The Oncoming Storm (9 page)

Kat looked up and met her XO’s eyes, then looked back at the display. “Open the vortex,” she ordered. It was time to leave. “And hold it open as long as possible.”

Space seemed to twist in front of the starship, a blaze of light rapidly spinning into a tear in the fabric of existence. She saw the eerie lights of hyperspace peeking through, like something from a very different universe, then forced herself to relax as the first of the freighters went through the vortex. There were members of her crew who refused to watch as the ships passed through, claiming the vortex was actually a giant mouth waiting to swallow them, but she’d never had that problem. All she felt was relief at getting underway and leaving Tyre far behind.

“The last of the freighters has passed through,” Roach reported. The tactical officer sounded amused. “They’re heading towards the first waypoint now.”

“Take us through,” Kat ordered.

There was a faint sensation of . . . wrongness as they passed through the vortex, which rapidly faded away to nothingness. A handful of people had problems in hyperspace, but none of them joined the Navy. They stayed firmly on the ground or made the trip in stasis. “Status report?”

“The vortex generator performed splendidly,” Lynn stated. The engineer sounded pleased with himself. “We didn’t need to activate any of the secondary power systems at all.”

“Excellent,” Kat said. She watched as the vortex faded away into nothingness, leaving them in hyperspace. Her sensors insisted that there was no one close enough to follow her ships, let alone pick up on her deployments. “Communications, pass the deployment plan to the convoy master.”

“Aye, aye, Captain,” Ross said.

Kat turned to the XO. “Have the shuttle launched,” she added. They’d loaded the shuttle with command and control systems for the drones prior to leaving the shipyard, but she hadn’t risked informing the convoy master of what she had planned. “Once the equipment is mounted, launch two drones to provide additional sensor coverage.”

“Aye, Captain,” the XO said.

Kat watched him leave and then turned her attention to the display. Hyperspace was always relatively calm near a star, as only an idiot or a suicidal fool would try to fly through the area of hyperspace that corresponded to the location of a star in the real world. It would get much worse as they headed away from Tyre, she knew; even short-range communications would become erratic. And who knew who might be following them, relying on hyperspace to cloak their presence? The pirates just had to get lucky once to secure a hard lock on her hulls.

“The convoy master . . . ah, sounds a little astonished,” Ross reported. No amount of control could hide the nervousness in her voice. It was her first posting as communications officer, after all. “But he says he will comply.”

Doubts my sanity, Kat translated to herself. She had a feeling his response had been rude, too rude for any officer to dare repeating. God knew she’d done the same as a junior officer. But as long as he does as he is told, it doesn’t matter.

“Take us to our position,” she ordered. The freighters were already forming up, although their formation was, if anything, even less orderly than their formation in real space. “And then we can start our journey to Cadiz.”

And see what comes crawling out after us, she added, mentally.

“You seem to have forgotten how to fight,” Davidson said. “How terrible.”

Kat lay on her back on the mat, wondering if it was worth getting up. Davidson had taught her how to spar, years ago, but she’d never had the time to become one of the navy’s martial artists. Indeed, being able to kill a man with a single blow wasn’t a valued skill on the bridge of a starship. It did build confidence, she had to admit, but little else.

“It’s been too long,” she muttered as she sat upright. Her entire body was covered in sweat while her muscles ached in pain. “I should have sparred more.”

“That is evident,” Davidson said. He stuck out a hand to help her to her feet. “You’ve really let yourself go.”

Kat glowered at him as she stood upright. Her body, thanks to genetic engineering, didn’t decay as far or as fast as a baseline human, but she still needed to exercise regularly just to keep herself in shape. She rather suspected that the engineers had been more interested in designing her for beauty than endurance, although the former was often a matter of taste while the latter required far more extensive enhancement. But she’d refrained from looking into their files, fearful of what she might find. She loved her father dearly, at least when he wasn’t interfering with her life, yet she had no illusions about his ruthlessness.

“You should have more practice sessions,” Davidson warned as he let go of her hand and reached for a towel. “What would you do if we were boarded by a bunch of scurvy pirates?”

“Shoot them with my pistol,” Kat said. “Have you ever fought hand-to-hand on a pirate ship?”

“I had a sucker come at me with an axe once,” Davidson said. He passed her the towel and reached for another one for himself. “I don’t know what era he thought he was living in.”

Kat dried the sweat off her body, then looked around, silently grateful that Davidson had picked a private sparring chamber for their exercise. She didn’t want to show any form of weakness in front of the crew, even though cold logic suggested that anyone who had endured boot camp should be able to handle someone who hadn’t. Besides, she had a feeling that Davidson hadn’t wanted his marines to see either. Their relationship was closer than it should have been.

“He was probably drunk or drugged,” she said as she walked through the hatch and into the shower. Water cascaded down from high overhead as she pulled off her exercise clothes, dropping them into the cleaning bin. “Or maybe he thought he could catch you by surprise.”

“It would be more impressive if I hadn’t been wearing armor,” Davidson conceded as he followed her into the shower. “Do you want me to scrub you down?”

Kat felt her face heat. Modesty was impossible to maintain at Piker’s Peak, where the cadets were bunked together without regard for age or sex. And Davidson had seen her naked countless times before, back when she’d been a mere midshipwoman. It was a tempting offer—her body remembered his touch far too well—but she knew she couldn’t allow it, not now. They were now senior officers, not junior crew.

“No, thank you,” she said as she washed the sweat off her body. “I’m sorry, but . . .”

Davidson didn’t show any signs of obvious regret when she turned to look at him. If anything, she noted, he was more muscular than before, but he’d picked up a handful of nasty scars on his chest. Marines kept their scars, she recalled him telling her, even when modern medical science could leave their skin as smooth and untouched as a baby’s bottom. It was how they kept score.

