Valiant Dust

7

CSS Hector, Warp Transit

When Sikander got up the next day, he felt every one of the kicks Randall had landed on his legs and ribs, and he discovered that he had a very noticeable black eye. He had Darvesh dress it up as best he could with a medical spray. However, he noted with great satisfaction that Randall failed to appear for the morning officer’s call. In fact, it was all he could do to stop himself from grinning like an idiot when Commander Chatburn gave him a long and thoughtful look after Dr. Simms, the ship’s medical officer, announced that Mr. Randall was in the sick bay and unable to muster this morning.

After the muster, he went up to the bridge to assume his watch and found Sublieutenant Karsen Reno occupying the command station. As one of the older junior officers on board Hector, Reno took a turn in the officer-of-the-deck watch rotation. “Good morning, Mr. Reno,” Sikander said. “Anything I should know?”

“Good morning, sir,” Reno replied. He stood and stretched for a moment. “No significant dust out here. The bow shield hasn’t sparked once, engineering reports all equipment on-line, and we’re still eleven days from arrival. Should be a quiet watch.”

Sikander nodded. There usually wasn’t much to do during a warp transit; ships in warp did not maneuver, they coasted. All the velocity ships achieved for faster-than-light travel had to come from acceleration in normal space before they activated their warp rings, since physical thrust from inside a warp bubble had no measurable effect on the ship’s course or speed. The only decision to be made was when to deactivate the warp rings and return to normal space—a simple matter of very precise timing based on the ship’s course and velocity at the moment the ship entered warp. Sikander certainly wouldn’t cut the warp generator early during his watch. Recharging warp rings with exotic matter—in the case of an Aquilan warship, a molten lithium alloy made from pentaquark matter—was terribly expensive, so a ship stayed bubbled unless something disastrous occurred. Every now and then a ship in warp transit struck a speck of interstellar dust large and dense enough to generate a nasty burst of radiation as the leading edge of the warp bubble ripped it apart, but the heavy armor shielding the cruiser’s bow could handle a routine impact—or “spark,” as Aquilan watchstanders described it.

He checked the display screens for status reports on the ship’s systems; everything was well within normal parameters. “I am ready to relieve you, Mr. Reno.”

“I stand relieved,” Reno replied. “Thank you, Mr. North. Have a good watch.”

“Thank you,” Sikander replied. He took the command couch as Reno headed down for a late breakfast, and studied the ship’s estimated position for a moment. The bridge viewscreens showed nearby stars drifting slowly sternward against the luminous glory of bright nebulas and dazzling globular clusters in the distance. The navigation system generated the image, of course. A ship encased in a warp bubble could perceive nothing of the universe outside, and even if it could, the apparent velocity of the ship would have stretched the stars into tiny streaks ahead or behind. The viewscreens simply showed what the galaxy would have looked like to a ship moving past the stars, ignoring the distortions of faster-than-light travel. While wildly inaccurate as to the real conditions of warp transit, it did do a good job of showing where the ship was in relation to the rest of human space. More to the point, it never failed to mesmerize Sikander.

The bridge watch passed quietly, with only one spark to speak of. To distract himself from his general stiffness and soreness, Sikander drilled the bridge crew on basic battle maneuvering problems for most of the watch, using the ship’s tactical computer to conjure up squadrons of phantom allies and adversaries. Only a handful of the crew members currently standing watch were actually assigned to the bridge for battle stations, but one never knew when someone might have to stand in at an important station. Additional aches and pains announced themselves as the day wore on; Sikander was forced to admit that he hadn’t gotten away completely unscathed from his encounter with Hiram Randall.

When Sublieutenant Keane relieved him at the end of his watch, Sikander headed for his quarters, hoping that a hot shower might help to soothe his sore body. Instead, the ship’s info assistant pinged him as soon as he left the bridge. “Lieutenant North, your presence is requested in the captain’s quarters,” the computer announced.

“I will be there in a moment,” he replied. The hot shower would have to wait a little longer, it seemed. He took the passage leading toward Captain Markham’s cabin instead of his own; it was quite close to the bridge, the customary arrangement on any warship Sikander had served on. He paused at the door, collecting himself; then he knocked and went in. “You wished to see me, ma’am?” he said.

