22
THE BLACK SHIP

Tycho was the first member of his family to arrive at the gate reserved for the Comet’s gig. Through the thick glass he could see the gig sitting on the landing field, and workers in spacesuits dragging a flexible umbilical corridor over to its stern.

He pulled out his mediapad and called up the files he’d copied aboard the Gracieux. Part of him hoped they’d been secured by some code that hadn’t been apparent back in Kate’s cabin—perhaps they could only be read within a few meters of a specific location, for instance.

But the flight logs opened immediately. Tycho scanned the list of coordinates the Gracieux had visited in the last month, looking for an entry that showed up multiple times. But there wasn’t one. He frowned, then realized he’d neglected to account for orbital mechanics—like every other celestial body, 65 Cybele was in constant motion, slingshotted around the distant sun by gravity.

He scrolled to the bottom of the list and saw that the last entry had been time-stamped just a few hours ago. Those coordinates had to be 65 Cybele. But he couldn’t make sense of the rest—there were too many numbers and he was too agitated to detect any patterns. He’d have to wait until he could take advantage of Vesuvia’s computing power.

“Hey, look who’s the first one here,” his father called out as he arrived with Diocletia and Carlo. “Guess Tycho gets to ride up front.”

Mavry was grinning, but Diocletia and Carlo looked anxious. Tycho wondered where his sister and grandfather were.

He nodded hello, then looked back down at his mediapad and the list of coordinates, trying to will some insight into being. Would the Gracieux have made multiple visits to wherever the Leviathan was stashed? Just one? Or none at all?

“So what’s the mission?” he asked his father.

Mavry shook his head, looking around the terminal suspiciously. “Not here. Let’s get into space.”

He glanced at Tycho’s mediapad. “Crunching numbers, kid?”

Now it was Tycho’s turn to shake his head—and look sidelong at Carlo.

“More intel from our friendly neighborhood sign walkers?” Tycho asked his brother.

Diocletia raised a finger in warning. “Belay that. Like your father said, let’s get into space.”

Carlo gave Tycho a murderous glance and headed down the now-inflated umbilical to warm up the gig’s engines.

By the time Yana and Huff appeared at the end of the corridor, Tycho was grimly certain that Carlo had been given another gift by the Securitat. What else could have inspired his mother to order a return to space just hours after they’d landed? He scanned the list of coordinates again, hoping something would match the various courses he’d set for the Comet recently and only half remembered.

“We’re coming, we’re coming,” Yana said, seeing that her mother had her hands on her hips.

“Arrr, these legs are built for endurance, not speed,” Huff complained, wiping sweat from the living half of his face.

The Hashoones strode down the umbilical to the gig, then up the gangplank. Carlo was already buckled into the pilot’s seat, prepping for takeoff. The interior of the little ship seemed nearly as cold as space; breath wreathed the Hashoones’ faces, and Yana’s teeth chattered.

“Why do you always forget to turn on the heat?” she demanded as the whine of the gig’s engines rose in pitch.

“You’ll live,” Carlo said. “We’ll be on the quarterdeck in three minutes.”

“Unless Captain Allamand has an errand he wants to run,” Mavry said.

The gig’s gangway clanked shut behind them.

“I want the Comet flying as soon as we’re crewed,” Diocletia said. “No grace period for stragglers. Tycho, are you planning to strap yourself in?”

“Right. Sorry.”

He tucked his mediapad under his leg and buckled his harness, then looked around at his family. In a couple of minutes the Comet would be preparing for flight, with everyone’s attention focused on whatever Carlo had discovered. The time to speak up was now.

He took a deep breath.

“I have the Gracieux’s flight logs.”

Everyone—even Carlo—turned to look at him.

“What did you say?” Diocletia asked.

“I said I have Captain Allamand’s flight logs. I copied them to my mediapad. There’s a record of everywhere he’s been in the last two months. That should show us where the shipyard is. Probably the Leviathan too.”

Nobody said anything. Then Huff began to laugh.

