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Chapter Thirty-Nine
The dispatch boat from Spindle began uploading its message queue well before it reached Montana planetary orbit. Lieutenant Hansen McGraw, the com officer of the watch, watched the message headers scroll up on his display. Most were protected by multilevel encryption, and he waited patiently while the computers sorted through the traffic. Half a dozen of the larger message files, he noted, were personal-only for Captain Terekhov and Bernardus Van Dort. One of them, however, carried a lower security classification and a higher priority rating. He downloaded that one to a message board, and handed it to Senior Chief Harris.
"Deliver this to the Exec, please, Senior Chief."
"Aye, aye, Sir," Harris said, and tucked the message board under his arm. He carried it across the bridge to the lift, down one deck, and along a passage to the wardroom, where he stepped through the open hatch and cleared his throat politely.
"Yes, Senior Chief?" Lieutenant Frances Olivetti, Hexapuma 's third astrogator, happened to be sitting closest to the hatch.
"Message for the XO, Ma'am."
"Bring it on over, please, Senior Chief," Ansten FitzGerald said from where he sat in the midst of a pinochle game with Ginger Lewis, Lieutenant Commander Nagchaudhuri, and Lieutenant Jefferson Kobe.
"Yes, Sir." Harris crossed to the executive officer. He handed over the message board, then stood waiting, hands clasped behind him, while FitzGerald opened the message file and sca
"Who has the standby pi
"Ms. Pavletic, Sir," the senior chief replied.
"In that case, please inform her that I anticipate she'll be leaving the ship to collect the Captain and his party within the next few minutes, Senior Chief."
"Aye, aye, Sir." Harris came briefly to attention, then headed back out through the hatch while FitzGerald plugged his personal com into the shipboard system and punched in a combination.
"Bridge, Officer of the Watch speaking," Tobias Wright's voice replied.
"Toby, it's the Exec. I need to speak to Hansen, please."
"Yes, Sir. Wait one, please."
There was a very brief pause; then Lieutenant McGraw answered.
"You wanted me, Sir?"
"Yes, I did, Hansen. Please make a general signal to all work and shore parties to return on board."
"Yes, Sir. Should I indicate immediate priority?"
"No," FitzGerald said after a brief consideration. "Instruct them to return directly, but to expedite any extended tasks."
"Aye, aye, Sir."
"Thank you. FitzGerald, clear," the executive officer said.
He switched off his com and returned his attention to his cards. Several people looked as if they'd have liked to ask him questions, but none of them did. Aikawa Kagiyama, who was in the process of suffering abject a
He frowned, part of his mind trying to decide whether to sacrifice a knight or his single remaining bishop in an effort to briefly stave off the lieutenant's merciless attack, while the rest of his mind considered the implications of new orders. Hexapuma had been in Montana for just under eleven T-days, and it had been nine days since the Captain and Van Dort's first meeting with Westman. Aikawa didn't know how well that effort had been going. He knew Van Dort had met with Westman a second time, but he couldn't pick up a single hint about what they might have discussed. It was deeply frustrating for someone who prided himself on always knowing what was going on. And the fact that Helen really did know but refused to tell him was even more frustrating. He respected her refusal to gossip about the details to which she might be privy, but all the respect in the galaxy wasn't going to make him feel any less curious.
"Are you pla
"Sorry, Ma'am. I guess I was woolgathering."
He looked back down at the board and interposed his king's knight. Lieutenant Hearns' castle swooped down and took it instantly.
"Mate in four moves," she informed him with a smile.
Aikawa grunted in exasperation as he realized she was right. He started to tip over his king, then stopped himself. It might just be possible, he thought, studying the board carefully, that he could at least make her take an additional two or three moves to finish him off. Which was about the best any of the midshipmen, with the sole exception of Ragnhild Pavletic, had so far managed.
He shelved consideration of what their new orders might be and gave himself over to the intense examination of the board.
"Flight Ops, this is Hawk-Papa-One, requesting clearance for a direct transit to Hexapuma Alpha's current location," Ragnhild Pavletic said into her boom mike.
