Breach of Duty, page 21
Before she could speak, Felix turned away. "If you need help, find Miss Nguyen. It's not my job." He gave the parting message to be flippant, even as his mind wandered to the things Renner brought up, something he didn't want to think about.
Henry was at his desk when Miri appeared at the door, Xu behind her. Like the others, Xu had traded in his prisoner's jumpsuit for a spacer's jumpsuit, although this one didn't have the ship's name stenciled on it yet. He stood at crisp attention, as if Henry was still his CO. "You wanted to see me, sir?" Xu asked.
Henry gave him a bemused look. "I don't need to tell you 'at ease,' Xu. I'm a civilian now."
Xu relaxed. "Habit, I suppose," he said. "I always thought what happened to you was wrong."
"Thanks." He gestured to the two other seats, prompting Miri and Xu to sit. "Ms. Gaon here is former CIS," he said. "She still has contacts in the service. She'd like to know more about what Erhart's up to with this 'EF' stuff."
Xu shook his head. "I've said all I really can. Erhart's been siphoning some of our best junior officers into the program for the last decade, and a bunch of enlisted personnel. They never come out of it. Pay still goes out regular, commendations and promotions, but a lot of them are done by link only. Wartime secrecy regs for personnel on special assignment."
Henry noticed the curious look on Miri's face. "What do you think?" he asked her.
"I'm not sure," she said. "Wartime secrecy implies special long-term operations. He could have them operating in deep space at listening posts for all I know. We'll need to see what Colonel Hale found in her department."
Henry noted the frown that appeared on Xu's face at the mention of his old XO's name. "I can't tell you more," Xu said. "In fact, a lot of what I did find was erased just a couple days before I was arrested."
"Before or after you gave Hale the data?"
"After."
Miri frowned. She glanced from Xu to Henry. "Are you sure she's after Erhart? If she's the only one who wasn't taken, it might be because she's working for him. Covering his tracks and laying the foundation for these charges against everyone else."
Henry considered it. He held his memories of then-Major Tabitha Hale in his mind, everything from the dark, wine-colored red hair to the way she carried herself. She'd struck him as the kind of XO destined to become a CO herself, as actually happened. And she'd risked herself just like the others in corroborating his testimony about the Laffey. "No," he finally said. "I don't think I buy that."
"I've spoken to her over the years," Xu said. "Her only agenda is her obsession with taking down Erhart."
The bitterness in Xu's voice couldn't be missed. "You wanted her to quit?" Henry asked.
The bitter look turned a little shamed. "I'm sorry, Col—no, Captain Henry," Xu said. "I know she wanted to clear you, and you deserve it. But it always felt like she didn't care if she ruined all of our lives. She was obsessed with taking down Erhart." His voice cracked with fear. "And it might cost me my family, sir. I've got a wife, kids, and I might never see them again."
Henry nodded. "I'm sorry, Xu," he replied, meaning it. He knew precisely what Xu was thinking, what he was worried about, as he'd lived through it. He'd done so as a bachelor. Getting declared a traitor as a married father? That would've been unthinkable. "We'll settle this, if we can."
"I know you'll try, sir," Xu said, nodding. "I always thought you were an honest man. I've… I've prayed for your soul for years."
"Thank you for that, and your confidence," Henry said. He narrowed his eyes and glanced at Miri. She didn't have to say anything; he could tell she was thinking the same thing he was.
Whatever bitter, angry thoughts Henry had for General Ulysses Erhart, he wasn't just a corrupt general making money on kickbacks in the defense industry. There was something more to this, and finding out what it was would be vital to stopping Erhart.
The Starlight Guide made its final jump, and Hale looked over the destination system: NW-3-11. It looked like one of many empty star systems she'd seen, with many of its planets consumed by the expansion of the star into a supergiant. But al-Lahim's reader made it clear this system, specifically a planetoid near the sun itself, was her destination.
