Ричард Бейкер - Valiant Dust

“The practice models, Mr. Girard,” he said patiently. “Phantoms Type 12-P. God help us if our war shots have the same fault, but that’s a problem we can tackle after we figure out what happened on the Aberdeen range.”

To his surprise, Girard actually waved off the answer. “Oh, I know that, sir,” he said. “What I mean is, which series of manufacture? Type 12-P-2, 12-P-5, or 12-P-6?”

“There’s a difference?” Sikander asked. Now it was his turn to be confused. He’d learned a lot about warp torpedoes in the last few weeks, and he hadn’t seen anything that suggested that there was any variance at all between manufacture series. “The maintenance procedures for any 12-P are the same, aren’t they? And the control software, too, as far as I know.”

“Well, no, there isn’t any difference in software or maintenance procedures,” Girard said, “but the torpedoes are actually just a little bit different. The 12-P-2s were fleet depot yard upgrades of the old 11-P Phantoms. The two torpedo models have the same drive and the same casing, so when the fleet switched to the Type 12, they just replaced the old warheads, control boards, and software with an upgrade kit. The 12-P-5s and later series were manufactured new. So which one did you want me to set up the emulator for, sir?”

Sikander stared at him for a long moment. Then he quickly referred to his own dataslate. A few quick keystrokes in the ship’s magazine records confirmed what Girard was saying … and maybe, just maybe, solved the never-to-be-sufficiently-damned Torpedo Mystery once and for all. He grinned in triumph. “The 12-P-2, Mr. Girard,” he answered. “Our missing torpedo is a Phantom Type 12-P- 2. And the one that we recovered was a Type 12-P- 5. In theory they’re identical, but now we know that somehow they are not. ”

Girard frowned. “Sir, I know I asked the question, but after the depot upgrade, they’re really the same torp. I was just trying to make sure I had the precise versions for the emulation program.”

“Don’t sell yourself short,” Sikander told him. “I think you may have cracked the case, whether you know it or not. Hold off on running that set of emulations I requested. What I want you to do now is set up a component-by-component comparison of the series-2 and the series-5. Find out exactly what is different between them.”

Girard began nodding. “And that will tell us which specific software updates and maintenance procedures to focus on as the cause of the torpedo failure.”

“Exactly.” Sikander adjusted his cap on his head. As curious as he was about what Girard would find, that was clearly a secondary priority at the moment. “Advise me as soon as you have any progress—”

He was interrupted by the ship’s info assistant. “Lieutenant North, the landing force has been ordered to deploy. Your presence is requested in the hangar bay.”

“Understood. I am on my way,” Sikander answered the computer. He turned back to Girard. “Thank you, Mr. Girard. Good work. I look forward to your report.”

“I’ll get on it immediately,” Girard promised. “Good luck, sir.”

“Thanks,” said Sikander. “It sounds like we might need it.” He clapped the young ensign on the shoulder, then hurried on down to the hangar bay.

11

Tanjeer, Gadira II

Chaos reigned in the streets of the capital as two of Hector ’s orbital shuttles streaked low over dun-colored buildings and dusty palms. Sikander checked his seat harness and tried to ignore the lurching sensation in his stomach as the shuttle pilots jinked and slalomed between the taller buildings and the occasional minaret or comm tower. They had to avoid the controlled airspace around the palace, which meant spending more time over Tanjeer’s crowded outlying districts than Sikander would have liked, especially since the local insurgents had so recently demonstrated that they had the capability of knocking flyers out of the sky. Petty Officer Long and the other shuttle pilot certainly proceeded as if they expected to be fired on at any moment.

“I do not like the looks of this,” Darvesh Reza murmured, watching the rooftops and crowded streets passing by beneath the small viewports in the shuttle’s passenger area. Like the rest of the landing force, he wore battle dress and carried a mag rifle, although he wore a small turban instead of a fatigue cap. He gave Sikander a long look, but did not voice any more objections. They were commited at this point, after all.

“Nor do I,” Sikander admitted. “At least we’re not Gadirans or Montréalais. The locals have no particular reason to be upset with us.”

“I suspect one offworlder looks like another to most of these people, Nawabzada. I would not count on a different uniform to deflect their anger.”

“So noted,” Sikander replied. Then he gripped his seat as the pilot threw the shuttle into one more sharp turn and dove down to the ground, landing heavily inside the walls of the consulate compound. The hatch by Sikander cycled open, and a barrage of impressions—the bright late-afternoon sunlight, the humid air, the smell of smoke, and more ominously the distant pop-pop or chirp-chirp of distant gunfire—assaulted his senses all at once.

Darvesh gave him one more look, but Sikander ignored him and scrambled out of the hatch. The valet and fifteen more of Hector ’s sailors armed for ground combat followed him. Forty meters away, on the other side of the courtyard, the second shuttle likewise landed and opened its hatches; Sublieutenant Larkin, Chief Trent, and the rest of the landing force quickly exited and fanned out. Sikander moved aside and studied the scene, allowing Larkin to direct the sailors to take positions around the consulate grounds. He had no reason to believe he would do it better than she would, and he wanted to keep focused on overall situational awareness.

The consulate itself was a small palace in the heart of Tanjeer’s Sidi Marouf neighborhood. Over the last forty years, the Sidi Marouf had grown into the heart of offworlder activity on Gadira; the picturesque manors that had formerly sheltered Gadira’s wealthy old families had been quickly bought up by Montréalais or Aquilan businessmen, who were fantastically rich by Gadiran standards and could afford to live in the planet’s most affluent neighborhood. Handsome low-rise buildings nearby harbored banks, corporate headquarters, luxury apartments, theaters, and restaurants catering to offworlders with money to spend. Sikander observed that some of the nearby rooftops commanded the area inside the consulate walls; snipers overhead might be a real concern if a siege situation developed. Bricks and broken bottles littered the courtyard, and most of the consulate’s windows were broken.

He turned his attention to the front entrance, an ornamental iron gate that was currently closed. Two plainclothes Aquilan security agents stood guard nearby, while scores of Gadiran men—some dressed in Montréalais-style working clothes, others in more traditional Gadiran robes—protested just outside, shouting angrily or waving signs with Jadeed-Arabi slogans Sikander couldn’t read. He found the experience unsettling, since he’d never been to a planet where he couldn’t understand what the people were saying; Standard Anglic was universal among Commonwealth worlds, and of course he understood the High Panjabi and Tari Urdu spoken in Kashmir. In any event, the sudden arrival of two large shuttles and deployment of well-armed soldiers momentarily quieted the crowd.

Larkin trotted up to Sikander, with Chief Trent a step behind her. “We’ve secured the compound walls, sir,” she reported. “I’ve got two squads on the perimeter, and one reserve here in the courtyard with our shuttles. The back gate and the alleyway behind the consulate seem clear, but we think they’re being watched. We’d better assume that trouble might come from that direction at any time.”