Karadon (Fourth Fleet Irregulars) Read online

  Her friends, he knew, would be keen to congratulate her, and she could watch the footage herself, too, and have a laugh about it. “And if you could …” He gestured at his own face, with a significant look to indicate the makeup she was wearing, and Jenni laughed. That was, in fact, the kind of thing that she might wear if she was going out on shoreleave, but it would never normally be allowed on duty, even in the Fourth. Buzz Burroughs had suggested it, with an eye for maximising the outrage and confusion that it would cause aboard the station.

  “You got it, Sub,” Jenni gave a playful salute as she got up from the comms station, and a friendly grin, “Thanks.”

  She went off cheerfully and the ship settled down again, other than for another burst of cheering as she arrived on her mess deck. That was only audible on the command deck at all because of the open comms policy Rangi had told Tom and Murg about. It was not just one way. One of the things Alex had liked about the Minnow was that the mess deck was directly underneath the command deck. With hatches open crew could hear what was going on above, and he could pick up a sense of the mood of the ship, too, just from the tone of the voices coming from the mess deck.

  They’d lost that when they’d upgraded to the frigate. It had four mess decks scattered across its eight decks, none of them within conversational earshot of the command deck or of each other. Alex, therefore, had set up the open comms system to recreate the feeling of intimacy aboard the smaller ship. He was aware almost subconsciously of the background hum of voices and the happy, excited mood aboard the ship.

  All his conscious attention, however, was on the screens in front of him as he went back to work sorting through the information the hacking teams had grabbed. They were both stuck on the financial files. Previous intelligence suggested that Karadon did not keep any of their sensitive financial files on the core system at all. They were believed to use dedicated hand-held comps for that, entirely isolated from the station’s network, using high security datadiscs for storage. Both Dan’s Mob and the Juvenile Delinquents had scoured the system already but had not been able to find the financial information Alex wanted.

  Now, they were trying again. Karadon’s management would be thrown into a frenzy of argument over whether it was even possible for the Fourth to be hacking their computers and if so whether even they would allow a rating to tell them they were doing it. Regardless of how unlikely they might think it to be, though, they would certainly run immediate security sweeps, just to be sure. Both hacking teams would be riding those sweeps, looking for any hidden data-cache. Both teams were confident that no matter what Karadon did, they would not be able to spot them.

  “Sir…” Martine Fishe got his attention a couple of minutes later, asking, “Permission to launch escort?”

  A glance at the watch screens told Alex what she meant. Sub-lt McKenna had signalled that she’d now completed flight checks aboard the Fancy Free and was ready to bring the ship over to ride behind the frigate, as was normal for a ship under arrest. Martine had signalled back permission for her to do so, a perfectly routine shifting of orbit.

  Arie McKenna had, however, just signalled again to tell them that her request for flight clearance had been refused. That had to mean that someone in the flight control office had overridden the automated systems. They had sent a signal that said they were not satisfied that the person requesting clearance had the right to be operating that ship. They were asking either for signed permission from the owner of the ship or copies of documents proving that it had been lawfully seized.

  “Granted,” Alex said, and went straight back to his screens, wholly absorbed in the data streaming over them.

  “Delta and Gamma snatch teams to alert.” Martine spoke through her headset, her manner as placid as always. She was a comfortable, motherly woman who maintained her air of calm efficiency no matter how stressful things might be around her. Her fingers tapped lightly over controls, passing orders to the officers commanding both teams.

  This was why they’d brought out seven supernumerary officers. Known as the “super Subs”, their function was to enable the Fourth to carry out bigger boarding operations than they would ordinarily. The normal complement for a ship of this class was eleven officers and a hundred and ninety eight crew. Fleet regs did not allow for more than a third of those officers to leave the ship on operations, regardless of the circumstances, and that was not a regulation they were prepared to bend for the Fourth. Having the extra Subs aboard gave them far more flexibility. As now, with two of the Subs able to take on the task of bringing the freighter over to them.

