought of as
the spider
, when a bright flash lit up one of the other screens, jabbing sharply into my peripheral vision. A jolt almost shook me out of my seat as the engines died, killing our acceleration. My datapad shuddered in my hand, the notification vibration gone berserk, and the screen dissolved into gibberish. The case suddenly burned with a searing heat, and I dropped it to the floor. At least the pseudo-grav fields hadn’t been affected.
“
Damne
! What happened?”
“No main drive, no maneuvering thrusters,” Rei said, her voice tight with concentration, fingers skittering over the screen. “And my board reset itself. We’re coasting, folks.” She slid across to the co-pilot’s board. “This one’s still live.”
“Comm board is down, too. Switching to backup,” Baden reported. “We’ll have reduced range.”
“
Chron ship fired something on the moon,” Yuskeya said. “We happened to be in the line of fire.”
“The operant moon?”
“The what?”
“Captain, we have a problem,” came Viss’s voice over the comm.
“That’s what the Protectorate calls it. The artifact moon. Viss, I can feel it. Report.”
“Propulsion system shut down without warning,” he said. The frustration in his voice was almost palpable. “I have to reset the entire system, including prechecks. Thrusters’ll be quick, main drive, not so much.”
I sucked my scorched fingers and swung my gaze to the screen showing the moon. It still spun unperturbed in its orbit, golden rings circling it like delicate bangles. It appeared completely unaffected. “Yuskeya, what’s our course? Immediate danger?”