Victory Conditions (33 page)

“You were on the orbital station, then?” Colonel Watkins asked.

“No, ma’am. With respect, ma’am, is this a secure connection? Entirely with the Vatta-type ansibles?”

“Yes,” Colonel Watkins said. “Why?”

“Ma’am, what I need to say is extremely sensitive and should be shared only with Section Four.”

Watkins’ brows lifted. “Would you prefer to speak to the senior Section Four officer aboard?” From the tone it was a request Pitt should not make.

“That might be best, ma’am. There are…strategic implications.”

“I see. Can you hold the connection at your end?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

A pause, a flicker at the edge of the screen that cleared, and another officer appeared, also a woman. Ky, watching from out of range of the video pickup, saw a flick of hand signal, which Pitt acknowledged with a twitch of her own.

“Master Sergeant Pitt, I’m Colonel Paraits. I understand you have sensitive data for us?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“But you’re not alone.” It was not a question. Ky wondered if the finger flick had conveyed that.

“No, ma’am, but the officer here already knows it, and has reason to mistrust me.”

“Ah. Go on, then. I was monitoring your transmission before; I’m caught up.”

“Yes, ma’am. I was in
Vanguard
when it blew—but in the CCC, which survived, though not without casualties. The most critical information to protect is that Admiral Vatta also survived. We know from local transmissions and remote reports that the enemy believe her dead, since her ship was destroyed.”

“I see. And you are now…where?”

“Moray System, ma’am. And in the past days, after Major Douglas was killed, I’ve been operating on my own—but I could do with some orders, frankly.”

“I’m sure, Master Sergeant.” The colonel looked thoughtful. “The problem is…we don’t have anyone to send out your way right now. I can have some orders cut, but as for sending an officer—” She paused again. “And—what was that about an officer there having reason to mistrust you?”

“If the colonel will refer to my report history, under the code name Foxbat-Victor,” Pitt said, “the colonel will find that I have a contact on Slotter Key—”

A few moments later, the colonel nodded. “I see that, yes.”

“Well, ma’am, the officer did not know I had a contact on Slotter Key and considered it a breach of security. As it happens the officer was acquainted with my contact and was concerned about his loyalty as well.”

“Um. I can think of only one officer that might be,” Paraits said. “The subject perhaps—?”

“Yes, ma’am. Who is also here with me, observing this transmission.” Pitt radiated caution.

“I see. Actually I don’t see, as it were, but I do understand. Let me assure this officer that, as Mackensee is now contracted to both Nexus and Cascadia, to augment their defense forces, any prior surveillance on…this officer…will certainly not be used in her detriment. And I am confident that, should I confirm Master Sergeant Pitt in her present role as temporary liaison between the…commander in your present location…and Mackensee, the master sergeant will obey all your orders and conform to your needs.” Paraits paused, then went on. “It might be easier if I could talk to this officer directly, though I understand that this might present an unacceptable security risk.”

“I’ll talk to your people,” Ky said, waving Pitt away, and moving into pickup range. “Colonel Paraits, I see that you recognize me.”

“Yes.”

Ky explained the circumstances that had led to Turek thinking she had died with her ship.

“So you think that if Turek thinks you’re dead it will give your fleet a sufficient advantage?” Paraits asked.

“An advantage, certainly. Sufficient…we can’t know that. He won’t expect us to respond as quickly, and perhaps he will not expect the same level of tactical control,” Ky said. “Not that there aren’t other competent officers, but I’m the one he’s seemed to worry about.”

“With reason,” Paraits said. “But won’t he be suspicious of a continued communications blackout from Moray?”

“No—he’ll think it’s my death that’s being concealed. And it is, in a way. We know that Turek had agents here, and at least one of his pirated ansibles…but those can communicate only with others like them. So if word of my death gets out, it’s almost certainly through a network of his agents, and it might be possible to backtrack and locate them by those leaks.”

“Ah,” Paraits said. “Very ingenious and quite possibly workable. I doubt you’ll smoke them all out, but you should get quite a few. Do you have your strategy for attacking Turek planned yet?”