Captain Markham looked up from her work. “Mr. North. Please, have a seat.” She nodded at the chair in front of her desk, and regarded him in silence. She had a stern set to her mouth, and a line creased her brow; Sikander realized that he was about to be called on the carpet, and braced himself for it. The captain studied him for a long moment, and then asked, “Can you explain to me why my ops officer is on the limited-duty list today?”

I should have guessed this would come up. Whether or not Hiram Randall had said anything, a mysteriously injured officer would naturally attract the captain’s curiosity within a matter of hours. “Mr. Randall and I engaged in some full-contact sparring last night in the gym, ma’am,” he said. “I am afraid we got a little carried away. I dislocated his shoulder.”

“Dislocated his shoulder,” she repeated. “Why in the world did you do that?”

“I caught him in a hold he didn’t know how to get out of, ma’am. Mr. Randall tried an escape he wasn’t in position to pull off, and I reacted without thinking.” Sikander squirmed—he did not like being dishonest with his commanding officer, and that skated close to the line.

“Is unarmed combat one of your duties aboard Hector?” Markham asked. “Or Mr. Randall’s?”

“No, ma’am. It was sport—exercise.”

“So, your hobby leaves me with a key officer unable to perform his duties for several days. Did you think about that before you and Mr. Randall decided to work out your differences by brawling after hours in the gymnasium?”

“We agreed to a freestyle sparring match, ma’am, not a brawl. And Chief Trent was present to make sure the rules were enforced.”

“Don’t insult my intelligence, Mr. North. I had Chief Trent retrieve the gym’s security vid; Mr. Chatburn and I have already watched it.” Captain Markham kept her eyes fixed on Sikander. “The XO thinks I should bring you up on malicious assault charges and have you arraigned for court-martial. The only reason I’m not doing so is that Hiram Randall refuses to press charges for the shoulder injury, and if I charge you on any lesser assault, I’d have to charge him, too.”

“I see.” It seemed like the safest thing Sikander could say. He was surprised that Randall would pass up the opportunity to press a charge against him. The operations officer certainly hadn’t been shy about his opinion of Sikander before their bout in the gym. Either Randall had a better-developed personal character than Sikander had realized, or he’d decided that neither of them would look good if the whole business came out in a formal inquiry.

“While there won’t be any charges filed, Mr. North, you may rest assured that I will make a note of the incident in your service jacket. And I’ll tell you this, too: Whatever ill feeling exists between you and Mr. Randall, you will put an end to it now. I don’t care if you like the other officers on Hector or they like you, but I expect you to work together as professionals. When you put another officer in sick bay, you’re making your personal disagreements my problem, and I won’t stand for it. Do I make myself clear?”

“I didn’t pick the quarrel with Randall, ma’am,” Sikander replied, unable to keep the anger from his voice. “He has goaded me since the moment I set foot on board. And any officer would have been justified in seeking satisfaction for the way he treated my date at the Governor’s Ball.”

“I don’t care, Mr. North. Am I clear?”

Sikander scowled, but nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Good,” Captain Markham said. “The next time you feel the need to make a fellow officer eat their words, remember that it’s your good fortune that Hiram Randall doesn’t feel like pressing charges against you. Perhaps you don’t understand him as well as you think. And if you ever injure one of my officers again—‘accident’ or not—you will be off this ship so quickly your head will spin. Dismissed.”

“Thank you, ma’am.” Sikander stood and saluted, then marched out of the room.

As far as reprimands went, it was not as bad as it could have been. He probably deserved worse. But even so, it left him fuming. He couldn’t afford to draw the captain’s ire, and if Lieutenant Commander Chatburn had it in for him, too, then Sikander’s life could become complicated and unpleasant. A hostile executive officer could make any junior officer’s life a living hell even without looking for a reason to bring him up on charges. The XO has one friend on this ship, and that’s Hiram Randall, Sikander told himself. Nice going, Sikay.

