everybody?'
'Catching sleep. I'm just as glad not to have an audience while I attempt to teach myself first-year tactics. They might begin to doubt my genius.'
She gave him an odd look. 'Miles—how serious are you about this blockade busting?'
He glanced up to the outside screens, which showed the same boring view of what might be called the backside of the metals refinery they had displayed since the ship had been parked after the counterattack. The Triumph was now being dubbed Miles's flagship. With the arrival of the Felician forces, filling the refinery's crews quarters, he had decamped, secretly relieved, from the squalid luxury of the executive suite to the more restful austerity of Tung's former quarters.
'I don't know. It's been two weeks since the Felicians promised us that fast courier to leg on out of here, and they haven't produced it yet. We're going to at least have to break through the blockade …' He hastened to erase the worry in her face. 'At least it gives me something to do while we wait. This machine is more fun than chess or Strat-O any day.'
He hopped up, and gestured her with a courtly bow toward the next station chair. 'Look, I'll teach you how to operate it. Show you a game or two. You'll be good.'
'Well …'
He introduced her to a couple of elementary tactics patterns, demystifying them by calling them 'play.' 'Captain Koudelka and I used to play something like this.' She caught on quickly. It had to be some kind of criminal injustice, that Ivan Vorpatril was even now deeply engaged in officer's training for which Elena could not even be considered.
He went through his half of the patterns automatically, while his mind circled again around his real life military dilemma. This was just the sort of thing he would have been taught how to do at the Imperial Service Academy, he thought with an inward sigh. There was probably a book on it. He wished he had a copy; he was getting mortally tired of having to re-invent the wheel every fifteen minutes. Although it was just barely possible there was no way for three small warships and a battered freighter to take out an entire mercenary fleet. The Felicians could offer little assistance, beyond the use of the refinery as a base. Of course, Miles's presence there benefited them at least as much as their support did him, as Pelian-repellant.
He glanced up at Elena, and pushed the importunate strategic hassles from his mind. Her strength and sharpness were blooming these days, in her new challenges. All she'd ever needed was a chance, it seemed. Baz shouldn't have it all his own way. He glanced over to see if Bothari was really asleep, and screwed up his courage. The tactics room with its swivel chairs was not well-arranged for nuzzling, but he would try. He went to her shoulder, and leaned over it, manufacturing some helpful instruction.
'Mr. Naismith?' blatted the intercom. It was Captain Auson, calling from Nav and Com. 'Put the outside channels on, I'm coming down.'
Miles snapped out of his haze, cursing silently. 'What's up?'
'Tung's back.'
'Uh, oh. Better scramble everybody.'
'I am.'
'What's he brought? Can you tell yet?'
'Yes, it's strange. He's standing just out of range in what looks like a Pelian inner-system passenger ship, maybe a little troop-carrier or something, and saying he wants to talk. With you. Probably a trick.'
Miles frowned, mystified. 'Well, pipe it down, then. But keep scrambling.'
In moments the Eurasian's familiar face appeared, larger than life. Bothari was now up, at his usual post by the door, silent as ever; he and Elena didn't talk much since the incident in the damaged prison section. But then, they never had.
'How do you do, Captain Tung. We meet again, I see.' The subtle vibrations of the ship changed, as it powered up and began to move into open space.
'We do indeed.' Tung smiled, tight and fierce. 'Is that job offer still open, son?'
The two shuttles sandwiched themselves together, belly to belly like a pair of mismatched limpets, in space midway between their mother ships. There the two men met face-to-face in privacy, but for Bothari, tense and discreet just out of earshot, and Tung's pilot, who remained equally discreetly aboard Tung's shuttle.
'My people are loyal to me,' said Tung. 'I can place them at your service, every one.'
'You realize,' Miles pointed out mildly, 'that if you wished to re-take your ship, that would be an ideal ploy. Load my forces with yours, and strike at will. Can you prove you're not a Trojan Horse?'
Tung sighed agreement. 'Only as you proved that memorable lunch was not drugged. In the eating.'
'Mm.' Miles pulled himself back down into his seat in the gravityless shuttle, as if he could so impose orientation on body and mind. He offered Tung a soft-drink bulb, which Tung accepted without hesitation or comment. They both drank, Miles sparingly; his stomach was already starting to protest null-gee. 'You also realize, I cannot give you your ship back. All I have to offer at the moment is a captured Pelian putt-putt, and perhaps the title of Staff Officer.'
'Yes, I understand that.'
'You'll have to work with both Auson and Thorne, without bringing up, um, past frictions.'
Tung looked less than enthusiastic, but he replied, 'If I have to, I can even do that.' He snapped a squirt of fruit juice out of the air. Practice, thought Miles enviously.
'My payroll, for the moment, is entirely in Felician millifenigs. Do you, ah—know about millifenigs?'
'No, but at a guess from the Felician's strategic situation, I'd suppose they'd make an eye-catching toilet paper.'
That's about right.' Miles frowned. 'Captain Tung. After going to a great deal of trouble to escape two weeks ago, you have gone to what looks like an equal amount of trouble to return to join what can only be described as the losing side. You know you can't have your ship back, you know your pay is at best problematical—I can't believe it's all for my native charm. Why?'
'It wasn't that much trouble. That delightful young lady—remind me to kiss her hand—let me out,' observed Tung.
'That 'delightful young lady' is Commander Bothari to you, sir, and considering what you owe her, you can bloody well confine yourself to saluting her,' snapped Miles, surprising himself. He swallowed a squirt of fruit drink to hide his confusion.
Tung raised his eyebrows, and smiled. 'I see.'
Miles dragged his mind back to the present. 'Again. Why?'
Tung's face hardened. 'Because you are the only force in local space with a chance of giving Oser a prick in the ass.'
'And just when did you acquire this motivation?'
Hard, yes, and inward. 'He violated our contract. In the event of losing my ship in combat, he owed me another command.'
Miles jerked his chin up, inviting Tung to go on.
Tung's voice lowered. 'He had a right to chew me out, yes, for my mistakes—but he had no right to humiliate me before my people …' His hands were clenched, ivory-knuckled, on the arms of his seat. His drink bulb floated away, forgotten.
Miles's imagination filled in the picture. Admiral Oser, angry and shocked at this sudden defeat after a year of easy victories, losing his temper, mishandling Tung's hot damaged pride—foolish, that, when it would have been so easy to turn that pride redoubled to his own service—yes, it rang true.
'And so you come to my hand. Ah—with all your officers, you say? Your pilot officer?' Escape, escape in Tung's ship possible again? Escape from the Pelians and Oserans, thought Miles soberly. It's escape from the Dendarii that's beginning to look difficult.
'All. All but my communications officer, of course.'
'Why 'of course'?'
'Oh, that's right, you don't know about his double life. He's a military agent, assigned to keep watch on the Oseran fleet for his government. I think he wanted to come—we've gotten to know each other pretty well these past six years—but he had to follow his primary orders.' Tung chucked. 'He apologized.'
Miles blinked. 'Is that sort of thing usual?'
