“So he survived the wreck of the Centurion?”
“That’s what we’re supposed to believe, yes,” Tanner said.
The Security Chief’s frown deepened. “Supposed to believe, sir?”
Tanner nodded at the intel officer.
“The Centurion took a direct KEW hit on her bridge just a few minutes into the battle. Fleet Intel has reviewed the imagery and came to the conclusion that no one could possibly have survived it. Not a missile. A KEW, at hard acceleration, and a direct hit.”
Thorn remembered standing on the Centurion’s virtual bridge in the simulator at Code Gauntlet, watching the grim recreation of her last minutes and how it had so abruptly ended. The imagery run after that, taken from the external feeds of surviving ON ships, caught the battlecruiser’s destruction in horrific detail. There was no way anyone could have survived that. And yet—
“Flukes do happen, sir,” he said. “I’ve heard some pretty wild tales of skin-of-the-teeth survival in battle.”
“And some of those are even true,” Tanner replied. “But yes, that does happen, and it does seem to have happened in this case.”
Now it was the XO who looked confused. “So what are we doing here then, sir?”
“Appearances can be deceiving, XO,” Tanner replied. “This man somehow didn’t die aboard the Centurion, it’s true. But he wasn’t found and rescued by the ON. Instead, the man simply resurfaced about six months ago, claiming that he’d been found by salvagers, managed to get away from them, then made his way back to ON lines. I’m a fan of dumb luck, but this stretches my concept of it and tickles my natural cynicism. I know I’m guilty of being overly cheerful—”
Someone snorted, but Tanner went on, unperturbed. “And yet, I’m left with an intense need to know how this could have happened, given that good luck rarely occurs when we’re fighting an enemy as creatively evil as the squids.”
Thorn narrowed his eyes. The story was plausible; there were salvagers, grubby opportunists, who carried on the age-old tradition of plundering battlefields after the fighting was done.
“But we don’t believe that, I gather,” the Security Chief said.
“No, we do not,” Tanner replied. “People, meet our newest Nyctus problem. We call them Skins.”
2
“Lieutenant Wixcombe, report to docking port four ASAP.”
Kira glanced up as the synthesized voice spoke over the general address system, then sighed in disgust. Finally, she’d managed some free time, having bargained with both the Duty Watch Commander and another of the Stiletto’s Lieutenants, a sallow-faced young man named Davis, who totally sucked at poker. With two more favors in her bag, she’d used the first to finally get more than a few hours of sleep, and had planned to use the second to get serious about contacting Thorn.
But now—
“Lieutenant Wixcombe,” the mechanical voice repeated. “Report to—”
“Yeah, yeah, on my way,” she snapped, prying herself out from behind the tiny worktable in her cramped quarters. The Stiletto, a heavy cruiser, was by far the most spacious ship to which Kira had yet been assigned, but crews grew in proportion to the size of the ship, so it really wasn’t any more spacious than, say, the Hecate—not on a per-person basis, anyway.
Still, she thought, fastening her uniform and grabbing her cap, the ON could no doubt make an empty field seem crowded.
She made her way along narrow corridors, stepping over hatch coamings along the way with practiced ease. Captain Densmore insisted that every member of the Stiletto’s crew be able to navigate every centimeter of the ship in complete darkness while blinded by smoke. It was a dedication to crew survival Kira hadn’t heard any other Captains practicing.
It was also another reason Kira was convinced Densmore actually wasn’t a spy for the Nyctus.
She stopped to let a trio of crewmen pass by, each carrying a hefty power cell. They nodded as they passed Kira, and she nodded back, a formal acknowledgement of an officer by enlisted Ratings when there wasn’t room to properly salute.
She carried on, heading for Docking Port Four. She had no idea why, but that was typical aboard the Stiletto. Technically a ship of the line, the Stiletto was actually much more specialized. If she was on the front line, then something had gone really wrong in the war. Her real mission was support for covert ops. She deployed and recovered spec ops teams and other intel specialists on furtive missions, most of which Kira knew absolutely nothing about. But then she didn’t need to know about them, and was only read into those missions she did. Keeping secrets came naturally to intel officers. Keeping secrets on the Stiletto was practically religion.
She stopped again, this time to let a forgettable man in a plain day-uniform pass by. The man, who barely acknowledged her, had no insignia or rank badges, just a security chip with a four-digit number on it—5783. Kira watched him recede down the corridor. Whoever Mister 5783 was, he wasn’t ON.
That was another reality about the Stiletto; ON ships did sometimes carry civilian personnel, usually shipyard representatives overseeing flight trials, various types of contractors, or certain mission specialists. Densmore’s ship had more than its share of civvies aboard, though, all of the spooky variety. Kira wasn’t even sure how many civilian personnel were aboard the Stiletto. She presumed someone had a head count for civvies, in case the ship ever got into trouble and had to be evacuated.
Although Kira suspected the Stiletto would likely be scuttled long before there was any threat she might be compromised by the Nyctus.
The only thing she did know about Mister 5783 was that the blue diamond on his security chip marked him as a member of the ELINT—electronic intelligence—department. That was the Stiletto’s other major role—eavesdropping on electronic comms of all types, from transmissions to the characteristic EM emissions of ships underway.
ELINT occupied almost a third of C-deck, a part of the ship into which Kira had only been once—and then with most consoles covered up. That was part of Densmore’s everybody-know-every-centimeter-of-the-ship-even-in-the-dark thing, but Kira was absolutely confident that after only one visit, she’d be able to get hopelessly lost in ELINT, even with the lights on.
Intel was a world of compartmentalization. And the more Kira learned just how compartmentalized it was, the more dysfunctional it all seemed.
She reached Docking Port Four, to find Densmore already there. A striking woman, Alys Densmore had a perpetual sense of knowing about her—both of secrets kept and the ability to glean anything from anyone, a kind of prophet whose sole purpose was to sniff the wind and understand who held what advantage at any point in the war. On one level, it made her mysterious, an enigmatic, figure of vague menace. On another, though, it just made her annoying.
“Ma’am,” Kira said, saluting. “I was called here, but I’m not sure why.”
Densmore nodded. “In about ten minutes, a civilian shuttle is going to dock here. It will contain the pilot and one passenger. The passenger will be your responsibility. You will escort him to briefing room five-alpha and proceed to debrief him. I’d like your summary report on my desk by oh-eight-hundred tomorrow.”