It didn’t take long for Peter Chatburn to make his displeasure known. The next morning, after the officers’ muster, Sikander detoured through the wardroom to brace himself for the day with some strong coffee. He had just poured himself a mug when Chatburn stepped through the hatch, and joined him by the wardroom’s coffee service.

“Mr. Chatburn,” Sikander said. “Good morning.”

“Mr. North,” the XO replied with a nod. He loomed over Sikander without even meaning to as he poured his coffee. Chatburn stood a good twenty centimeters over Sikander’s own 175, and unlike many Aquilans he was broad-shouldered and strongly built. Sikander remembered hearing that he’d been a standout rugby player during his Academy days. Chatburn was also Hector’s only other title-bearing officer, heir to a large estate on High Albion, the capital world of the Commonwealth. Not all Commonwealth worlds possessed a peerage system, but enough did that family connections often mattered a great deal in the Navy’s higher ranks; Hector’s executive officer would likely go far in the service.

Sikander waited for Chatburn to bring up the fight, but the XO surprised him. “Any new insight about our missing torpedo yet?” he asked as he stirred his coffee.

Sikander quickly changed gear, bringing the details of the investigation to mind. He’d had the Torpedo Division working on little else for weeks now. “Nothing much, sir. I watched the torpedo mates take Tube Two apart and put it back together again for hours last week. We are confident it is not the launcher, but other than that…”

“A problem with the tube was a long shot at best. Those things have been in service for twenty years—there’s nothing the torpedo mates don’t know about them.” Chatburn took a long sip from his mug. “Did you confirm the maintenance records and update installations?”

“Yes, sir. As far as we can tell, the scheduled maintenance and software updates were all performed. If the fault wasn’t in the launcher and the torpedo was properly maintained, the only other possibility I can see is that Ms. Larkin’s customization of the torpedo console settings caused some sort of software fault. Maybe she used a bad macro without knowing it.”

“I doubt Larkin’s user preferences would have caused a major fault. She’s too sharp for that.”

“So I hear, but we might as well eliminate what possibilities we can, sir.” Sikander shook his head. “Unfortunately, without the torpedo we may never know what exactly failed.”

“That’s not going to be good enough,” Chatburn said. “Captain Markham expects something better than ‘We don’t know.’ For that matter, so do I. It’s not the way we do things on Hector, Mr. North.”

“Yes, sir,” Sikander replied with a grimace. He didn’t appreciate being talked to as if he were a brand-new ensign, but he couldn’t really say anything else.

“If I was missing a torpedo, I’m not sure I would spend my evenings socializing ashore. Perhaps a few hours reviewing Ms. Larkin’s code would have been a better use of your leisure time than picking fights with other officers. Especially if you think that might be the reason we lost a multimillion-credit torpedo on the range.”

“Yes, sir.” Sikander just barely managed to answer without snarling, and swallowed the next few words that came to his lips. By tradition, a ship’s executive officer served as the whip cracker and disciplinarian in the command structure. It was Chatburn’s job to get results, not to win friends. Still, he couldn’t help but wonder whether Chatburn would have criticized an Aquilan about the level of effort devoted to the problem. He set down his mug, and nodded to the XO. “With your permission, I will return to my investigations. There is one more thing I can try.”

“Carry on, Mr. North,” Chatburn replied. He returned his attention to his own coffee.

Sikander left the wardroom, careful not to slam the door behind him. If the problem really did turn out to be an error in routine maintenance or a failed installation of new software, it almost certainly had occurred before he had even reported to Hector. It was hardly fair to hold it against him, but sometimes things weren’t fair. He didn’t know what more he could do about the damned torpedo than was already being done … but as he stormed toward the Gunnery Department’s compartments, several decks below the wardroom, an idea began to take shape.

In the department office he found Sublieutenant Larkin studying a screen full of code—one of the recent software updates, or so he guessed. A junior deckhand named O’Neal, who served as the Gunnery Department yeoman, worked alongside her, pulling maintenance records from the ship’s info assistant. O’Neal started to rise, but Sikander waved a hand. “As you were,” he told the enlisted man.

Larkin was fixed on the information in front of her. “Software update?” he asked her.

