Jack Campbell - Perilous Shield

Garadun played with his drink pouch for a few moments before giving Rogero a searching look. “But, maybe, like Black Jack, my dreams aren’t really dead. Maybe they just went to sleep so deeply I didn’t realize they still lived. I need to see my family at Darus. But afterward, if a former sub-CEO can make his way to Midway, maybe with his family, would there be room there for him?”

“I’m certain of it.” Rogero gestured vaguely. “Or on Taroa if you prefer there. Didn’t you once tell me you liked it?”

“Taroa? Sure I liked it. Lovely place. What’s happened there?”

“Revolt. The people rule there, but it’s not a mob. They’ve got a government that we’re supporting. They also lost a lot of people during the revolt and could use immigrants. Especially immigrants with the right skills and training,” Rogero added.

“I’ll think about it,” Garadun promised.

“What about Ito? Any idea how she feels?”

“Ask her.” Garadun took a drink and grinned. “She’ll want at least a heavy cruiser.”

“I don’t know that I can promise that.”

“Just tell her you’ll try. All she wants is an excuse to go. Most of the former crews will go, too. Not that they love their supervisors.” Garadun laughed at the idea. “But they think we’ll look after them, they think of Midway as home, and a lot of them have family there, and since we’ve been living without snakes for a while, they’ve gotten used to that and like it. They’ll need a firm hand, though. Ito can provide that.” He laughed again. “One of the snakes on our ship almost made it to the escape craft. I saw Ito shoot him before he made it to the hatch. She’ll go with you.” Garadun laughed a third time, accompanied with a sly look at Rogero. “Ito told me she thought you were hot for that Alliance captain. Can you imagine? Women see that sort of thing everywhere.”

“I guess so,” Rogero said, hoping that he had revealed no reaction to Garadun’s words and deciding to change the subject as quickly as possible. “How certain are you that there aren’t any snakes or snake agents among the workers and supervisors that we recovered?”

Garadun shrugged. “As certain as we can be. You know how often snakes on stricken mobile forces units mysteriously fail to make it to escape craft. When we were picked up by the Alliance, there weren’t any openly known snakes among us. Every once in a while, someone among the prisoners would get tagged by their fellows as a covert snake. We’d hold a trial, without the Alliance guards knowing, of course, and if the charges held up, we’d deal with the snake. Then we’d turn the body over to the guards with one of the usual excuses about falling down stairs or off a building or something.” He gave Rogero a knowing look this time. “It’s a little worrisome how easily the workers came up with excuses like that. I can’t swear there aren’t still some covert snakes among our numbers. I don’t think so. But they can be very hard to spot.”

“I know,” Rogero agreed. “How many of those with us do you estimate will want to be let off?”

“Off the top of my head? Maybe fifteen hundred. No more than that. Most of those won’t be loyalists any more than I am. They’ll be people wanting to go to their families at places other than Midway, or people who can’t stomach even a whiff of Alliance involvement with you, or both. How long until we jump?”

Rogero checked his data pad. “Assuming nothing happens between now and then, about five hours.”

“It can’t happen a minute too soon for me.” Garadun stared toward the hatch leading into the passageway where workers sat with their backs against the bulkheads. “I never thought that I’d leave here, not unless it was on some prison transport taking me to a camp somewhere deeper inside the Alliance. I never thought I’d go home again, see my family again, have a chance at anything again. And now…” He exhaled heavily. “If that Alliance officer had as much to do with it as you say, well, maybe someday I can look her in the eye and not have to hide how I feel.”

Rogero made sure to be on the freighter’s command deck as the small convoy approached the jump point that led to Atalia. The six freighters lumbered along steadily, not far from each other but not in anything resembling the ordered formations that mobile forces units always adopted.

The three Alliance warships had fallen back, opening the distance between them and the freighters. They had never communicated with the freighters, and didn’t seem likely to say good-bye. Rogero wondered whether he should send a message to the warships.

Bradamont came onto the command deck, her eyes going directly to the display where the three Alliance warships loomed nearby.

“Should we say something?” Rogero asked her. “Thank them for their assistance? Just say farewell?”

“No.” Bradamont’s voice sounded hollow. “You can’t acknowledge that they did anything for you. It could get them in trouble.”

“But everybody knows. It was obvious.”

“Yes, everybody knows, but nobody is admitting that they know.”

Rogero shrugged. “All right, but it sounds like how we did things in the Syndicate.”

“I didn’t need to hear that.” She clearly wasn’t taking the comment humorously.

He watched her, seeing the look in Bradamont’s eyes as they prepared to leave Alliance space and leave behind Alliance warships, everything that Bradamont knew and held dear. Everything except him. And for him as much as anything she had given this up, official orders or not.

“Ready,” the freighter’s executive said.

“What about the other five?” Rogero asked.

“Yes. Ready to go. See those lights on the display? We’ve got our jump orders linked. When I go, we all go.”

“Then go,” Rogero said.

The stars vanished.

The endless gray of jump space filled the display.

Captain Bradamont left the bridge.

After a long minute, Rogero left, too. It would be four days in jump space before they reached Atalia. At least in jump space, everything traveled at the same speed, and they would reach the other star as swiftly as the fastest battle cruiser.

Two days in jump, and Rogero was feeling uneasy. Uneasiness was normal in jump space. People didn’t belong here, and the longer they stayed, the worse it felt. But that kind of discomfort usually took a bit longer than two days to be noticeable. This was something else.

He walked restlessly around the freighter, having to step over innumerable workers sitting in the passageways because there was not enough room elsewhere for them. The air had already gone a bit stale, life support not quite up to the task of handling so many people. It wouldn’t become dangerous in the time they would have to live with it, but the smell would get worse, and headaches would become increasingly frequent.

Rogero found that his steps had brought him to the quarters occupied by Honore Bradamont. He frowned slightly as he realized that this was the source of his unease. Why? Since entering jump, Bradamont had stayed inside that small compartment, out of sight of the workers, not wanting to flaunt her presence before those who still saw her as the enemy. The two soldiers of Rogero’s who were standing sentry outside Bradamont’s door at this hour were alert. What, then, bothered him?

He walked up to the soldiers, who both came to full attention and saluted him. “How does everything look?” Rogero asked.

Syndicate soldiers were trained to not ask questions, to not volunteer information, to do what they were told and nothing more or less. Rogero’s soldiers, like many of those in General Drakon’s forces, had been given different training for the last few years. Observe. Think. Tell someone if something looks wrong.