“Arrrr, the biggest scoundrels are always the ones yeh had pegged as honest,” he purred, reaching back to give Tycho a bone-jarring clap on the shoulder.

“And how exactly did you come by this information?” Diocletia asked.

“Well,” Tycho said, then paused. His vocal cords seemed to have stopped working.

“I can’t wait to hear this,” Mavry said.

“Um, so . . . I’ve been, well, I guess the word would be dating Captain Allamand’s daughter. Only we had nowhere to go after they said I wasn’t allowed in Earth’s fondaco anymore, and everywhere else on Cybele was freezing, so Kate invited me aboard the Gracieux—we just wanted a little privacy—and there was no security on the console in her cabin. So while she was making tea, I looked through the files and there were the flight logs.”

Everybody just kept looking at him for a moment.

“We’re talking about Captain Allamand’s daughter,” Diocletia said. “The commander of Earth’s privateers.”

Tycho just nodded.

“And you got the logs from the computer aboard his ship.”

Another nod.

“Oh boy,” Yana said, as Huff began to laugh again.

“Well, you’ve certainly been busy,” Mavry said, shaking his head. “I hate to tell you this, Tycho, but we already know the location of the shipyard—the Defense Force found it. That’s where we’re headed, along with four other privateers. I just hope we’re in time.”

His father said something meant to console him, about how he was certain the information would still be valuable. But Tycho barely heard him. He had betrayed Kate’s trust for nothing.

While Carlo and Yana read in the crewers belowdecks, Tycho plotted a course to the coordinates the Defense Force had given them. He nodded when his father reminded him to prioritize speed over fuel efficiency. Vesuvia double-checked his calculations. And then he had nothing to do but stare at his computer screen.

He wondered what Kate was doing. Was she still in her cabin—maybe doing homework? Had she returned to Earth’s fondaco? And was there any way she’d discover what he’d done?

“Tycho?” Diocletia asked. “Is our course locked in?”

Tycho looked up guiltily. “Plotted and verified.”

“And have you set up communications links with the list of Jovian ships I gave you?”

He nodded. “I was going to go through the Gracieux’s logs and see if anything stands out.”

“You’ll have to make it quick. This is a dangerous mission, Tycho—we all need to be focused.”

She turned back to her own console, and Tycho activated his headset and selected the channel reserved for one-on-one communications with Vesuvia.

“Vesuvia, I’m uploading two files to you. I need you to plot the coordinates in them against the orbits of charted celestial bodies. Ninety-five percent confidence interval.”

“Acknowledged. Beginning calculations. Shall I plot the positions on the main screen?”

“My console will be fine.”

His monitor filled with a spaghetti of lines plotted against a map of the solar system. A sequence of straight lines led into the tangle from the inner solar system, while a loop headed out toward Jupiter. Tycho saw immediately that the initial sequence of lines represented the Gracieux’s trip from Earth to Cybele, with a refueling stop at Vesta, while the loop marked the trip on which Captain Allamand had rescued the cargo hauler taken by the Hashoones as a prize.

He zoomed in on the tangle of smaller lines and found a flurry of trips that began and ended at 65 Cybele, each position slightly different as the asteroid followed its clockwork path around the sun. He knew that a graph of the Comet’s recent journeys would look much the same.

“Vesuvia, exclude everything more than a week before the intercept of the Nestor Leviathan. Then zoom in on what’s left.”

“Do you want me to delete those coordinates from memory?” Vesuvia asked as the bells clang-clanged—it was 2100.

“No, don’t do that,” Tycho said, rolling his eyes. “Just take them off the screen.”

“Greater specificity in formulating requests would make this process more efficient,” the AI replied.

Tycho ignored that, peering at the screen. His eyes jumped to 65 Cybele, surrounded by loops of various lengths. The results looked vaguely like a child’s drawing of a flower.

“Now, highlight the coordinates where the Leviathan was intercepted.”

“Acknowledged.”

Boots rang out on the ladderwell, and Carlo climbed up to the quarterdeck.