She nodded without looking up. “From three months back. The control code for the torpedo’s drive received a minor upgrade. I’m looking to see what changed.”

“Have you found any significant differences?”

“Not really, and I suspect this is a dead end anyway. Both our practice torpedoes received the same update. If the code was bad enough to make one fail, they both should’ve failed.”

Sikander nodded; that was probably true enough. In fact, it suggested that perhaps they should focus their efforts on things that had happened to one torpedo but not the other. “I think we need to look at the technicians who performed the regular maintenance on the torpedoes,” he told her. “The records show that the torpedoes received the same maintenance on the same dates, but we don’t know that the torpedo mate actually performed each procedure exactly the same way.”

Larkin gave him a sharp look. “You think the torpedo maintenance was gundecked?”

That was precisely what Sikander suspected, but he didn’t want to throw around a serious accusation lightly. As long as sailors had served in ships, they’d been tempted to skip out on jobs no one was likely to check, and fill out the paperwork saying the work had been done. Why they called it gundecking, Sikander had no idea, but it was a very serious matter and could get a torpedo mate in a great deal of trouble.

He chose to downplay his suspicion for the moment. “I suppose that is a possibility, but I think it’s more likely a simple oversight or seemingly minor accident—a dropped screwdriver that damaged a relay, absentmindedly reinstalling an old part instead of the new one, or overlooking a step that seemed unimportant. O’Neal, you have the records there. Which of the torpedo mates signed off on the regular maintenance?”

The young crewman checked his dataslate. “Torpedo Mate Second Class Harris, sir.”

Sikander looked back to Larkin. “Let’s have Petty Officer Harris crack open the practice torpedo we did recover, and demonstrate the maintenance procedures for everything he’s done in the last few months. Chief Maroth should watch, too. We can make sure the maintenance was done properly.”

“That would be a waste of time,” Larkin said. Sikander shot her a stern look—after the unpleasant conversation he’d just had with the XO, he was in no mood to have one of his own subordinates speak sharply to him—but Larkin did not notice. She continued. “The maintenance procedures haven’t changed in two years, and no one in the fleet has had a problem like this. It’s got to be a hardware defect in the missing weapon. They sent us a bad torpedo.”

“Humor me, Ms. Larkin. Harris may have made a mistake, or perhaps he’ll be reminded of something that did not go right. I want to verify the maintenance procedures.”

Larkin looked dubious. “All right. I’ll have Harris and Chief Maroth go over the procedures as soon as they can find the time.”

“Immediately,” Sikander told her. “I will be in the torpedo room in half an hour, and I expect them both there. In fact, I would like you to join us. If someone is on watch, pull them off and send a substitute. It’s time to solve this riddle if we can.”

The torpedo officer stared at Sikander for a moment before remembering her basic military courtesy. “Yes, sir,” she said. “Immediately.”

* * *

Sikander spent most of the next two days in the torpedo room at Hector’s bow. As it turned out, Petty Officer Harris knew his duties well. The two officers and Chief Torpedo Mate Maroth had Harris walk them through the normal maintenance procedures on the Phantom Type 12-P torpedo, and nothing struck them as particularly out of place. Harris had a couple of shortcuts that weren’t strictly by the book, but Chief Maroth pointed out that every torpedo mate in the fleet had been using those same shortcuts for years, and they had nothing to do with the drive anyway. Larkin had the good sense not to tell Sikander “I told you so” to his face, but after two long days in the confines of the torpedo room, she didn’t have to say it to let him know what she was thinking. Sikander grudgingly admitted defeat, and withdrew to wrestle with the problem privately.

For a few miserable days, no new possibilities came to him. But during casualty simulations on a bridge watch an idea occurred to him, and after the watch section finished up their drills, he gave it quite a bit of thought. By the time he was relieved, Sikander determined to put it into action. After a quick review of the personnel files, he summoned Ensign Girard and Sublieutenant Larkin to the Gunnery Department office. When both officers arrived, Sikander invited them to sit at the small conference table.

“What’s up, sir?” Girard asked as he sat down.

“I took a look at your service jacket, Mr. Girard,” Sikander said. “You graduated from the Academy with degrees in data architecture and information science?”

