David Weber - On Basilisk Station

"It seems to me the only logical suspect is Haven, Ma'am. I know we can't prove that, but I can't see anyone else who'd do something like this. And even if it isn't them, shouldn't we proceed on the assumption that it is? I mean, no one else could hurt us as badly as the Peeps, so if we assume it's them and we're wrong, we'll leave ourselves a lot less exposed. But if it is Haven and we bend over backward to keep from assuming that it is, we're likely to miss something important, aren't we?"

"A point, Skipper," McKeon agreed. "Definitely a point."

"Agreed." Honor drummed gently on the table, then looked back at her exec. "Let's assume for a moment that this is a Havenite covert op, Mr. McKeon. Do you think they'd kick off something like this and then just sit back to let it develop in isolation?"

"I don't think there's any way to know," McKeon said after a moment's thought. "My gut reaction is that they wouldn't, but without knowing their ultimate objective I just can't say."

"Captain?" The voice was hesitant and very young, and Honor gave the speaker a reassuring smile as she turned to him.

"Yes, Mr. Tremaine?"

"Uh, I just wanted to mention something, Ma'am. I noticed it a couple of days ago, but it didn't seem very important then. Now, though—" The ensign shrugged uncomfortably.

"Mention what, Mr. Tremaine?"

"Well, it's just that I've been sort of keeping an eye on the space-to-surface traffic patterns since you called me back aboard, Ma'am. Habit, I guess. And I noticed there doesn't seem to be any Havenite traffic at all, anymore."

"Ah?" Honor looked at McKeon and twitched an eyebrow. The exec looked startled for a second, then grinned wryly.

"Out of the mouths of ensigns," he said, and Tremaine blushed at the chuckle that ran around the table. Then he grinned back at the exec.

"I don't know what it means, Ma'am," McKeon went on more in a more serious tone, "but he's right. There's no Havenite traffic to the surface at all. Hasn't been in almost a week."

"Now, that's interesting," Honor murmured, tapping another note into her memo board. "Have they pulled anyone out of their enclave? Any sign of a cautionary evacuation?"

"You'd have to ask Major Isvarian or the commissioner about that, Ma'am, but I certainly haven't noticed anything to suggest it."

"They might not have to, Captain." It was Tremaine again. "Their consulate's more like a fort than most of the enclaves, and they've got an awful big security force." The ensign paused with a frown and rubbed his chin. "Still, Ma'am, they do have a couple of other enclaves—trade stations with the natives right on the edge of the Delta. They're pretty far to the north, too, now that I think of it. Wouldn't that mean they'd get hit first if this shaman really does attack the Delta?"

"How big are they?" McKeon asked, and his gray eyes were intent.

"Well, I've only overflown them, Sir," Tremaine said uncomfortably, "but they're not very big. Maybe a dozen off-worlders and a native staff in each, I'd say, but it's only a guess."

"You think their size is significant?" Honor asked Mckeon, and the exec shrugged.

"I don't know, Ma'am. But it occurs to me that if their objective is to chase us out and move in themselves, it might just suit their purposes to have a few casualties of their own. Another thing," he added in an even more thoughtful voice. "If we end up with some sort of bloodbath down there and they don't take any casualties, isn't it possible some of the other off-worlders, not just us, might wonder exactly why they were so lucky?"

"You may have a point." Honor made another note and tried to hide an inner shiver at the cold-blooded calculation McKeon's hypothesis suggested. The exec nodded very slowly, then frowned and sat straighter in his chair.

"Wait a second, Skipper. I just thought of something." He tapped on his terminal for a moment, then nodded to himself. "I thought I remembered that." He turned back to his captain. "You remember when we were talking about the decline in Havenite traffic to Medusa?" Honor nodded. "Well, the fact is that their Junction traffic is still running at normal levels, but there are only two Peep ships in Medusa orbit right now. That courier boat of the consulate's and the freighter Sirius ."

Honor frowned as something about the name Sirius jogged her memory. Then her eyes widened.

"Exactly," McKeon said. "That ship's been sitting in a parking orbit for over three months. I may be getting paranoid, but that strikes me as a mighty interesting coincidence in light of what the NPA's reporting."

"Excuse me, Skipper, but what do we know about this Sirius? " Santos asked. "Do we have any idea why she's here?"

Honor gestured at McKeon. He glanced back at his screen, then looked at Santos.

"She's big—a seven-point-six m-ton Astra- class," he said. "Captain Johan Coglin, People's Merchant Service, commanding. According to our files, she suffered an engineering casualty—or, more precisely, she's afraid she will if she moves on. Coglin reported his engineers spotted a fluctuation in his Warshawski tuners when he left hyper and declared an emergency. She's waiting for replacement tuners from home."

"She's what?" Santos twitched upright in her chair and frowned.

"A problem, Commander?" Honor asked.

"Well, it just seems awfully odd, Skipper. Of course, I don't know a lot about Havenite maintenance patterns, and a Warshawski flutter isn't anything to monkey around with. If she's really got one, Captain Coglin was probably right to declare an emergency. The only thing is that a fluctuation isn't something that usually creeps up on you. The tuners take more strain than any other sail component, so unless you're terminally dumb, you watch for the tiniest frequency kicks like a hawk. By the time you start showing actual flutter, you're normally well past the point at which they should've been pulled for routine refit, and the Haven government owns all Haven-flagged freighters. They're self-insured, too, so if they take a loss, they can't recover from anyone else on it. It doesn't sound to me like they'd be cutting maintenance corners the way some private owners do."

"Another thing." McKeon's eyes were very bright. "A flutter is something you're more likely to notice going into hyper than coming out. The power bleed when you transit downward tends to hide it."

"But what good would it do them to cook up a reason to keep a freighter in orbit?" Lieutenant Panowski asked a bit plaintively. Honor looked at him, and he squirmed a little. "I mean, they've already got a courier boat in permanent orbit, Ma'am. What would a freighter do for them that a courier boat wouldn't?"

"I don't know about that," Santos said, "but I just thought of something else odd about Sirius's story. They've got tuner flutter, right? Well, why sit here and wait for spares from home? They've already been here for three months, but unless they're way up into critical failure levels, they could pop through the terminus to Manticore. That's a short hop, with minimal tuner stress and demand, and one of the big yards there could put in a whole new sail, much less tuners, in less than two months. But even if they were afraid to transit the Junction, why not order the replacements from Manticore? It'd be a hell of a lot cheaper and faster than shipping them out from home, and we've got scads of privately-owned repair ships. If they send new tuners from Haven, they're either going to have to send their own repair ship to install them or else charter one of ours, anyway, and the time they're spending in orbit has to be costing them a lot more in lost profit than paying us for the parts would." She shook her head. "No. They've got to be up to something, Skipper. There's just no logical economic or engineering reason for the way they're going about this."