Stars in the Sand Read online

   “I agree,” he replied, “but the fact remains that he held two of my crew at gunpoint, and hacked into the astrogation computer. I want to know why.”

   The two of them turned another corner, and saw Cooper standing at parade rest by a sealed door, a pistol at his belt. Marshall drifted to a stop opposite the door, peered in through the hastily installed viewport, and turned back to the guard.

   “Has he said anything?”

   “Not a thing. He ate the ration pack I tossed in there an hour ago, but didn’t say or do a word. Held well back from the door when I opened it.”

   “And he hasn’t had any visitors?”

   “No-one. I searched him, and he didn’t have anything other than his plasma pistol on him. All his other possessions were in his cabin; Weitzman and Cantrell packed them all up and put them in an airlock.”

   “Good,” Marshall replied. “Now open the door. I want to talk to him.”

   “You aren’t armed,” Cooper said, pulling out his pistol and offering it to him, butt first. “You should have a weapon, skipper.”

   He shook his head, replying, “If he decides to try anything, you’ll stop him quickly enough, and I think I can probably match him in a brawl long enough for you to come in and rescue me. Open the door.”

   “Yes, sir,” he said, tapping a nine-digit sequence into a keypad; the door slowly swung open, and Marshall drifted in, moving over to the opposite corner from Durman. He looked up as Marshall entered the room, and gave a curt nod.

   “Captain. I was expecting you sooner.”

   “If you wanted to meet me so badly, you should have made an appointment.”

   “Could you pass my apologies to Weitzman and Orlova? I had intended not to take hostages, but when they arrived, my plans had to be altered in a hurry.”

   “I don’t think the inconvenience you put them too is what you will need to seek their forgiveness for. Sabotaging the ship and sending us into the hands of the enemy is a rather more serious affair.”

   “I apologize for what I did, if it helps, but I cannot go into any details now.”

   “Why not?” Marshall replied, leaning down. “We’re in hendecaspace now, unable to contact anyone until we emerge.”

   “Frankly, Captain, I don’t trust you. It isn’t a matter of personal choice, simply a reality of the current situation. I can’t afford to take any risks.”

   “What are you afraid of?” Caine said.

   With a smile, Durman said, “I can’t tell you that, either. No doubt you will seek means of compelling me to talk; I’ve been given training to resist such techniques.”

   “We don’t do that in this Fleet,” Marshall said.

   “Interesting if true, but I have only your word for any of this.”

   Gesturing outside, he closed the door and looked at Caine, “Training to resist interrogation?”

   “That rules out the usual hypnosis, probably.”

   “Not what I meant,” Marshall said, looking at the door again, “That means that he’s just admitted that he is a Cabal agent. Why else would he have had such training; I can’t imagine that it is standard for colonial administrators.”

   A slender figure walked up the corridor; Ixia, a repair kit in hand. She looked at Durman in the cell for a long time, shook her head, and then turned to the Captain.

   “He isn’t a bad man, Captain,” she said. “I worked in some labor gangs on the surface on occasion, and he never imposed corporal punishment, always made sure we were fed and rested.”

   “A kind overseer, then,” Cooper said with a sneer. “Still the master to your slave, though.”

   “What other option had he? It was not in his power to free us, but he could help keep us alive.”

   “That doesn’t sound like much,” Marshall said.

   “Back then, it was,” she replied. “When you don’t have any control over your own destiny, you take any crumb of consolation you can get.”

   She turned away down the corridor, heading to complete whatever task she was working on, and Caine looked across at Marshall, shaking her head.

   “We put her up before a Senate Committee talking like that, and the Cabal will be getting an ultimatum by the end of the day.”

   “I’m afraid you’re right,” she replied.

   “I know what you mean,” he said. “Another war, and we’re not ready for it. Even if we hadn’t just used up about five battles’ worth of dirty tricks, we’d still be struggling. In a few years, when we get the new ships on-line…”

   “You don’t think it will take that long, do you?”

   “That’s what all of this is about. I keep thinking that we’re taking greater and greater risks, and then I realize just what the stakes are.”

   “I think it might be time to think about cashing in, Danny,” she said.

   “Go back?” Cooper, who had been silent through the exchange, shouted. “We’re not going back, we can’t go back. We set out to rescue the prisoners and we’re damn well going to do it.”

   “I feel the same way you do,” Marshall said, “but all along, we knew a point might come when we would have to abort the mission. I hate the idea, but we might be reaching that point.”

   “We don’t know what’s waiting for us out there,” Cooper said.

   “I’m not particularly optimistic of a friendly reception, though.”

   “Then let’s do something about it, sir. Get the ship ready for battle.”

   Caine shook her head, “We’ve looked into that, but in hendecaspace, there isn’t that much we can do. To fit any sort of a defensive system, we need access to the exterior of the ship.”

   “Besides, we’d have no choice but to turn back if we did that. Anything we did would make our modifications too obvious. This isn’t a Q-Ship; we couldn’t go toe-to-toe with a cruiser, or anything with any significant argument. Running away is about the only tactic we’ve got.”