“No. It depends on where his supply base is and how long he’ll need to be there. Moray tells us that the ships he made off with will need at least another six to seven days in dock, with competent workers, to do the final weapons fitting, the stocking up, and so on. Longer without a skilled crew and the facilities they have here. If he wants to calibrate the weapons and fine-tune the navigation computers, to maximize his control in combat, he’ll need still another seven to ten days. Moray has given us the ships he didn’t take, and they’re now very close to fully operational.” Miracle, that was, considering the number of expert riggers who’d died, but the Moray government had gone all-out.

“If he thinks you’re dead, if he thinks that will make a real delay, he could move either faster or slower. And have you considered the effect word of your death may have on your other allies?”

“It should stiffen their spines,” Ky said. “If it doesn’t—well, they wouldn’t stick it out if they knew I was alive.”

“I think you underestimate your effect, Admiral Vatta, but I won’t argue.”

“You’re not going to believe this.” The Moray senior scan tech handed over a data cube. “We have all the details of Ransome’s departure untangled from the rest of the scan data that day. The ship identified as
Glorious
accelerated toward the enemy as the enemy fled, and appears to have gone into jumpspace at the same relative distance from the scan station, as if they thought they could pursue through FTL space. The other Ranger ship was behind by some minutes, but went into jump within ten thousand klicks of that location.”

“Idiots!” Ky said. “And no transmissions at all?”

“Not to the fleet and not to Moray. They just took off. Do you think they were actually associated with the enemy all along?” Moray’s suspicions were still active, Ky realized.

“No,” Ky said. She glanced at Pitt.

“I agree with the admiral,” Pitt said. “These young men were impulsive and extravagant, but they weren’t traitors.”

“Well, what did they think they were doing? Nobody can follow in FTL flight…they wouldn’t have the coordinates or anything.”

“And a blind jump can dump you out anywhere,” Ky said. “But…could they have had the coordinates? Could they have been monitoring the enemy transmissions? We have a record of those, don’t we?”

“Yes, and the translations—but he couldn’t have had the translations that fast—”

“Do the translations give any numerical data?”

“Er…yes…I suppose those could be vector and duration—if you knew which was which…”

“So he could’ve swung over to get on the same course, which gives him vector…and duration…and he might come out at the same place.”

“Might. Unless it was multiple jumps.”

“But he might have thought he had enough data—”

“Then he’s crazy.”

“Right now, he’s gone,” Ky said. “And since we don’t know where, or when—if ever—he’ll be back with us, we might as well go on to the next item.”

The next item, crewing the Moray-built ships, took much longer.

“You’ll have to take one of them as your flagship,” Argelos pointed out. “And none of us knows diddly about them; you should use Moray crew for Moray ships.”

“Moray’s own space navy doesn’t use this model,” Ky said. “You could learn.
Sharra’s Gift
shouldn’t go into another combat—you’ve seen the stress charts.”

“Um. We could be second-tier…”

“You could also be dead. We need to replace the ships with the worst stress levels, and you know it. You’re not the only one who’s being shifted.”

Argelos looked grim. “
Sharra’s Gift
has been my ship since I got into the business. She’s like my other arm—”

“I understand. But this is war, not privateering. If you’re to be with me, you’re going to have to move to a ship that’s capable of sustained combat.”

“Can I at least name it
Sharra’s Gift II
?”

“I don’t see why not,” Ky said. “None of them have names yet…all their ship-chips are just numbers at this point.”

“What about Dan? Are you going to make him change ships, too?”

“
Bassoon
isn’t showing the same damage. We have worse in the fleet.
Tangeld,
for instance, and
Sapphire Radiance.
Captain Peters and Captain Tardin will both take over cruisers.”

“What will happen to my—to the original
Sharra’s Gift
?”

“You owned her outright, didn’t you?”

“Yes…”

“Then you could sell her, or let Moray do the refit, either to military grade or back to a merchanter. For that matter, if Moray pulled her armament, she could run as a merchanter now.”

“I won’t have time to do that—to run her, I mean. I suppose I could sell…but I don’t know…I feel I’m losing my connection…”

Ky noted his expression. “You’re not happy with all this, are you?”

“Who would be?” Argelos asked. “I don’t mean you—you’ve been a good commander—”

“Look…do you want to quit and go back to being a merchanter? A letter of marque doesn’t force you to be a privateer—it’s permission. If
Sharra’s Gift
were unarmed…you’ve earned a rest.”

