The warrant officer’s supercilious face appeared promptly.
“We’re about to be fired on by a cruiser twice our strength,” Martinez said. “If you’ve got any ideas about where the captain keeps his key, it’s time to let me know.”
“I have no idea, Lord Lieutenant,” Saavedra said. “I had no desire to know where the captain kept his key, and I paid no attention to it.”
“Missile flares!” Clarke called. “Three, five, six…eight missile tracks, my lord!”
“We’ve got eight missiles coming our way,” Martinez told Saavedra. “If you’ve got any ideas about the key, you’d better let me know.”
Saavedra stared stonily at Martinez. “You could surrender, my lord, and return to base,” he said. “I’m sure the fleetcom would order the missiles disarmed if you obeyed her command.”
The total, incorruptible bastard, Martinez snarled. Kneecapping was too good for him.
“Fourteen minutes to detonation, my lord,” Tracy said.
“You’ve got less than fourteen minutes to think of something we haven’t tried,” Martinez told Saavedra. “Then you can die with the rest of the crew.” He signed off and turned to Kelly. “Weapons. I want you to prepare to launch one of the pinnaces as a decoy.”
“Yes, my lord.” She hesitated, then turned her dark eyes to Martinez. “My lord, ah—how exactly would Ido that?”
“We fire the pinnace on the same course, but a slower speed. We hope the missiles lock onto the pinnace instead of us.”
Without the captain’s key, the two pinnaces were the only things Martinezcould launch. Unfortunately, they weren’t armed, so they were useless for offense, and the chances of one of the missiles mistaking a pinnace for the frigate were slim to none.
Kelly blinked at her console. “I think I can do that, my lord.”
“Good. Let me know when you’re ready, and I’ll check your work.”
She seemed reassured. “Very good, my lord.”
Martinez called Alikhan. “Have you tried searching Koslowski’s cabin again?”
“We have, my lord.”
“Any new ideasat all? ”
“Nothing, my lord.”
“Right then. Get your people into the officers’ racks. I’m going to kick some gees.” To Mabumba. “Acceleration warning.”
The wailed cry of the acceleration warning sounded. “Very good, my lord.”
He increasedCorona’s acceleration to six gees while he tried desperately to think of a way to escape. The heavy gravity should have wearied him but his mind blazed with ideas—radical maneuvers, imaginative improvision of decoys, suicide pinnace dives into the ring station—all of them pointless. The only thing he’d succeeded at was slowing the rate at which the missiles were closing, and buying his crew a few more minutes’ life.
“Twelve minutes, my lord.”
Martinez realized that his mind was racing too quickly to actually be of any use, and he tried to slow himself down, go through everything he knew step by step.
Garcia had told him that Koslowski never wore his lieutenant’s key while playing football. Koslowski was the only one ofCorona’s officers who Martinez definitely knew wasn’t wearing his key, so that meant he should concentrate on Koslowski.
The sensible place for Koslowski to put his key would be in the safe in his cabin, but Koslowski hadn’t been that sensible. He hadn’t put it in any other obvious place in his cabin either. So where else could he have gone?
Where else didofficers go?
The wardroom. It was where the officers ate and relaxed. There was a locked pantry where the officers kept their drinks and delicacies.
But the wardroom was an insecure place, there were people in cleaning, and the wardroom steward and cook both had keys to the pantry. The wardroom seemed highly unlikely.
Perhaps Koslowski gave the key to someone he trusted. But the only likely candidates were on the team.
“Ten minutes, my lord.”
Fine, Martinez went on, but if officers weren’t going to be wearing their keys, they were supposed to return them to their captain. So on the assumption that Koslowski did what he was supposed to do, where did Tarafah put it?
Not in either of his safes. Not in his desk. Not in his drawers. Not under his mattress or in a secret compartment in the custom mahogany paneling of his walls.
He put it…around his neck. Martinez’s heart sank. He could picture it happening, picture Tarafah looping the elastic cord around his neck and tucking the key down the front of his sweats, to join his own captain’s key nestled against his chest hairs…
No. Martinez put the image firmly from his mind. The key had to be somewhere else.
“Nine minutes, my lord.” The words were spoken over a long, groaning shudder fromCorona’s stressed frame.
WouldFanaghee acceptCorona’s surrender? Martinez wondered. He could safely assume that she would want the frigate back, certainly. But—perhaps of more vital interest—would Fanaghee acceptMartinez’s surrender?