  Turning to the door, he said, “Let me have a word with Durman. I’ll find out where we’re going.”

   “You’ll stay clear of him, Cooper, and that’s an order. That sort of interrogation never works, and even if it did, we might as well sign up to the Cabal right there and then.”

   He took a deep breath, then said, “I just...don’t like being helpless, sir.”

   “Helpless we aren’t. How’s that training going?”

   “Slowly and painfully, with a few exceptions.”

   Glancing across at Caine, he said, “Pick your best three and concentrate on them. I’ll clear them of other duties – and the punishment cleaning is canceled as of now. Get me a team I can use to fight off a boarding action.”

   “With pleasure, sir.”

   “Now open the door again.”

   The door slid open, and Marshall drifted in, looking down at Durman on the floor, “Have you changed your mind?”

   “No, I still don’t have anything to say. Except that I am not a traitor, not to you, anyway.”

   “What does that mean?” Caine said.

   “It means exactly what I said.”

   She looked at Marshall again, and shook her head. He said, “If you change your mind and decide to talk, tell the guard, and I will come right down. Other than that you will have no visitors, and can consider yourself in solitary confinement.”

   “Can I have something to read?”

   “I don’t trust you with a datapad, and we don’t have any printed material on board. Nor am I inclined to waste the ship’s resources on you. I suggest you occupy your time with thinking, and this other consideration. We haven’t got the time to keep you prisoner indefinitely. My intention is to drop you off at the next Cabal port, along with a full account of your activities to date.”

   His eyes bolted open, and he said, “You can’t do that?”

   “Technically, I believe all I am doing is extraditing a wanted cr
iminal to a foreign power, albeit in a slightly unorthodox way. If I can’t trust you, then I need you off this ship, Mr. Durman, and the sooner the better.”

   Pushing out of the cell, he slammed the control, and the door glided shut on a now alarmed prisoner. Caine flashed him an accusing glare, and he shrugged.

   “What else do you want me to do, leave him in there to rot? Besides, if he is working for the Cabal, he ought to welcome repatriation. Head back for a heroes’ welcome.”

   “He panicked, Danny. There’s more going on than we know about.”

   “Factional infighting, perhaps. Worried that the wrong group might get hold of him.” He turned to Cooper, then said, “Was there anything in his possessions that might give us at least some sort of lead?”

   “Nothing. Most of it was drawn from Alamo stores; he left all of his things back on Driftwind,” Caine said. “As for the rest, clothes – which we analyzed as best we could, finding nothing, and a datacrystal.” Forestalling Marshall’s question, she continued, “Which contained music even you would find offensive. We don’t have the cryptographic systems here we do on Alamo, but there isn’t anything obvious there.”

   “Besides, if they had a message of some sort, wouldn’t he have sent it to the ship when he had a chance? There wasn’t anything we could have done to stop him,” Cooper said.

   “We’re not going to have the answer to any of these questions for another two days,” Marshall said, looking from one to the other. “Cooper, get that team of yours ready. I’m going to start a series of simulated battle drills.”

   “Battle drills? What with?”

   “We still have damage control and electronic warfare to deal with. Deadeye, you take a lead on that one. I want surprise drills, and I want each watch to have at least one. Don’t tell me when they are.”

   “I’ll make sure to schedule then when you are least expecting.”

   “See that you do,” he turned back to Durman, shaking his head, “I just want answers, but I’m worried how much they are going to cost.”

   “At least we’re heading to the right system,” Cooper said.

   “And to an Oort cloud, as well. No-one’s ever visited an extrasolar Oort cloud before.”

   “No-one that we know of, Deadeye. I have the distinct impression that the Cabal have been fairly frequent visitors.”

   Cantrell walked down the corridor, a surprisingly earnest look on her face, “Has the bastard talked yet?”

   “Not a word,” Cooper said.

   “Skipper, that music crystal we found on him?”

   “What about it?” Marshall said. “Do you have a lead on what it might be?”

   “Huh? Oh, no, I was wondering if you’d mind if I made a copy of it.”

   “A copy of it?” Caine said, shaking her head. “All of this going on, and you’re worrying about expanding your music collection?”

   “I liked it,” she said with an irreverent shrug.

   “What the hell,” Marshall replied. “Go ahead.”

   “Thanks, skipper!” she said, turning and walking away.

   “When I get back,” Marshall said, “I’m going to find out who passed her through basic training, and we’re going to have a long conversation.”

   “I think I’ll join you, Danny. Might be a few others wanting in on that interview.”

   Cooper frowned, then said, “I don’t know, sir.”

   “What do you mean?”

   “She’s been good under fire, twice. Very good for a rookie.”

   Turning to him, Marshall said, “You’re putting her on your team?”

   “As a matter of fact, yes. Unless you order me not to.”

   “Your team, your choice. I think you’re crazy, though.” With a smile, he said, “But then, who am I to talk.”

  Chapter 16

   Orlova lay in the pilot’s couch, tensed up, her hands poised over the controls, ready for action. They were less than a minute from emergence, and still had little idea where they were going to end up. According to the records, this was an empty, uninhabited system, but Durman would not have thrown his freedom away for nothing. Everyone was waiting for a trap.

