Generation Warriors (6 page)

"I thought so, too. But how?"

"He's Naval Intelligence—but I'm never sure with those types if he's Intelligence for someone else, or someones else, as well. The fact that he's planted his own devices—and too cleverly to reassure me of his ultimate aims—is distinctly unsettling because there's no telling
why
he's doing it.
I'm
"—and Sassinak pushed her thumb into her chest, grinning—"allowed to be that clever, but not my subordinates.

"At the moment, that's not the issue. Getting you away to find your dear great-aunt or whatever is the issue, because I don't want you tied up for the time this is going to take. We need information before that trial date." Sassinak pushed the orders over to Ford who noted the date and its conversion to Fleet standard notation on his personal handcomp. "If you can't find anything by then, be sure you're back to say so."

"But how can I leave when all—"

Sassinak hushed him with a gesture. "There are more tricks in that com shack than Dupaynil knows about. So far, he's the only one who knows that you were present when these orders arrived. And
hes
got priority orders he doesn't know about yet. But he soon will. Just follow my lead."

The bridge crew came to attention when Sassinak arrived, but she gave the helm to Ford and entered the communications alcove.

"Captain's orders," she said crisply to the officer on watch. "You received an IFTL a short time ago?"

"Yes, ma'am, to the captain's address with encryption."

Sassinak could not tell if the com officer's tension was normal or not. "The contents of that message require me to sit com watch myself for two hours." This was unusual, but not unheard of: sometimes extremely sensitive information was sent this way. "I expect incoming IFTL signals, encrypted, and by these orders," and she waved the paper, "only the ship's captain can receive them."

"Yes, ma'am. Will the captain need any assistance?"

Sassinak let herself glare, and the com officer vanished onto the bridge. What she was going to do was both illegal and dangerous... but so was what Dupaynil had done, and what the enemy had done. She logged onto the board and engaged her private comlink to the Ssli interface.

So far, normal procedure. But now... her fingers danced on the board, calling up the file of the original encrypted message. And there it was, the quadruple header code she had never forgotten, not in all the years.
Idiots,
she thought; they should have changed that long since, as she had changed from a naive ensign standing communications watch to an experienced and powerful ship captain.

With the right header code, it was easy to prepare an incoming message Dupaynil would have to believe was genuine. The other "incoming" message would be in regular Fleet fashion. Ford's detachment on "family compassionate leave"... but it would not arrive until Dupaynil was gone.

Where to send Dupaynil? Where would he be safely out of her way, and also, in his own mind, doing something reasonable? She wished she could send him to a Thek, preferably a large, old, very slow one... but that wouldn't work. Fleet Security had nothing to do with the pacifist Bronthins, or the Mrouxt.

Suddenly it came to her, and she fought back a broad grin which anyone glancing into the alcove might notice (why would the captain be grinning to herself in the com shack?): Ford would dig up dirt on the Paraden family's dealings, and Lunzie would find what she could on Diplo... and that, according to what they'd found on Ireta, left the alien Setis without an investigator.
That
would be Dupaynil's chore.

He had done a lot of diplomatic work, he'd said. He had bragged after dinner, once, about his ability to get along with any of the alien members of the Federation, and even said the Seti weren't as bad as everyone thought.

So, quickly, carefully, Sassinak wrote the orders. The Ssli had always shown her special considerations, above and beyond their usual shipboard duties. She owed her life to the sessile Ssli communications officer on her first tour of duty when Hssrho had located her in deep space after she'd had a "misadventure" in an evac pod. In gratitude she had always taken care to cultivate the Ssli communications officers on every other posting. Now she consulted the resident Ssli. She could not simply pretend that an IFTL had come in; the computer records would show it had not and Dupaynil probably had subverted computer security to some degree. But Dupaynil's actual shipboard experience was limited and Sassinak knew that he had never bothered to introduce himself to Dhrossh. Her favorite Wefts, such as Gelory, had mentioned in passing that Dupaynil's mind was not the right sort for direct contact. Whatever they meant by that.