  This was potentially dangerous without flight control clearance. None of the ships in port showed any sign of being about to leave, but more ships might arrive at any moment, rising into orbit from beneath the station. Karadon did have its own launch and deceleration tunnel for ships that were staying for a long time or needed to use their spacedocks facilities, but for most ships it was more convenient to remain superlight. Even with the rings set a light-minute apart and parking nodes spaced at least twenty five light-seconds apart around those rings, it was still a very tight situation for any ship to navigate through.

  The Heron, therefore, launched two shuttles. One took up position ahead of the freighter, the other behind it. Both the shuttles were flashing the Fleet’s emergency code, all the lights on their hulls flaring an eye-stabbing electric blue alternating with incandescent yellow. The Fancy Free began flaring red, too, with the simultaneous flash of lights and pulse of thermal energy that signalled an emergency on a civilian ship.

  Ignoring the frantic, furious signals from the station’s flight control office, the Fancy Free curved gently out of orbital node 4/073, rose above the plane of circling ships, and cruised over to drop down neatly into 8/002. The move took less than a minute to achieve, and both shuttles were docking back to the frigate within another few seconds. In terms of ship handling, it was a straightforward manoeuvre.

  In terms of making it absolutely clear that they were not taking any cack from Karadon, however, it was hugely significant. The media would certainly understand that as the Fourth refusing to acknowledge the station’s right to decide whether they could move a ship they’d seized, or not. They would understand, too, the significance of the fact that the Fourth had not even attempted to discuss that with flight control, nor even signalled to tell them their intentions. When the station didn’t cooperate with them, they just went ahead and did what they wanted, regardless.

  The media, in fact, was about to get even more dramatic footage than the freighter and shuttle escort flaring their emergency colours. Two of the networks – Chartsey’s ABC and Therik’s TNN – had their own ships in port. The spaceside equivalent of outside broadcast units, they were both equipped with camera shuttles to get right in close to the action. Both had launched camera shuttles within the last few minutes. Shuttle movement was unrestricted around the station so long as pilots stayed within the designated shuttle lanes and complied with system traffic controls. Both the camera shuttles had been cruising as close as they were allowed to be alongside the Fancy Free, filming the Fourth’s shuttle still docked to it. Now they came chasing through the shuttle lanes, trying to get as close as they could to the Heron.

  Both their pilots had to know that no ships or shuttles were allowed to get any closer than ten light seconds to Fleet ships without their permission. That amounted to around three hundred million kilometres, a standard safety zone for superlight ships. Media craft, though, were notorious for pushing at that limit, evidently feeling that the station ID emblazoned on their hulls was some kind of protection against being fired on. In this case, both shuttles came beetling over to the frigate, taking no notice at all of the automatic “Unauthorised Proximity” alert that went out when they crossed the ten second mark.

  “Fire flares.” Martine made a note in the log, and their Gunnery Officer responded, “Aye, ma’am!” with a gleeful note.

  She had obviously been sitting there with
her fingers on the controls, as it was only a second later that four flare-bursts flashed out from the missile tubes. They exploded at the six second distance. The flare bursts were intended to get attention, and they certainly did that. They burst like four miniature supernovas, creating spheres of actinic white light that burst apart. All the ships in port would be lit up as the waves of light passed through the port. Anyone looking at them directly, once that light reached the station in about eight minutes, would be seeing spots for a while. The media shuttles, just seconds away, were engulfed in it, their sides nearest the frigate blindingly bright.

  It was only light, the shockwave not enough to be detectable even on the smallest ship. They both peeled away hurriedly, though, and Martine smiled a little to herself as she saw the very bad language their pilots were using, yelling at the frigate. Their comms array might be reading “off comms” but in fact the Heron was reading and recording all the signals made to them. The calls coming at them both from the camera shuttles and from journalists aboard the station made it clear that they hadn’t made any friends amongst the media contingent here.