“Eight stragglers, Captain,” he said. “Do you want to give them more time?”

Tycho stared at the blinking cross on his screen where the Jovian convoy had been disrupted.

“No,” Diocletia said. “It’s time to fly. My starship.”

“Aye-aye,” Carlo said, heading for his own chair. Yana’s head appeared in the ladderwell.

“Show me any coordinates from the twenty-four hours after the intercept,” Tycho told Vesuvia, then glanced at Yana. “What’s wrong?”

Yana aimed a furtive glance at Diocletia.

“It’s Immanuel,” she said in a low voice. “He didn’t report.”

“Him and seven others,” Tycho said, glancing from his sister back to the screen. “Crewers are late sometimes.”

“We were together when the recall order came,” Yana said. “He said he had to run back to his quarters to get his gear. He should have only been a couple of minutes behind me. What if the crimps got him?”

“Worry about the crimps, then. Mr. Sier can take care of himself.”

He wanted to say something more to reassure his sister, but there simply wasn’t time.

“Yana, I need you up on sensors,” Diocletia said, and Yana spun away from Tycho in agitation, flinging herself into her own seat.

Tycho looked at his monitor. Two hours after the intercept of the Nestor Leviathan, the Gracieux had intersected the orbit of an asteroid whose sole designation was 124996.

“Vesuvia, show me every time the Gracieux intersected the orbit of 124996,” Tycho said.

The Earth frigate had been there three times—its most recent visit coming four days ago.

“Highlight 124996’s current position, and also plot our course to the shipyard,” Tycho said. He leaned forward, eyes fixed on the mysterious asteroid’s location, expecting to see their current course end at the same point.

“Vesuvia?” he asked after a moment. “I asked you to plot our course—”

“The requested course has been plotted,” Vesuvia said.

Diocletia turned in the captain’s chair. “Tycho, contact traffic control—we need clearance for departure.”

“Will do, Captain,” Tycho said automatically, turning back to his console. “Vesuvia, zoom out on that view.”

“Do you think I mean next Thursday, Tycho?” Diocletia snapped. “Do it now.”

Now he could see their current course. And its endpoint—the site identified as the shipyard by the Jovian Defense Force—was nowhere near 124996.

“But Mom—” Tycho began.

“But Mom what?” Diocletia demanded.

“I plotted the course data from the Gracieux. She’s never been to the site the Defense Force thinks is the shipyard.”

“We don’t have time for this, Tycho. We’ll assess the information you found later, but right now we have a mission. And that means I need you to follow orders.”

“Aye-aye,” Tycho said reluctantly. He erased the tangle of courses and orbits from his monitor and hailed traffic control. A few minutes later, the Comet accelerated away from 65 Cybele and Attis in a graceful arc, attached to her long-range tanks with a shiver, and raced toward her target.

Flight time was less than half an hour; given the tension on the quarterdeck, Tycho decided not to revisit the puzzle of the Gracieux’s course data. The Comet and four other privateers—Garibalda Marta Andrade’s Izabella, Morgan Theo’s Berserker, Dmitra Barnacus’s Banshee, and Zhi Ning’s Jin Chan—converged and hurtled toward an oblong asteroid named Zephaniah.

“Why’d Captain Andrade bring two pirates?” Carlo asked disgustedly.

“She needed crews that could fly immediately,” Diocletia said. “This is who was available.”

“The Izabella’s hailing all Jovian craft,” Tycho said, his ears catching the familiar hammer blows of Huff descending from the top deck. He put Captain Andrade on the main screen. The veteran privateer looked weary and grave.

“Captains, form up your craft and display colors,” she said. “Our orders are to reconnoiter the shipyard and keep whatever’s inside bottled up until the JDF issues further instructions. We’re here to buy time and hopefully get control of the situation—not start a war.”

“Arr, that last one’s easier said than done sometimes,” Huff growled.