The Ssli thought her scheme was delightful... an odd choice of adjective, Sassinak thought, and wondered if the speech synthesizer software was working correctly. She had never suspected the Ssli of any remotely human emotions. Ssli syntax tended toward the mathematical. But she entered her encrypted message, and the Ssli initiated IFTL communication with another Ssli on another Fleet vessel. Which one she would never know.

The Ssli, her own had informed her, felt no compunction about concealing such communications from human crew. Her own message bounced back, and appeared as a true incoming message on the computer and the board. Sassinak routed it to the decryption computer, peeled a copy for Dupaynil's file, and leaned out to call to the com watch officer, who had taken a seat on the bridge.

"Get me Dupaynil," she said, letting herself glower a bit.

Ford glanced at her but did not even let his brows rise. Dupaynil arrived in a suspiciously short time; this time Sassinak's glower was not faked at all.

"You," she said, pointing a finger at him. The rest of the bridge crew became very busy at their own boards. "You have an incoming IFTL, which not only requires decryption and states that I do not have access, but in addition to
that,
it carries initiation codes I remember all too well!"

He would have to know that, or he could find out—and perhaps her flare of anger would distract him from the unlikeliness of his own orders. At the moment, he looked confused, as well he might.

"This!" Sassinak pointed to the display she'd frozen onscreen. "The last time I saw that initiation code, that very one, in quad like that, someone smacked me over the head and dumped me in an evac pod. If you think you're going to do something like that,
Major
—take me out and take over my ship—you are very much mistaken!" She could hear the anger in her own voice, and the bridge was utterly silent.

"I... Commander Sassinak, I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about. That code is known to me, yes—its from the IG's office. But..."

"I don't like secrets on my ship, Dupaynil! I don't like junior officers receiving IFTL messages to which the captain is forbidden access. And encrypted messages at that. I don't like people going over my head to the IG's office. What's your gripe, eh?"

Dupaynil, she was sure, was not as upset as he looked. He was too smart by half. But he was responding to her obvious anger and had lost some of his gloss. "Commander, the IG's office might have reason to contact me about the Security work I've done here—if nothing else, about that—you know..." His voice lowered. Sassinak let herself calm down.

"I still don't like it," she grumbled, but softly. Someone smothered a cough, over in Weapons, and nearly choked from the effort. "All right. I see what you mean, and from what Lunzie said that whole thing was classified. Maybe there is a reason. But I don't like secrets. Not like this, at a time when we're all..." She let her voice trail away. Dupaynil's lids drooped slightly. Was he convinced? "Take your damned message, and unless you
like
causing me grief, tell me what's so important I can't even read it."

Dupaynil moved to the decryption computer and entered his password.

Sassinak turned to the communications watch officer, and said, "Take over. And make sure I know about any incoming or outgoing messages. From anyone." This last with a sidelong glance at Dupaynil.

The Security officer was staring at the screen as if it had grown tentacles; Sassinak controlled an impulse to laugh at him. He glanced at her, a shrewd, calculating look, and she spoke immediately.

"Well? Are you supposed to clap me in irons, or what?" He shook his head, and sighed.

"No, Commander, it's nothing like that. It is... odd... that is all. May we speak in your office? Privately?"

Sassinak nodded shortly and left the bridge with a final glower for everyone. She could feel the support of her crew—her
own
crew—like a warm blanket around her shoulders. In her office, she put her formal desk between herself and Dupaynil. His brows rose, recognizing that for what it was, and he sighed again.

"Captain, I swear to you..."

"Don't bother." Sassinak turned away, briefly, to glance at the hardcopy he offered her, then met his dark eyes squarely. "If you don't know what I'm talking about, then you don't—but I cannot ignore anything like that. It nearly cost me my life twenty years ago."

"I'm sorry. Truly sorry. But just as you received unwelcome orders a short while ago, I have now received unwelcome orders to leave this ship—unwelcome and even stranger than yours."

"Oh? And where are you supposed to go?" She saw Dupaynil wince at the unbending ice in that tone. She could care less, as long as she rid herself of a potential traitor.