  Martine’s serene smile made it equally clear that she was not the slightest bit concerned about that. The crew was cheering, with applause and laughter at the sight of the media shuttles turning tail and fleeing back to their ships. The Fourth had to endure a lot of grief from the media, with much of the reporting about them inaccurate, twisted or downright untrue. Payback was sweet.

  Alex flashed a grin, too, as he glanced up to see what the cheering was about, though he made no comment as he went back to work. Martine hadn’t needed to ask his permission to fire those warning flares because that was on the log as standing orders for any watch officer dealing with security zone incursions, regardless of what kind of shuttle it might be that was crossing that line. They were here on operations. They did not want to be hassled by shuttles buzzing their security zone, so they were laying it down, clear and strong, that that would not be tolerated.

  “Uh, ma’am?” Martine had just completed the official report for the log of that incident, with a quiet satisfaction in signing that, when she got a call from another of their super Subs.

  This was Andrew Carrington-Miles. He was very definitely the odd one out amongst the Subs. All the others were either high flyers who’d fought for this assignment or people the Fourth had asked for themselves. The Port Admiral at Therik, however, had told Alex that he couldn’t allow him all his own choice of officers, and had stuck them with Unhandy Andy. He was twenty eight, the same age as the skipper, but still a Sub-lt. That could sometimes be more down to bad luck than poor performance. At twenty eight, however, with four shipboard postings behind him and a nickname like Unhandy Andy, it was apparent that Andrew Carrington-Miles’ career was not going well. They had made him the Welfare Officer because that was the least demanding of the shipboard roles, but he seemed to be struggling even with that responsibility.

  “May I send the order for breakfast, now?” he asked, with that underlying tone of anxiety that so many senior officers had found exasperating.

  “Yes, that’s fine,” Martine said, with a look at the time confirming that it was now 0575, the time that he’d been told to make that call. He shouldn’t be asking for confirmation of his orders but she answered without any sign of impatience. She actually felt really sorry for Andy. He knew very well that he’d been foisted on the Fourth to make the point that they could not have only the highest flying officers, and that could only be humiliating no matter how welcoming they were.

  The only thing Andy had been asked to do this morning was to put in an order for breakfast to the biggest liner in port. That was not unprecedented in itself. Because ISiS Corps would not allow Fleet personnel aboard their stations even for shoreleave, there was a long standing arrangement with Red Line and White Star, the League’s biggest liner companies. They allowed the Fleet to use their facilities while in orbit round the station, and would provide catering for events aboard their ships, too, at rates agreed between them and the Admiralty.

  What was unprecedented, here – apart from the fact that the frigate was ordering catering while operational – was that the order was going in for a buffet breakfast to be provided for the entire crew, to be paid for by the skipper personally. He had promised to buy them breakfast as a reward for achieving “highly commended” status at inspection. The timing of it, however, was obviously provocative, intended to wind things up aboard the station even more. Martine wished that she could be a fly on the wall in the Karadon Boardroom when they read the signals between the frigate and the liner and realised that the Fourth was sending out for breakfast.

  “Uh, ma’am?” Andy came back on comms a couple of minutes later, sounding a little flustered. “I’ve talked to the catering officer on the Ruby Splendour, ma’am, and they’re fine with delivering breakfast at seven. The only thing is, they say they don’t want to take any money for it, they say they’ll be pleased to send it over with their compliments.”

  Martine smiled patiently. That did not surprise her in itself. Red Line and White Star were rabidly competitive in every conceivable way, including competing in their generosity towards Fleet ships. The Ruby Splendour would be crowing at the kudos of being asked to supply the Fourth, preferred out of the seventeen liners currently in port, and particularly preferred over White Star’s Stellar Empress. The Stellar Empress, in fact, would be calling within five minutes, trying to offer to provide them with lunch.

  “Just explain that the skipper wants it to be a gift from him,” Martine told the Sub. “Thank them, but be firm.”