“Yes, sir,” Girard replied. “I haven’t used them much on board Hector, but I have a few pet projects I like to tinker with to keep my hand in things.”

“Such as?”

“Well—games, sir.” Girard offered an embarrassed shrug. “I like taking apart entertainment software and fixing the parts that annoy me.”

“Excellent,” Sikander said. “In that case, I have a special assignment for you. As you know, Ms. Larkin and her torpedo mates have been tearing down every line of code and reviewing every step of maintenance procedures for our missing torpedo. I think we need some fresh eyes on the problem.”

“Sir, I don’t know anything about torpedoes, really.”

“In this case, I don’t think that will be a hindrance,” Sikander told him. “I have a new line of inquiry I want to try out, and I need a topflight software tech for the job. I think that might be you.”

Larkin frowned. “Sir, we’ve done everything we can without the actual torpedo to examine. You saw us take the other torpedo apart and put it back together again a dozen times, and you watched us crawl through the code. There is nothing more we can do.”

“I want to try something new,” Sikander told her. He looked back to Girard. “Mr. Girard, I want you to make a copy of the torpedo-control software and set up an emulation program that verifies each command input or output during weapon flight. Then I want you to run combinations of events that cause the torpedo to launch normally but fail to return to normal space. Since we’re getting nowhere by retracing the steps we thought we took, let’s figure out what would have to happen to make the torpedo fail in exactly the right way. Find ways to break torpedoes, Mr. Girard. Can you do that?”

Girard nodded slowly, his eyes distant as he thought it over. “I think so, sir. Cloning the software and setting up an emulation system shouldn’t be too hard.”

“What’s the point?” Larkin said. “The software was identical for both torpedoes. The only cause that makes sense is a hardware failure on the missing torpedo, and we’ll never know what that might be, because it’s missing!”

Sikander bit back his own response, and studied the angry young woman for a long moment before he trusted himself enough to speak. “Ms. Larkin, tell me this: If, God forbid, we have to launch a torpedo in anger when we get to Gadira, will it hit or will it disappear?”

“We’ve had no problems with the war shots,” Larkin countered.

“We’ve never launched one of the war shots. I checked the ship’s records. It’s been three years since any ship in the entire fleet fired off a Phantom Type 12 that wasn’t a practice torp. So at this moment, I have no confidence that the problem we encountered is limited to our inventory of 12-Ps, and I can’t honestly tell Captain Markham that if she orders me to fire a torpedo, I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that it will actually reach the target. Or am I missing something about the significance of this problem?”

Larkin stared at him. “That’s insane. Our battle sims haven’t shown any hint of a problem like that with the 12-Js on board.” Those torpedoes carried real warheads.

Sikander counted silently to ten, then looked at Girard. “Mr. Girard, would you excuse us? I think you have enough to get started on.”

“Uh, yes, sir,” the young officer said. He stood up, gathered up his dataslate and notes, and hurried out of the department office.

Sikander stood up as well and saw him to the hatch. He waited for the hatch to seal shut behind Girard before rounding on Larkin. “On your feet, Sublieutenant!” he barked.

Larkin stared at him for a moment, and slowly got to her feet. “What are you—” she began to say, but he cut her off immediately.

“Enough is enough, Sublieutenant Larkin. I have been on this ship for six weeks now, and it has not escaped my notice that you have yet to show me the respect expected from a subordinate officer. You are free to think of me whatever you like, but in front of others you will maintain a professional bearing. Do I make myself clear?”

Larkin’s eyes blazed. “Yes, sir.”

“Do you know why I dismissed Girard? It wasn’t to spare your feelings. I sent him off because junior officers don’t need to see higher-ranking superiors arguing. This discussion is between you and me, and no one else needs to hear what I have to say to you, or you have to say to me. I don’t reprimand you in public, so you refrain from showing me disrespect in front of others. Is that understood?”

Larkin looked straight ahead at the bulkhead, but she nodded. “I understand.”

Sikander folded his arms deliberately and leaned against the corner of the desk. “I do not want to have this conversation again, and I suspect you do not either,” he said. “So, Ms. Larkin, let’s go ahead and get to the bottom of this: What exactly is the nature of your problem with me?”