“It’s a commission,” Argelos said. “I said I’d take on Slotter Key’s enemies.”

“Yes, but not in the same way it was when there were kings and things. Legally, I think you’d have no problem, if that’s what you want. I’d back you.”

“I don’t want to get blown away by Turek’s bunch—and I would, unarmed and alone. I guess…I never really thought of myself as a Spaceforce captain. Being a privateer, I could be mostly a trader and only sometimes have to worry…” He scrubbed at his head. “And now I’ve been in…is it only three battles? Four, counting that mess at Gretna, if that qualified as a battle, and I guess it did. Should, with some of my people dead. I don’t know, it’s just…I think I’m not good enough.”

“You’re good enough,” Ky said. “But you need some of the same treatment I got. I should’ve thought of that.”

“No…if you think I can command a Moray-built warship, then I guess I can command a Moray-built warship. But I’m going to miss old
Sharra’s Gift.
”

“You’ll get her back someday,” Ky said, and then wondered if it was an empty promise.

“It won’t be the same,” Argelos said. “But it’ll be nice to have this over with. So—where’s the book for my new ship? I know the first rule: RTFM hasn’t changed since before the Dispersion.”

One by one, Ky found captains for her ships, some transferred from aging privateer vessels, and some from Moray’s own space service. Since Moray didn’t use heavy cruisers in its home defense fleet, none of the captains had prior experience with that model, but the Moray officers were familiar with much of the software. Ky set up classes. Crews for the new ships would come mostly from Moray—she did not have the people, in her other ships—to fill out the necessary positions, nor would she have even if
Vanguard
had not been lost.

CHAPTER

SEVENTEEN

O
n the seventh day in FTL flight, Teddy Ransome experienced the kind of internal change known in his culture as “brain-bend.” Some people planned their progress through their various intelligences: so many months in each. Others waited on whatever biochemical signal switched off one and turned on another…and something turned the switch.

It felt mentally just like falling out of bed felt physically—that moment of blissful weightlessness, followed by a hard thump when he hit the floor. He had been a Romantic; he had enjoyed being a Romantic; he had secretly planned to die as a Romantic, never completing the cycle of modalities that was supposed to prepare one for full maturity.

Only he wasn’t a Romantic anymore. Safe in the cocoon of uncertainty that defined FTL flight, he stared at the banks of instruments visible from his command chair and wondered how he’d ever convinced himself this was a good idea.

Even his uniform disgusted him. Sky blue, gold braid, white facings? He looked around the bridge. More light blue, more braid…brightly polished metal in decorative shapes. Had he really thought that was practical? It looked theatrical, not at all workmanlike…

He reached mentally for the mantle—no, the flamboyant swirling cloak—of his Romantic period, but it was gone. He couldn’t be Teddy Ransome, pirate hunter…Teddy Ransome, noble, gallant, daring…he shivered. Who was he now? Theodore, not Teddy? It sounded stuffy; it felt…much less stuffy than it would have even a few hours before. Which intelligence would come to the fore, and would it be one he could stand?

A cool, severe voice rose from his brainstem to point out that he had put himself in harm’s way repeatedly—including now—in hopes of impressing a woman who was, when you came down to it, nothing but a merchant’s daughter with a perfectly ordinary face. A merchant’s daughter with considerable military skill, yes, but far from the glamorous figure he had created in his imagination.

And now here he was, with his ship, in FTL flight, not knowing where he was going, when the enemy would drop out into normal space…he had gone blindly, without thinking, assuming she was dead, and she probably
was
dead, but that was no reason to do what he’d done.

Seven days on an uncharted jump. They could be anywhere. They could downjump into a star, into a planet, into a stupid chunk of rock. He’d been an idiot; he wouldn’t be an idiot one moment longer.

He called up what navigation charts he had and looked them over, something he hadn’t bothered with before. It was impossible to tell where he was, yet in general the longer a ship was in FTL flight, the farther it went, and there were some accepted correlations. If Turek’s entry vector had been this…and if Turek had not already made other jumps on other vectors…then they should be somewhere in this area, within three to four light-years. Unfortunately, not one of the safely blank areas, but still—

“Bajory, prepare for downjump transition,” Teddy said. He could hear the different timbre in his voice; the entire bridge crew glanced at him.