  “Yes ma’am,” said Andy, with an air of resolve, and went back to talk to the liner officer.

  Chapter Five

  “They’ve done what?” Chok asked, staring at his intern.

  “Sent out for breakfast,” Ambit Persane repeated. His manner was its usual veneer of artificial deference overlying contempt. “They’ve ordered a buffet for two hundred and thirty people, from the Ruby Splendour, to be delivered for 0700. And it’s being paid for by von Strada personally.”

  Chok did not swear. He had been a hotelier for more than forty years and had never yet sworn while at work. He did close his eyes, just for a moment, taking a calming breath as the blood pressure monitor in his wristcom started pulsing again.

  “I could stop it,” Ambit said, in a tone that suggested he did not expect Chok to have any idea what to do. “I could put pressure on Red Line and White Star not to supply them.”

  Chok looked at him, wondering briefly what it must be like inside Ambit Persane’s head. Small and self obsessed, he thought, with frequent flashes of spite.

  “No,” he said, and reminded him, not for the first time, “We stick rigidly to company policy. They may be an irregular unit but they’re still part of the Fleet. If they ask for supplies, we have to supply them. And we will not put ourselves in any position where they can accuse us of anything untoward.”

  He kept that professional cool throughout the next press conference, too, repeating the same statements he had made before.

  “We are more than willing, we are eager to cooperate with the League authorities in resolving these allegations, unfounded as they are,” he said. “It is, however, difficult to see how we can offer such cooperation to the Fourth Fleet Irregulars when they will not take our calls and act with such cavalier disregard for us as the port authority here. They have been here for less than an hour. They have seized a ship – on what grounds we do not know, since they have not seen fit to inform us of the basis for that seizure. They have moved that ship from its orbit, despite refusal from flight control for permission for them to do so, and they have fired without warning on media vessels attempting to approach them. The only communication we have had from them is a message claiming to be hacking our computers, which, if it were true, would be a violation of our sovereign independence. I do not feel it is unreasonable, in these circumstances, to describe their conduct as outrageo
us.”

  “And your reaction to them sending out for a champagne breakfast, Mr Dayfield?” The next reporter put in, quickly.

  “No comment,” said Chok.

  His day did not get any better as the morning went on. Most visitors wouldn’t surface, normally, before around ten, but there was always a proportion of them determined to get the most out of every hour they were aboard the station. One of the most popular early-bird specials was the Break of Day in the Panorama Restaurant. People on budget cruises could experience a taste of the high life in one of Karadon’s most expensive restaurants.

  The several hundred people getting up to go for breakfast at the Panorama or to get in some duty free shopping before things got busy were shocked by what they saw on the news. There was no way for Karadon to prevent that. The presenter on their own in-house channel might be bouncing along with the usual jolly froth about special events on the station that day, but all the networks with an office on the station ran a channel on the Karadon network, too. Appeals to them to keep things calm had had about as much effect as asking a herd of stampeding buffalo to be careful going through a china shop. A mob of journalists with a hot story in hand and screens to broadcast to, any screens to broadcast to, was only going to go one way. Visitors were waking up to a handful of channels competing to tell them what was going on in the most dramatic way possible, along with even more alarming speculation over what might happen next.

  A TNN journalist who’d been aboard one of the camera shuttles “fired on” by the frigate went on air saying that he felt it was possible that the Fourth might board the station by force.

  “They fired at us,” he said. “They just fired at us, a media ship, live on camera. I don’t know what they might be capable of.”

  Perhaps it wasn’t surprising, then, that many people changed their minds about breakfast and shopping plans, heading for Customer Services instead. Every one of Karadon’s Customer Services staff had been woken up by then and given a script, along with an arsenal of vouchers to pacify irate visitors. Those of them not at service points had been told to walk about the resort, smiling and reassuring people. At first, there’d been rather more staff around than visitors to reassure, but by 0750 staff were being surrounded by groups of people wanting to know what was going on.