Martinez thought not. His blood would probably still be decorating the walls of Command when Fanaghee put her new captain on board. Perhaps it would be easier on everyone if he just took his sidearm and blew out his own brains.
No.Martinez put the thought out of his mind. Where was thekey?
He pictured Koslowski’s cabin, exactly like his own…small, the narrow gimbaled bed, the washstand, the large wardrobe that contained the formidable number of uniforms required, the chests with the grand amount of gear an officer was expected to carry with him from one posting to the next. The shelves, the small desk with its computer access.
There just wasn’t any room to hide something. A cabin wassmall.
He knew that the captain’s sleeping cabin was larger, though he’d never been in it, but he couldn’t imagine it would be very different.
And then there was the captain’s office. The desk, with its computer access. The safe. The shelves, and all the football trophies.
The trophies. The glittering objects, standing in his office and braced against high gee, that meant more to Lieutenant Captain Tarafah than anything else, including probably his command. The objects that he savored every day, that he probably caressed in secret.
Martinez was so transfixed by the memory of the trophies that he failed to hear the words that were spoken to him.
“Sorry?” he said absently. “Repeat, please.”
“I think I’ve configured the pinnace as you wished,” Kelly said.
“Right. Stand by.”
He paged Alikhan. “Did you check thetrophies? ” he demanded.
“My lord?”
“Did you look in the trophies? The Home Fleet Trophies arecups, aren’t they?”
He could hear Alikhan’s chagrin even through the strain that six gravities was putting on his voice.
“No, my lord. I didn’t think to look.”
“Engines!” Martinez cried. “Reduce acceleration to one gravity!”
“Reducing acceleration to one gravity, my lord,” Mabumba repeated.
Corona’sbeams groaned as the oppressive weight eased. Martinez gasped in air, grateful to breathe without labor. He took a half-dozen sweet breaths, then impatience drove him to demand information.
“What are you finding, Alikhan?”
“I’m trying to work the catch to the lid now, my lord.There …I’m reaching inside…”
In the silence that followed, even over the remorseless percussion of his heart, Martinez could hear the metallic scrape of Alikhan’s fingernails whispering against the inside of the cup. And then he heard Alikhan’s deep sigh, a sigh that to Martinez seemed filled with all the despair in the universe…
“Six minutes, my lord.” Tracy’s words were leaden.
“I’ve got them both, Lord Gareth,” said Alikhan in a voice of quiet exultation.
For an instant the hopelessness still clung like a shroud to Martinez’s mind, and then it was obliterated by an electric surge of triumph that almost had him whooping aloud.
“Activate the captain’s desk display,” he said. “Insert his key. Prepare to turn on my mark.Weapons! Kelly! Catch! ”
Cadet Kelly turned as Martinez fished in his pocket for Garcia’s key. The expression on her face was luminous, as if with glowing eyes she were seeing Martinez descend from heaven on rainbow clouds.
The cadet stretched out her lanky arms, and Martinez tossed her the key.
“Insert and turn on my mark.”
“Very good, my lord!”
Martinez opened his tunic and pulled his own key off over his head. He inserted the key into the silvery metal slot on the command console before him.
“Weapons. Alikhan. Turn on my mark. Three. Two. One. Mark.”
Kelly gave a dazzled smile as the weapons board lit up before her eyes. Another light appeared on Martinez’s board, indicating that the weapons were free.
“Alikhan, get to a rack and strap in.”
“Yes, my lord.”
And then, as frantic relief poured into his veins, Martinez turned to Kelly. “Power up point-defense lasers!” he called. “This isnot a drill!” Such was his haste that he had to keep himself from screaming the words like a lunatic.
“This is not a drill,” Kelly repeated through a broad, brilliant smile. “Powering up point-defense lasers.”
“Activate radars aft.”
“Radars activated aft, my lord.”
“This is not a drill. Charge missile battery one with antimatter.”
“This is not a drill. Charging missile battery one with antimatter…missiles charged, my lord.”
The missiles had been charged with their antimatter fuel, each unit consisting of a solid flake of antihydrogen that had been carefully doped with an excess of positrons, which allowed it to be suspended by static electricity inside a tiny etched silicon chip. The configuration was stable and would last for decades, and the chips were so diminutive, well beneath anything that could be seen with a conventional microscope, that as a mass they flowed like liquid. The antihydrogen served both as propellant for the missile and as the warhead—any fuel that didn’t get used up on the approach would go bang at the end of the journey.
The same antihydrogen fuel was used byCorona for its own propulsion, though larger ships used antihydrogen suspended in larger microchips, which provided more power to the engines.