“Time, Captain?” Bajory asked.

“As soon as possible,” Teddy said.

“Excuse me, but are you—are we—giving up the pursuit? Or do you have information—”

“We’re dropping into normal space for navigational purposes,” Teddy said. Again the curious looks. He’d better do something about that. “I…have had an episode.” Now they looked worried. “Brain-bend,” he said. They still looked worried.

“So…you’re not a Romantic anymore?” Bajory said.

“Not at the moment, no,” Teddy said. “And it’s not settled yet, but I see no reason to run on blindly…”

“Captain Baskerville, sir?”

Damn. Brain-bend had affected his memory temporarily. Des Baskerville, commanding
Courageous,
was probably speeding on, still in his Romantic phase, unless he, too, had suffered an episode of brain-bend. And Des was one of his oldest friends. They’d sworn to stick together forever, back in school. But—with no way to contact Des while in FTL flight—he couldn’t tell Des he was dropping out.

“We don’t even know if he’s still on our trail,” Teddy said. “A lot can happen in seven days.”

“So—”

“So we will drop out of FTL, try to get a location, see if anyone’s had word of Captain Baskerville, and then—if it seems reasonable—continue the pursuit.”

“Yes, Captain.” Bajory nodded sharply and turned to his work, while Teddy leaned back in his command seat and tried to figure out what he’d become.

Sometimes brain-bend did simple reversals—from Romantic to Cynic, for example—but he didn’t feel particularly cynical—not as he understood cynical. He felt almost…analytical. The way he imagined Ky Vatta thought, weighing options, considering plans of action…really, even if she was a merchant’s daughter from Slotter Key, she was remarkable, if she could think like this.

Downjump, when it came a few minutes later, felt normal, but emergence was at high relative vee and scan showed nothing useful in real time. Teddy sweated out the interval before they had slowed and scan began to show reliable data. Their own downjump had left a noticeable disturbance, the typical concentric-ring dimple, sharper for being a high-vee insertion. Scan picked up no ships at first run, which only meant nothing was nearby now. No accurate position yet, but the uncertainty box was within the segment he’d expected. He felt happier now.

“When scan clears, see if there’s any trace from someone coming through in FTL.” Unlikely, but any malfunction in the FTL drive might show a temporary effect scan could pick up. “Contact
Courageous,
” he added. “Let’s see if Des dropped out somewhere. Then give a listen on the pirates’ channel, just in case we pick up one of their general broadcasts. And then we’ll call back to Moray.”

Moray System, Aboard Vanguard II

“Admiral! It’s Ransome!”

“Ransome?” Ky pulled her attention away from the chapter of Gershaw & Xrilin discussing staff organization in multinational forces; it took a moment to think who Ransome was. “
Teddy
Ransome?”

“Yes. He’s calling on his shipboard ansible. Says he has important news. Do you want to talk to him yourself?”

“Yes,” Ky said. “I want to see his face when he finds out I’m alive. Just in case he’s playing both sides.”

Teddy Ransome looked different, but Ky could not at first define the difference, in his slack-jawed astonishment. “You’re alive,” he said. “I thought you were dead…your ship blew up.”

“Yes, it did,” Ky said. “Care to explain what you thought you were doing?”

“You were dead and I wanted revenge,” Ransome said. “So I followed Turek into FTL.”

“Just like that,” Ky said.

“Mostly.” He bit his lip. “It was a lucky guess, I suppose you’d say. I was monitoring their transmissions, as you know, and heard the order to withdraw—well, I think that’s what it was, but it contained navigation data, a blip to computers. I fed it into mine and—”

“And didn’t come out in a star…where are you, anyway?”

“I’ve found them,” he said. “They’re in the same system.”

“They didn’t notice when you popped out of jump next to them?”

“Er…no. I didn’t downjump here. That was days ago. What happened…I had…changed my intelligence. It happens sometimes. Anyway, I thought it too risky to just run blindly wherever they were going, and I still had the data in the computer. So we ran an analysis on that, and then followed very carefully…”

That didn’t sound like Ransome. Charging headlong had always been more his style than following carefully. Ky pushed that thought aside. “You found them…where?”