“I don’t remember those scars,” she said. “How’d you get them?”

“Some bastard planted an IED far too close to the Rover,” Davidson explained. “I got slammed in the chest by the wreckage and sent howling to the ground. If I’d been wearing my armor . . .”

Kat nodded. Marine armor was almost impossible to penetrate without heavy weapons, but it was also hellishly intimidating, not the sort of thing that should be used when the Marines were trying to win hearts and minds. Davidson’s other enhancements were under the skin, impossible to detect without a deep scan. Some of them, she knew, were so highly classified that no one outside the Royal Marines was supposed to know about their mere existence let alone what they actually did.

She felt his gaze passing over her body. “You’re still perfect,” he said. “You didn’t pick up a single scar?”

“They faded quickly,” Kat said. Her body didn’t allow scars to last for more than a few weeks. She might spend a long time healing, but anything that didn’t kill her outright wouldn’t inflict permanent damage. Or so she had been told. “I don’t have the ego required to show off my cuts and bruises.”

Davidson smirked. “Paper cuts and coffee stains?”

Kat gave him a one-fingered gesture. “Vacuum scars and plasma burns,” she said, remembering a major systems failure on Thunderous. She’d spent a week in Sickbay afterwards, having the damage repaired. “I don’t think I could hack it as a groundpounder.”

“You have the bloody-minded determination to press on until you get killed,” Davidson said snidely. “Everything else would come, in time.”

Kat shook her head, then stepped out of the shower into the drying room. She picked up a towel and dried herself swiftly, then reached for the small pile of clothes she’d left on the bench. Part of her was very tempted, she knew, just to turn and take Davidson into her arms. They both knew there would be no strings attached. But she knew better than to allow it, not now. She was the ship’s commander. It was quite possible she would have to order him to his death.

She shivered at the thought as she pulled on her panties and bra, then donned her trousers and jacket as Davidson joined her. He dressed himself with formidable speed—he’d always had that habit, she recalled—then sat down on the bench. Kat checked her appearance in the mirror, decided she passed muster, and then sat down facing him.

“I meant to ask,” she said, “how are your Marines coping with shipboard life?”

“They’re surviving,” Davidson said. He smiled suddenly. “And they’re glad of the chance to practice boarding starships, despite the complaints from the freighter commanders.”

Kat had to smile. The convoy master had been hearing from his subordinate captains and he’d passed their complaints on to Kat. She wasn’t surprised—no civilian starship crews enjoyed seeing Marines prowling through their ships—but it wasn’t something she intended to stop. Given where the ships were going afterwards, she wanted to make sure they were searched thoroughly before they were allowed to leave.

“Anyone would think they had something to hide,” she mused.

“Oh, they do,” Davidson said. He shrugged at her expression. “There’s always a market for smuggled goods, Kat. Something as simple as the latest AV recording or bootleg flick will bring in thousands of crowns if sold to the right distributor. And then pornography from Tyre or Paradise will fetch a high price on one of the dourer worlds in the Commonwealth.”

“True,” Kat agreed. “Though I don’t see what people enjoy about modern music.”

The thought made her smile. Candy had patronized—in all senses of the word—a dozen up-and-coming musicians, often lobbying her father to use his influence to keep others from pirating their music. But it was a losing battle. There might be musical stars who were famous on a particular planet, yet they rarely saw any royalties from anywhere outside the system. It was just too easy for a starship crewman to copy their recordings, upload them to the datanet on a different planet, and then start distributing them. Their father had eventually banned Candy from speaking to him outside family gatherings, if only because she just wouldn’t shut up about her latest pop star boyfriend.

“Everyone has different tastes,” Davidson said. He paused. “It’s a little more dangerous for those freighter crews, though.”

Kat nodded, sourly. Years ago, a freighter crew had been arrested and jailed by enforcers for daring to bring pornography into the Theocracy. There had been no evidence that the crew had intended to distribute the porn, but it hadn’t mattered. The Commonwealth was forced to make a number of increasingly sharp diplomatic protests before the crew was finally released. They hadn’t had a good time while prisoners.

“I hope you warned them,” she said.

“Oh, we did,” Davidson said. “Porn isn’t illegal within the Commonwealth. But the Theocracy . . .”

Kat understood. They’d all heard from the refugees. Anything the Theocracy didn’t like was destroyed, starting with religious sites and eventually including schools for girls and mixed-sex gatherings. The Theocracy had picked up the worst, she sometimes thought, of its predecessors as well as the best. If they genuinely believed God would only grant them victory if they worked for it . . . they might well be very dangerous opponents.

She stood. “I have paperwork to do,” she said dryly. “I wish we had more time to just chat.”

Davidson gave her a sly look. “Shore leave on Cadiz?”

“Only if you let me borrow a suit of armor,” Kat said. She rather doubted the entire planet was dangerous, but she knew better than to take chances. “Don’t let anyone’s complaints slow you down.”

William read the latest series of complaints from the convoy master with a rather jaundiced eye. The convoy master didn’t seem to have any sense of proportion; first, he complained about the marines poking their way through his ships, then demanded compensation for the fuss and upset. Given that most of his crews actually had very little to do until they reached Cadiz, William rather suspected the convoy master was trying to hide something. Or perhaps he just resented having marines tramping through his ships.

Sighing, he looked up at the bridge display, half hoping that something would happen to spare him the monotony of endless paperwork. But there was nothing on the display, apart from the nine freighters and the live feed from the drones in front of them. Operating them at such a remove was tricky—yet another source of complaints from the convoy master—but he had to admit the idea had worked out well. If there was someone lurking ahead of them, the drones would spot them before they realized they’d discovered the convoy.