   Down at the main airlock, Cooper was waiting with his improvised tactical team, and Race was riding shotgun in astrogation, preparing to compute a new course to get them out of the system. Everyone was quiet, waiting; she tried to ignore Marshall looking over her shoulder, focusing on her duties.

   “Thirty seconds,” she said, unnecessarily; all eyes were on the countdown clock in any case.

   Gritting her teeth, she started to set up a course change to get them some acceleration, but with so little information about where they were going to end up, she didn’t dare lock anything into the system. That would be an easy way to take them into worse danger, whether human or natural.

  The unpleasant thought struck her mind that she might have stumbled upon the point of the exercise. There were egress points that were unusable, too filled with debris to risk emergence. They were at points of gravitational stability, and had a tendency to attract floating space junk. During the early days of space travel, it had happened all the time during deep-space surveys, before the development of the mass detectors.

   Of course, those were only fitted to ships that expected to be exploring new areas. Alamo had them, but they were too expensive to fit to civilian transports. Either that, or the Cabal had never developed the technology. Whatever the reason, they were flying blind, and Orlova prepared to take evasive action, just in case there was a tumbling rock ahead of them with their name on it.

   “Emergence!” she said, and the universe returned to the screen. She looked down at her scanner, and there was a lot of rubble in the area, but none of it on a collision course with the ship. While the computer struggled to calculate trajectories for the thousands of fragments within range, she let Ouroboros coast, slowly drifting forward with the scant momentum provided by the emergence.

   “Anything on the sensors?” Marshall asked Weitzman.

   “Nothing, sir. No sign of life at all. Just the signal from the automated beacon in the inner system; we expected that. They’ll be recording our presence in about three hours.”

   “Three hours,” he replied, shaking his head. “We really are out in the dark, aren’t we.”

   “Nearest large body is a big chunk of ice, maybe two thousand miles across. Some atmosphere in its surface, outgassing at a guess. Five moons, no less. No sign of life on any of them at first glance, no activity in the electromagnetic spectrum at all.”

   “I don’t understand,” Orlova said. “I was expecting something. A Cabal fleet, debris field...Weitzman, are you sure that the sensors haven’t been tampered with?”

   “I’ve run the checks three times, and the distant universe is exactly as it should be. Besides, you only have to look out of the window to see that it matches the scanners. It’s cold out here.”

   “I suggest we get Durman up here,” Orlova said, turning to Marshall. “Perhaps now that we are here, he might be in a better mood to talk.”

   “Can’t see what we have to lose,” Marshall agreed, and he tapped a control next to his chair. “Cooper, have one of your team escort Mr. Durman to the bridge.”

   “There’s another possibility,” Caine said from the auxiliary station. “Maybe the trap hasn’t been sprung yet. There could be a Cabal task force on the way right now. We’re stuck here for at least six days, after rushing things back at Sinbad.”

   “Unlikely,” he replied. “He’s had no chance to co-ordinate anything, and he couldn’t have known that we were coming this way. We didn’t know until a few days before we left, remember. How could he have arranged for an intercept?”

   Orlova frowned, then said, “He might not have had to. There could be a regular patrol. It wouldn’t take much of a ship to bring us down.” She started to play with her controls, “Sh
all I set in a course out of here? There are three other egress points that we can reach in the time.”

   “No,” Marshall said. “We came here for a reason, and I want to find out what that reason might be. There’s a mystery here, and we’ve got to solve it. And if we don’t,” he paused, then said, “then we’re going back to Alamo.”

   The doors slid open, and Cantrell ushered Durman in at a gunpoint before taking a position by the door. Her eyes never left the traitor, and her gun never wavered from its aim; she braced herself by the wall, so that the recoil wouldn’t send her spinning.

   “Here he is, sir.”

   “I would have come if you had asked, Captain,” Durman said, rubbing his arm. “I didn’t have to be manhandled.”

   “Let’s cut out the fun and games. Neither of us have time to play them at the moment. Why have you brought us here? There’s nothing, just some tumbling balls of ice.”

   “Nothing?” he said, shaking his head. “I certainly hope not. Mr. Weitzman, if you set your channel to transmit on the hydrogen band, and send the signal code-name Chameleon, you might find something very interesting happens.”

   Weitzman turned to Marshall, “Should I do it, skipper?”

   “It could be a trap,” Caine said, “but it’s a pretty poor one if they are counting on us to trigger it.”

   “If it works,” Orlova replied, “then it doesn’t matter how clumsy it was.”

   “Then you think we shouldn’t?” Caine said, raising an eyebrow.

   “No, I think we should. While keeping our eyes open for any risks.”

   “Mr. Weitzman,” Marshall said, “Go ahead and send the signal. I want sensors on full, and Maggie, let’s get an evasive course instituted at once. Countermeasures to full, and isolate the communications system from the rest of the network in case some decides to have some fun.”

   “Sending now,” Weitzman said after a brief pause. Almost instantly, something happened; a bright spot of red light appeared on the surface of the rock, a laser beam flashing around as it sought to connect with Ouroboros.