The days of travel had been lonely. That loneliness continued as Hale continued on the inward burn to the planetoid. She had no GalNet access, no comms to family. Only the books, holovids, and other materials kept in the library computer. Under normal circumstances, she would've happily stuck to the romantic comedies and military dramas available, but Hale's thoughts were still on the whole "charlie foxtrot" that Erhart and the hounds of CBI had reduced her life to. A week ago, I was waiting for my first star. Now I'm a wanted traitor. I guess God does have a wicked sense of humor.
As soon as she was close to the planetoid, the system sent off a narrow-beam comm call. To her surprise, it was answered, and the system shifted to display a sixteen-character code on her side screen. It was in four of the major alphabets of the Coalition. Her Arabic was atrocious and her Hebrew non-existent, but the pronunciation guide that came up helped her to speak them all.
Then she watched, stunned, as the side of the planetoid opened up, irising open to reveal an interior big enough for at least a destroyer, if not a cruiser.
Flying in was even more of a surprise. The interior of the base could indeed maintain a squadron of ships. She settled the yacht at one of the smaller docks. She departed the ship with al-Lahim's reader in tow, just in case she needed it.
She did.
The interior wasn't just some dinky base. It was part fleet depot, listening post, and bunker. With al-Lahim's material to guide her, Hale made her way to the command center of the base. And she could tell she wasn't the first person here. The doors sounded smooth, as if recently opened, and she could see the empty spaces in the cargo compartment where things were removed. Someone had been through, moving material out.
Once in the command center, she decided to figure out who. With al-Lahim's codes, she entered the system and called up the surveillance footage. Just a few days ago, a Holden-Nagata ship — Mark VII, she thought — arrived. She watched a crew of spacers disembark from the vessel.
Including James Henry.
She kept watching, listening as he explained matters to his crew. Learning about what was done to him by Erhart, it redoubled her determination to bring the corrupt general down. His people are loyal to him. More so than I imagined an independent spacer crew could ever be. Al-Lahim is right: he's still a good man on the inside, even if he's turned into a mercenary to survive.
Then she overheard what they planned, and her face paled.
25
With her watch over, Tia went about her off-duty day. A quick bite to eat in the galley settled her appetite. Since she didn't feel tired enough to sleep, she decided on some quiet reading in the rec room.
Only two people were present when she arrived. Miri was in a corner seat looking over a digital reader. By the time Tia got over to the bookshelf, she could see Felix was the one in the central chair, his eyes on the viewer. She slipped one of her books off the shelf and glanced at the viewer. Seeing it was a news broadcast, her brow furrowed. "Aren't we supposed to be off GalNet?"
"We are," he said. "This is a QE broadcast."
Tia nodded. Quantum entanglement communication was different from the GalNet system, especially on open broadcast. Anyone with the right settings could listen to or watch a broadcast without being trackable.
By the time she took a seat, the sound of shouting brought her attention to the viewer. It was a news report from New Virginia, from Tylerville itself. A reporter was interviewing people, asking about Henry and the others. Many were surprised at the idea Henry could be a traitor, but few seemed ready to defend him either, and all of them avowed their support for the CDF.
Tia felt disgust at what seemed to be the mindless devotion that people in the Coalition had for the CDF. In her experience, militaries were tools of the powerful to oppress the powerless. The Coalition Defense Force was not encouraging her to think of them as an exception.
A faintly familiar voice came from the speaker. Tia looked in time to see Jules Rothbard, of all people, being questioned by the reporters. "...all mistaken," he was saying. "My brother and Jim Henry are good men in a bad situation. I'm praying God sees them out of it."
His image was replaced by a reporter briefly before another face of a similar appearance came up. It took Tia a few moments to recognize it was Felix's father John.
After fielding what Tia could only guess was a similar question from the reporter, John Rothbard's face curled into a frown. "It's a disgrace that you people are letting the service get slandered like this. Jim Henry's a coward, and I'm more ready to believe he's a traitor than some frameup by the CDF!"
"What about your other son, sir? The one they say is on the rogue crew?"
John shook his head. "I wish he'd have never met the Henry boy. He let Jim Henry get into his head and ruin a fine CDF career, got himself dismissed over all of that."