"Hawk— Papa-One, Flight Ops," Lieutenant Sheets' voice replied in her earbug. "Hold while we clear your flight plan."
"Flight Ops, Hawk-Papa-One copies."
Ragnhild sat back in the pilot's seat and considered her projected trip. As always, the exact location of Captain -Terekhov-" Hexapuma Alpha"-was monitored whenever he was off the ship. As such, she knew that he, Bernardus Van Dort, and Helen Zilwicki were currently in a restaurant rejoicing in the name of The Rare Sirloin. It was supposed to be one of the better restaurants in Brewster, the Montana capital. Ragnhild didn't know about that personally, of course. Unlike some midshipwomen, she thought, she hadn't been invited to eat there no less than three times in the last week.
On the other hand, I haven't been expected to pull my full watch assignment on board ship as well as going haring off dirt-side every time Van Dort does, either.
She was surprised Helen didn't show more signs of exhaustion. She was spending most of her putative free time assisting Van Dort aboard ship, whenever she wasn't somewhere on the planet with him. She was still finding time-somehow-for regular exercise and sparring sessions, but that was about it, and her bunk time was suffering. Still, there did seem to be the odd half-hour here and there Ragnhild couldn't quite account for. And, interestingly enough, there seemed to be matching holes in Paulo d'Arezzo's known whereabouts.
The thought of Helen spending time with the too-pretty midshipman was fairly preposterous. But not as preposterous as it would once have been, she reminded herself. Something had happened to alter their relationship, and no one else in Snotty Row seemed to have any idea what it might have been. Whatever it was, it didn't seem to have any romantic overtones-thank God-but it was all very odd. And if she and Paulo were sneaking off somewhere, where was it? As big as Hexapuma was, there weren't that many places aboard her where two people could evade observation.
No, she told herself once again, it had to be a simple coincidence.
"Hawk— Papa-One, Flight Ops," Lieutenant Sheets said suddenly.
"Flight Ops, Hawk-Papa-One," Ragnhild acknowledged.
"Hawk— Papa-One, you are cleared to Hexapuma Alpha's current location. Flight path Tango Foxtrot to Brewster Interplanetary, Pad Seven-Two. Contact Brewster Flight Control on Navy Cha
"Flight Ops, Hawk-Papa-One copies flight path Tango Foxtrot to Brewster Interplanetary, Pad Seven-Two, contacting Brewster Flight Control on November Charlie Niner-Three at the two-zero-zero klick line for final approach instructions."
"Hawk— Papa-One, Flight Ops. Confirm. You are cleared to separate at your discretion."
"Flight Ops, Hawk-Papa-One separating now." She looked over her shoulder at the pi
"Disengage umbilicals, aye, Ma'am." The flight engineer tapped commands into his console and watched telltales flicker from green, through red, to amber as the pi
"Confirm all umbilicals disengaged, Ms. Pavletic."
"Thank you, Chief." Ragnhild glanced over her own displays, doublechecking the umbilicals' status, and nodded in satisfaction. She keyed her mike again. "Flight Ops, Hawk-Papa-One confirms clean separation at zero-niner-thirty-five."
"Hawk— Papa-One, Flight Ops. Confirm. You are cleared to apply thrust."
"Flight Ops, Hawk-Papa-One. Applying thrust now."
The pi
"Well, this is a fine kettle of fish," Aivars Terekhov commented sourly as he finished reading the last of his personal dispatches from Rear Admiral Khumalo and Baroness Medusa.
"That's certainly one way to put it," Van Dort agreed. His personal dispatches were even more voluminous than Terekhov's, and he was still reading. He looked up from the current message and grimaced.
"Joachim Alquezar commented to me once that Aleksandra Tonkovic, just after the Nemanja bombing, said something to the effect that we wouldn't need a silver bullet to kill Nordbrandt. I'm begi
"It does seem she has some sort of evil fairy looking out for her, doesn't it?" Terekhov said sourly.
"So far, at any rate. But what's impressed me even more than her unpleasant propensity for surviving is her sheer malevolence. You do realize that by now she's killed something over thirty-six hundred people, most of them civilians, in her bombing attacks alone?"