“Detach tanks and take us in, Carlo,” Diocletia said. “Yana, eyes peeled for ion emissions. Tycho, ears open—the shipyard will undoubtedly call for help when they see us coming.”

All three Hashoone siblings acknowledged their mother’s order. Diocletia leaned forward, eyes fixed on the darkness of space ahead.

A clank sounded above them, followed by a bump and a shudder.

“And we’re detached,” Carlo said, his voice cool and even despite the sudden acceleration shoving all of them back in their chairs.

“Mr. Grigsby, we are inbound and hot,” Diocletia said. “Stand by.”

“The lads are ready, Captain.”

Four bells rang out.

“Initial scans of Zephaniah show a typical rock,” Yana said. “Iron-nickel, too low-grade to mine. Trace ion signatures, but at this level it could just indicate local ship traffic—there’s a secondary spacelane a few hundred thousand klicks to starboard.”

Tycho’s palms were sweating. He wiped them on his pants, scanning communications frequencies for any hint of a distress call emanating from the asteroid ahead of them.

Huff saw his grandson’s nervousness and chuckled.

“Arrr, yeh never feel more alive than during moments like this. Rest of life, lad, is waitin’ for the next such moment to come around.”

“Silence on deck,” Diocletia barked. “Vesuvia, tactical readout on the main screen.”

“Acknowledged.”

The Jovian craft advanced in a wedge, with the Izabella in the lead, flanked by the Comet to port and the Berserker to starboard, with the Banshee and the Jin Chan completing the formation.

“I’ve got a transmission,” Tycho said. “Origin point is Zephaniah. Looks like an encrypted tight-beam transmission back in the direction of Cybele.”

“Our Earth friends are calling for help,” Mavry said.

“And I’m reading an energy source on the asteroid,” Yana said. “Make that multiple sources. Pretty high power levels.”

“If there are defenders down there, this is when they’ll show themselves,” Mavry warned.

“Comet, I need eyes down there,” Captain Andrade said. “I want you and the Jin Chan to make a pass around the asteroid.”

Diocletia acknowledged the order and nodded to Carlo. The Comet dipped her nose and passed beneath the Izabella’s belly, taking up a position perhaps a kilometer from the portside cannons on the boxy Jin Chan.

“You lead, Comet,” said Zhi Ning over their shared channel. “I will cover you.”

Carlo goosed the frigate’s engines, taking the ship down to within a few hundred meters of Zephaniah’s mottled gray surface.

“Sensor contacts!” Yana yelped. “Multiple ships, inbound from Cybele!”

Tycho’s eyes shot to the main screen, where several arrowhead symbols had appeared on the edge of the readout.

“Morgan, Dmitra, on me—defensive formation,” Captain Andrade said calmly. “Diocletia and Ning, continue your run.”

“Anything on transponders?” Diocletia asked. “Whose ships are those?”

“They’re flying black,” Tycho said.

“Sensors paint five ships—they’re a mix of frigates and corvettes,” Yana said. “Querying registration database for matches with known craft.”

“Sing out when you have something,” Diocletia said. “And keep your heads, everybody. We don’t know what we’re dealing with here. Let’s figure it out before we do something rash.”

The Comet was approaching one knobby end of bulbous Zephaniah, the surface of the asteroid bright against the spangled stars.

“Energy spike!” Yana yelled. “From the asteroid! It’s big!”

“Look at that,” Mavry said wonderingly.

The end of the asteroid had split open along a hidden seam, tons of rock sliding away from each other along cleverly concealed tracks. Carlo cut the Comet’s speed and hit her retro rockets, slowing the frigate and retreating stern-first as the opening at the tip of Zephaniah widened.

A matte black shape like a giant hammer emerged from the confines of the asteroid. Tycho watched in disbelief as meters of metal were revealed, his eyes jumping from the spines of sensor masts to the bumps of gunnery stations set along the hull. The ship moved slowly and steadily out of the secret hangar that had concealed it. The rear segment of her hull finally emerged, a cluster of cylindrical engines crisscrossed with power conduits. Then finally she was free of the asteroid, hanging in space in front of the Comet and moving slowly away from her.