He waited for a response. Finally, Larkin steeled herself and spoke. “I doubt that you are qualified for the rank and position you hold, sir,” she said.

Sikander stopped himself before he said something he would regret, and forced himself to answer evenly. “Well, that’s straightforward enough,” he said. He’d encountered that sort of distrust before, although few people had the nerve to express it in so many words to a superior officer. Then again, Angela Larkin had made it plain that if she had something on her mind, she wasn’t inclined to hide what she thought. “Ms. Larkin, have I given you reason to form that opinion in the time that I have been on Hector? Other than the torpedo business, on which we obviously disagree?” he asked.

She hesitated before answering. “No, sir.”

“Then reconsider your position, or request a transfer. Or, if I prove as unqualified as you fear, simply wait me out. You’ll soon have the opportunity to see if my replacement is any better. But whichever option you choose, do not dismiss my concerns or challenge my orders in front of other officers or crewmen again.”

Larkin gave a grudging nod. “Yes, sir.”

“Very well. I consider the matter closed. Provide Mr. Girard with whatever assistance he requires, and continue with your duties. Dismissed.”

“Yes, sir.” Larkin saluted, performed a crisp about-face, and marched out of the office.

Sikander watched her leave, wondering if he had handled the matter properly. Perhaps Larkin would give him a chance and perhaps she wouldn’t, but at the very least he thought that she would be more careful about maintaining a semblance of professional courtesy in front of others. He sighed and ran a hand through his hair. For now, that was all the victory he needed.

* * *

On the last day of the warp transit, Sikander took his station on the bridge an hour before Hector’s scheduled arrival in Gadira. The main bridge display featured a prominent countdown to warp termination. During the last few minutes of a warp transit, ships traditionally adopted a posture of maximum damage readiness. The odds that a vessel might end its warp and find itself in danger of collision were literally astronomical, but ships returned to normal space with the same velocity they had when they initiated their warp transit. CSS Hector had accelerated up to ten percent of light speed in the outskirts of the Caledonia system, so that would be her speed when she arrived. A ship that made even a tiny navigational error could return to normal space and discover that it was headed into a dangerous situation at thirty thousand kilometers per second; simple prudence dictated that the ship should be ready for trouble.

As the counter approached 0:00:00, Captain Markham keyed the ship’s announcing system. “All hands, this is the captain. Arrival imminent; take your stations.”

Sikander watched the last few seconds tick down—and then Hector dropped her warp bubble, right on time. If his eyes had been closed, he never would have noticed. Bubbling and unbubbling offered no physiological cues to humans on board, since after all a vessel remained in perfectly normal space within the confines of its warp field, and warp generators in operation were not any louder than the ship’s normal machinery noises. All that happened was that the displays on the bridge gave a sudden lurch and recalibrated as the computers switched from providing estimated positions to accepting actual sensor input. The main vid display that curved around the front of the bridge compartment switched to an enhanced local view, marking the location and distance to the central star and each of the system’s planets, and quickly populating the screen with the tracks and identifications of dozens of commercial and industrial vessels under way in the area.

“Clear arrival,” Sublieutenant Keane reported from the sensor console. “Nothing within ten million kilometers, ma’am.” Given the potential dangers of arrival in the relatively cluttered inner reaches of a planetary system, captains preferred to cut their warp generators in the outlying regions of a system, even if that meant a long trudge in normal space to finish their journey.

“Very well,” Captain Markham answered. “Depower and retract the ring. Navigation, what’s our position?” Back around the cruiser’s slim waist, the large motors controlling the fairings that deployed the warp ring hummed, producing a slight tremor in the deck under Sikander’s feet. A moment later, the ring sections retracted into their sockets with a series of audible thumps.

“Gadira II is eleven light-minutes distant, bearing three-one-zero down thirty, ma’am,” Commander Chatburn said. “We’re about ten million kilometers off our estimated position; looks like a minor deviation in our transit alignment.”