"If your son's listening, what advice would you give as his father?"
"Shoot Henry along with his Leaguer scum friends, and if he survives, throw himself on the mercy of the CDF. Maybe it'll be enough…"
Felix's finger jabbed the remote and shut the channel down. He leaned forward in the seat with fists clenched in frustration. "Stupid old man," he grumbled. "You don't know anything."
Tia thought about speaking but held back. With her feelings and their agreement to quietly detest each other's opinions on economics, she knew it wouldn't accomplish anything. She cast a glance toward Miri, who was also looking at Felix with concern. She didn't say anything either before Felix went out the door.
"Is it just me or is Felix acting a little off?" Tia asked.
Miri returned the glance. "You've served with him longer."
"Yeah, but we don't get along very well." Tia glanced back at her book before putting it down. "So we don't interact often, and I don't know him that well. Honestly, I'm not sure anyone on the ship knows him very well except for Jim."
There was a contemplative look on Miri's face by the time Tia finished with her answer. "He's been aboard for a few years now?"
"He joined us in late '58," Tia answered. "Just a few months after Oskar and Brigitte came aboard."
Miri nodded. "Thanks, I was just curious."
"He still hasn't said yes about being Third Mate," Tia added. "You still have a shot at it, and my support."
Miri gave her a bemused look. After nearly two years she never expected to actually see that position come through, nor did she particularly care at the moment. "Thank you, but that's not why I'm asking."
"I figured not, but I wanted you to know." Tia shook her head. "Jim's always had a bit of a blind spot about Felix. I try not to let it get in the way of work, but there are times it frustrates me."
"I'd imagine so." Miri set the reader down on the nearby table and stood. "Rec room is yours. I've got a watch to stand."
"We'll be jumping to your secret base soon," Tia noted. "At least we can be safe there."
"As safe as we can ever get, anyway." With that said, Miri left the rec room, leaving Tia to her book and her thoughts.
While she was due on the bridge shortly, Miri decided to head somewhere else first. She entered the living hall of the ship and knocked at a closed hatch with the electronic display showing the name "F. Rothbard" beside it. The door opened on a verbal command from within.
Inside, Felix was seated on his bed, a bottle of what looked like New Virginia bourbon whiskey on the nightstand and a half-finished shot glass in his left hand. He glanced at her and smiled thinly. "Just soothing my nerves," he began. "Everything all right, Miri?"
"Given our situation?" She chuckled softly and took the empty chair in the room, bringing it up to be at the foot of the bed before sitting in it. "It's stressful for everyone. But you're taking it worse. Did your father's remarks truly hurt that much?"
"They shouldn't," Felix mumbled. "My old man's a piece of work. I think the only reason he didn't belt Jules and me as kids was that Uncle Charlie would've found out and belted him."
"I didn't know."
"Dad's life didn't turn out the way he wanted. He thought he could've risen further in the CDF, but even with the war, he didn't. So he saw us as his way to make up for it." A quiet, bitter look came to Felix. "I was already at Halsey when his war service was over and they retired him. Which is CDF speak for 'you can't cut it,' so it really pissed him off due to it being wartime. Next thing I know, he's taking a significant interest in my career. Always bugging me about my performance evals and promotions."
"You were his stand-in."
Felix nodded. "Yeah. I let him do it too. Kept the heat off Jules when he refused to do more than his draft term so he could go to divinity school. Thought he could do more as a preacher, and he was right, but Dad… Dad only barely accepted the choice."
The matter appeared to be a sensitive one for Felix, yet Miri felt something was off. Given everything going on, old family problems alone didn't strike her as the most likely cause of Felix's behavior. Her training kicked in. Something about the way he spoke, the look on his face, told her Felix was holding back. She considered her next words carefully. "He wasn't happy when you were thrown out of the CDF, I imagine?"
Felix's face turned red as he turned to her and glared.
Miri met the glare quietly, not yielding but not pressing either. Her response was clear. She knew there was more to this, had an idea of the problem, and she wouldn't be scared off that understanding. But neither would she press for him to explain.