"To the Seti—to the Sek of Fomalhaut, in fact. One of my past sins come to haunt me, I suppose. Apparently there's some kind of diplomatic problem with the new human ambassador to the High Court, and I'm supposed to know someone who might be of assistance."

"But you can't," Sassinak said sharply. "You can't leave: we're all under orders to proceed to Federation Central, you most of all. You were in on all of it; your testimony..."

"Can be recorded, and will have to be. I'm sorry. Truly sorry, as I said, but these orders take precedence. Have to." His finger tapped the authorizing seals and codes; in the labyrinthine regulations of Fleet and FSP, the IG's signature outweighed even the Judge Advocate General's. "Besides, I might still be of use to you. The Thek hinted that the Seti were involved, but they had no solid data, or none they passed to us. That's something I can look into, with my contacts in the Seti diplomatic subculture. They estimate the assignment proper will take me only about six standard months; I can be back in time to share what I've learned, and testify if called."

Sassinak heaved a dramatic sigh. "Well. I suppose, if you have to, you have to. And maybe you
can
find something
useful,
although the Seti are the least likeable bunch of bullies I've ever met."

"They do require careful handling," Dupaynil murmured, almost demurely.

Sassinak wondered what he was up to now. She did not trust him one hairsbreadth. "Very well. Where are we supposed to drop you off?"

"It says your orders will be in shortly and I'm to leave at the next transfer point. Wherever that is."

"Somebody's entirely too clever," Sassinak growled. She hoped she hadn't been clever enough to trip herself with this—but so far Dupaynil seemed convinced. Just then the junior com officer tapped timidly on her door, and offered a hardcopy of her second faked IFTL message, the one telling her to drop out of FTL drive, and proceed to the nearest Fleet station. The nearest Fleet station was a resupply center with only monthly tanker traffic and the occasional escort or patrol craft dropping by. She remembered it well, from her one previous visit fifteen years before. She showed Dupaynil the orders.

"Supply Center 64: says there's an escort in dock. You'll take that, I imagine?" At his nod, she said, "I'll expect you back at 1500, to give your deposition; we'll have the equipment set up by then, and an ETA for the supply center."

The rest of that day Sassinak hardly dared look at Ford; she would have burst out laughing. Dupaynil came back, gave his testimony while she asked every question she could think of before she sent him off to pack his gear.

They popped out of FTL space within a few hours of the supply center. Sassinak had already dispatched messages to it and the escort vessel (whose pilot had been planning an unauthorized three-day party with the supply center's crew). Escorts, not large enough to house a Ssli, were out of the IFTL links. Once aboard, Dupaynil would have only sublight ways of checking up on his orders.

Docking the
Zaid-Dayan
at the supply station was simple: the station had equipment to handle large transports of all shapes, and the small escort took up only a minute space at the far end of the station. Sassinak indulged herself, as she rarely could anymore, and brought the cruiser in herself, easing it to the gantry so gently that no one detected contact until the status lights changed color.

"Nice job!" said the station Dockmaster, a Weft. "We'll have air up in the tubes in a few minutes. Is your passenger ready to transfer?"

"Ready when you are."

Dupaynil would leave by one of the small hatches, an airlock on the second flight deck. Even with a Fleet facility, Sassinak didn't like opening up real interior space to a possible pressure loss. She glanced at Dupaynil, visible on one of the side screens, and flicked a switch to put him on-channel.

"They're airing up the tube. Sure you don't want a pressure suit?"

"No thank you."

He had already explained how he felt about pressure suits. Sassinak was tempted to teach him a lesson about that, but under the circumstances she wanted their parting to be as friendly as possible.

"Fine... we're standing by for your departure signal." She could see, in the monitor, the light above the hatch come on, flick twice, and steady to green,

"On my way," said Dupaynil. Then he paused, and faced the monitor-cam squarely. "Commander? I did
not
intend to cause you trouble and I have no idea what that initiation code means to you. You may not believe me, but I have no desire to see you hurt."

And I have a great desire to see your back going off my ship, thought Sassinak, but she smiled for his benefit. "I'd like to believe you, and if that's true, I hope we serve together again someday. Have a good trip. Don't let those Seti use you for nest padding."