Captain Markham nodded. “Not bad for a long transit. Helm, set course for the planet, standard acceleration. Communications, please transmit our arrival notification to the local traffic-control authority.”

Sikander tapped at his console. That meant … a six-hour passage from their emergence point to the system’s inhabited planet. It was in fact quite good navigation; once during his tour on Adept, they’d arrived almost fifty light-minutes from their destination after a particularly long transit.

The bridge display slowly swung to the left and down as Chief Quartermaster Holtz at the helm adjusted the ship’s attitude to bring her nose to the proper intercept course. Then he activated the main drive plates; a soft shudder shook the hull. Hector now traveled almost backward at thirty thousand kilometers per second, her bow pointed about three-quarters of the way around from her actual course, but it would take hours of steady thrust to kill off the speed they’d built up back in Caledonia.

Captain Markham studied the ship’s course for a moment, and nodded in satisfaction. “Very good. Secure from transit-arrival stations; Mr. Randall, I believe you have the watch.”

“I have the watch, Captain,” Randall confirmed. His left arm was still in a light sling, but he’d made a point of reporting to his station for the ship’s arrival in Gadira.

Sikander powered down his weapons console, getting ready to leave the bridge. But before he finished, Sublieutenant Keane spoke up from his post. “Sir, there’s an unidentified warship in high orbit around Gadira II,” he reported. “Mass fifty-five thousand tons … looks like a cruiser.”

“Montréalais?” Randall guessed.

“No, sir. One moment, we’ve got its transponder. It’s Dremish, sir, hull number seventy-three, SMS Panther.”

“What in the world is a Dremish warship doing here?” Markham said aloud. She had paused by the hatch when the sensor officer announced the contact. She glanced at Randall. “I saw nothing about a Dremish deployment in the threat assessments.”

“Nor did I, ma’am,” Randall answered. “This is a new development. They must have shown up while we were in transit.”

“So are they just passing through, or are they here to lean on the locals?” Chatburn asked.

“I have no idea, XO,” Markham replied. “Communications, send this on over to our Dremish friends: To commanding officer SMS Panther, my compliments. This is Captain Elise Markham, commanding officer of the Commonwealth starship Hector. We are approaching Gadira II and intend to assume an orbit at three thousand kilometers, over.”

“Transmitted, ma’am,” the comm tech reported. “It’s an eleven-minute delay one-way.”

“Very well.” Markham returned to her seat to wait as the bridge crew rotated from the fully manned transit-arrival stations to the ordinary watchstanding team. Sikander was not on duty, but out of curiosity he decided to wait and see what the Dremish ship had to say. While he waited, he activated his console again and called up the ship-recognition function to study the few details available on the Dremish warship. Panther seemed quite comparable to Hector—a little bigger, but the two ships possessed similar armament and they were closely matched in speed and maneuverability. The info assistant had little else to offer, since it was a new class and the database had to rely on public-domain sources from Dremark. At least sharing an orbit would give Hector plenty of opportunities to record close-up vid of Panther and add to the Commonwealth Navy’s database on the Dremish cruiser.

Twenty-two minutes after Hector’s arrival in the system, the communications tech announced, “Incoming message from SMS Panther, ma’am.”

“That was pretty quick,” Captain Markham observed. Panther could not have observed Hector’s arrival until eleven minutes after the Old Worthy actually terminated its warp, and any message she sent would of course have the same delay to reach Hector. “Put it on-screen, please.”

A window opened on the main vid display, showing the face of a middle-aged man in the uniform of a Dremish naval officer. Lean and dark, he had a hatchet-like nose and a close-cropped beard, but his smile was surprisingly warm. “Welcome to Gadira, Hector,” he began. “I am Fregattenkapitan Georg Harper of His Imperial Majesty’s warship Panther. My compliments to the commanding officer; we are maintaining a high orbit above Gadira II and do not expect to maneuver for some time. SMS Panther, out.”

“They must have transmitted as soon as they saw us arrive,” Sikander observed.

“The Dremish are nothing if not punctual.” The captain shrugged and stood up. “Well, we’ve observed the formalities. I suppose we’ll be sharing orbits for a while. Call me if anything interesting happens, Mr. Randall.”