“It’s not really charted,” Ransome said. “At least, not on my charts. I’ll blip you everything we have, course and all.”

“Good,” Ky said. “What do you mean,
changed my intelligence
? Does it mean you’re not a Romantic anymore?” His voice did sound more mature, less emotional. He hadn’t gushed about anything yet.

“Exactly,” Ransome said. “I’m not a Romantic. I certainly didn’t plan to change. I have no idea what triggered it. But on the seventh day of FTL, it suddenly…changed.” His expression was rueful. “It was more fun being Romantic, but I can’t get back to it. So now I’m stuck in whatever I am.”

A
n adult, finally,
was Ky’s thought. “You don’t know?”

“No. It can take as long as sixty days, I’ve been told, for the new intelligence to declare itself, if it’s singular. At home, I’d go to a specialist and be sorted out more quickly, but here—I don’t know.”

“How do you…er…feel?”

“Quite well, thank you. I ran through some evaluative tests, and apparently I’m thinking very well, and have no memory impairments or gaps in reasoning ability. I’ve instructed my second in command to inform me immediately if he sees any disordered thinking, but so far—nothing of the sort.”

“So what—besides the data you just sent us—can you tell me about Turek’s force? What are they doing?”

“There’s significant time lag on their non-ansible transmissions. They don’t use the ansible much when they’re in their base, so what we’ve got is probably a day or so old. All we know is that they’re provisioning their ships, taking on munitions. We did get a transmission from an incoming ship apparently loaded with munitions.”

“Send us your recordings, too,” Ky said. “And we’ll send you the latest translation keys we have. But do you have any idea where they’re headed next, or when?”

“No. They’ve never said, or we can’t understand it.”

“Can you stay where you are and keep monitoring?”

“Certainly. Are you going to come here and attack?”

“It’s what…an eight-day transit?”

“More like ten, if you come in sneakily. And I know they’ve mined the entrance they used from Moray. But there are no jump points on the chart, and no big masses nearby. Anyone could come in other ways.”

“If we’re in FTL, we won’t know if they leave. Or where they’re going, even if you’re able to tell us. Do you have any idea what the FTL time is from there to Nexus or Cascadia?”

“Not really. There are no mapped routes from here to anywhere on my charts; I don’t know if they’d need intermediate jump points and, if so, where they might be. But they’re definitely gearing up for a major attack, as you expected before Moray.”

Ky found it easy now to believe that Ransome had changed in some fundamental way. No flamboyance, no flowery language, no compliments—not that she missed those—but the kind of sober, rational assessment any good officer might provide. His face even seemed older, less boyish. But if he wasn’t the Romantic-hero-Ransome anymore, who was he? Was he, for instance, loyal to her, to their cause? If not, he could do them immense harm with that shipboard ansible.

“What about Captain Baskerville?” she asked. “He’s with you, I presume.”

“No, he’s not.” Ransome shook his head. “I have tried to contact him, without success. I had no way to tell him I was leaving FTL flight…I would have expected him to drop out by now, somewhere, but though we’ve tried a contact every four hours, there’s been no word.”

“I’m sorry,” Ky said.

Ransome lifted his hand and let it fall. “We’ll keep trying,” he said. “Now—what do you want me to do? If part of their force leaves, if they all leave—?”

“Contact us first, but also Cascadia Defense. If we’re in FTL flight, they can pass the data on to Nexus Defense. If some of them stay, you stay put, so you can report on their movements; if they all depart, and you can’t reach me, go directly to—” Where should she send him? Cascadia or Nexus? “Cascadia,” she said.

“If I stayed here,” he said, “I would be able to give you current information when you arrived…”

“That’s true. Let me think about this for a few hours. I’ll get back to you.”

Ky called in her senior staff. Most attended on screen rather than take the time to shuttle to the flagship. She explained what she could about Ransome. “We need to figure out where he is on our charts, and then decide how to move next. If we could hit Turek in a base he thinks is secure—even a glancing blow could knock out some of his fleet. Ransome’s is the only onsite intel we’ve got.”