“That is one mean-lookin’ ship,” Huff said with grudging admiration.

“Captain Andrade?” Diocletia said. “I’d estimate that’s a heavy cruiser at least, maybe a battleship. Massive armament. Yana, scan everything. Carlo, hold here.”

The warship in front of them seemed to shiver, and then her quintet of massive engines ignited. Tycho could hear the Comets belowdecks exclaiming and shouting, followed by Grigsby’s bellows for silence and accompanying threats of medieval punishments.

Carlo turned the Comet to port and accelerated to keep pace with the huge black ship. Yana was glowering at her instruments.

“This doesn’t make any sense,” she said. “The weapons systems and propulsion are powered, but I only get trace readings from the other systems.”

“Life support?” Mavry asked.

“She’s cold as space.”

“Maybe construction isn’t complete,” Diocletia said. “The crew could be in spacesuits. Tycho, any communications from her?”

“None. And transponders are black.”

“If that thing isn’t finished, I don’t want to see the final product,” Mavry said.

“I’m going in for a closer look,” Carlo said, angling the Comet toward the massive ship’s stern.

“Missile lock,” Vesuvia warned.

Carlo hastily cut to port. Tycho braced himself for the sight of missiles streaking in their direction, but the massive ship held her fire.

“She’s hailing,” Tycho said. “All channels.”

An eerie whine filled the quarterdeck as he patched the transmission through.

“Keep your distance or die,” said a male voice that made the hairs stand up on Tycho’s neck. It was electronically modulated, but beneath that it sounded low and ragged, like speaking hurt the speaker’s throat. And Tycho could hear something else that he couldn’t quite place—a faint rumble or gurgle.

“What was that?” Yana asked.

“Mr. Grigsby, hold your fire,” Diocletia said. “Carlo, keep your distance.”

“Transponders activating,” Vesuvia said. “Saturnian colors.”

The massive black ship continued to accelerate away from them. While they watched her shrink into the distance, a frigate and two corvettes shot past the Comet, the last one waggling its wings. All were flying Saturnian colors as well.

“It wasn’t Earth’s shipyard at all,” Tycho said. “It was the Ice Wolves’.”

“But where did they get the livres?” Carlo asked.

“Titan, I’ll bet you,” Mavry said. “All that missing money wound up here.”

They stared at the warship’s blazing engines for a moment.

“What are we doing?” Yana demanded. “We can still intercept her!”

“That monster would blast us to scrap ’fore we could so much as dent her hull,” Huff said.

“Dad’s right,” Diocletia said. “Our duty is to get back to the JDF with whatever information we can give them.”

The bells clanged out five times.

“She’s reached her long-range tanks,” Yana said. “Heading for the outer solar system.”

“Something tells me we’ll see her again,” Carlo said.

Mavry nodded. “No doubt. Funny—we fought with Earth, and the Ice Wolves won.”

“Which means we both lost,” Carlo said.

“How did Earth lose?” Yana asked. “They still have the Leviathan.”

“Perhaps we can change that,” Mavry said. “I seem to recall that someone on this quarterdeck has the Gracieux’s logs.”

Tycho hung his head. For a moment he’d imagined that with the hunt for the shipyard over, no one aboard the Comet would see the need to dig into Allamand’s flight logs. And he’d been fine with letting Earth keep the Leviathan if that would prevent his snooping from being discovered.

But there was no point delaying the inevitable. He switched back to the map of the Gracieux’s comings and goings and tapped his finger on the asteroid designated 124996.

“Vesuvia, put this on the main screen,” he said. “This has to be Captain Allamand’s hiding place. The Gracieux went there right after the taking of the Leviathan, and she’s been back twice since then.”

Diocletia studied the loops and lines for a moment, fingers drumming on her console.

“Plot a course, Tycho. And share it with Captain Andrade. We missed our chance to stop the Ice Wolves, but maybe it’s not too late to retake the Leviathan.”