Felix's glare turned to a sardonic grin. "Yeah, I'm wound up, and it's not just dear old Dad mouthing off to reporters. This situation made me go into my past when I didn't want to."
"You mean your contacts in the CDF."
He pursed his lips together. "Not everyone agreed with my cashiering. So when I ask them important questions, they try to answer me if they can. Of course, that means things get talked about. Old stuff I don't want brought up." His eyes met hers again, this time in sympathy. "I'm sure you understand what I mean."
"I do," Miri said, thinking of Lowery. Of Christopher Tobay and Annette Zens, and their terrible deaths on the gallows, and all the other people she betrayed to fulfill her mission of infiltration by submission to the League. The old memories were painful to touch and yet they were always there, waiting for her to be burnt by them anew.
Which, she suspected, was precisely why Felix brought them up.
She checked her watch. "I'd better get to the bridge. I hope you rest, Felix, and be careful with that." She pointed to the bottle.
"I'll be fine," Felix replied. "I always manage."
The conversation was over, so Miri said nothing else as she departed.
Once her drives were ready, Shadow Wolf made her final jump back to NW-3-11. She emerged from the wormhole with Miri in the command seat and Piper at the helm. Vidia sat at Piper's usual station, observing the Wolf's sensors.
While Piper put the ship on course back to the Masada redoubt, Henry walked in. Miri stood and moved over to Tia's vacant place, allowing him his seat. "How does it look?" he asked.
"System's as empty as before," Piper noted. "I'm burning us back in."
A few moments passed before Vidia spoke up. "I'm pickin' up an exhaust trace on the sensors."
Henry didn't like the sound of that. "What can you tell me?"
"Looks like one ship, small size. A yacht or personal transport. Or a bigger ship with an exhaust reservoir, I suppose. Their course takes them ta the redoubt."
Henry glanced at Miri. "Any idea who it could be?"
"The knowledge of these outposts is light. And if our contacts are…" She stopped speaking as her attention was drawn by a light and electronic tone from Tia's station. "We've got an incoming message from the redoubt."
"ID?"
"It claims to be from Hale. It's a report from CDF Intelligence Analysis."
"Let me see it." Henry waited for Miri to relay it to his chair's viewer. The viewer popped up, a screen of pure light with text showing on it. It was an official finding for a secret analysis of logs.
Logs from the Solzhenitsyn—and the Laffey.
As Henry looked over the findings, he felt his gut clench. Realization at the betrayal he'd suffered that day became horror at what it meant. "Get us to the redoubt, now," he ordered as he rose from his chair. "Miri, with me!" He drew his charge pistol and rushed for the door.
Miri, somewhat stunned, pulled her sidearm and followed.
Henry checked the galley, weapon drawn, frightening Xu in the process. Tia stared at him with shock when he did the same thing to the rec room. But Henry paid them no heed. He stopped at the infirmary and found Mueller with Snow while Oskar was resting on another bed. They stared at him with shock, but he ignored them, moving astern and scared beyond belief of what he knew, deep down, was happening.
He arrived at the door to Engineering and found it stuck. He tapped at the key to open it, and it didn't. Miri came up, Tia and Mueller and Xu trailing behind, while Henry pulled the panel open and hit the emergency release on the door. The emergency system forced the doors open with a magnetic pull, allowing them entry into Engineering. Miri brought her pistol up as Henry already had his, entering behind him.
They found Samina first. Blood trickled at the back of her head where she was sprawled out, unconscious. Pieter was nearby, an eye going black and similarly motionless against his panel. Sparks crackled and sizzled from the open heart of the ship's Lawrence drive in the middle of the chamber. Henry went to the edge of the opening and pointed his gun down. Anger vibrated in his voice as he spoke. "The logs weren't faked. You were working for Erhart all along."
The answer from inside the drive came immediately. "Yes," replied Janine Renner, her hands coming up from the torn wiring and broken pieces of the jump drive. She raised them in surrender. "I was."
