Doomsday minus 522 Earth days.
Five station days later, Townsend looked up from the report he was composing and found Holchuk and Ajda Gray standing in front of his desk.
“It’s all set, boss man. Nagor forwarded our request to Agnosk, who got in touch with the Kalufah, who petitioned the Hak’kor, who has approved a secret meeting between their high speaker and ours to discuss certain details of the upcoming ssalssit essendi. I have the coordinates of the rendezvous point. It’s a two day trip each way.”
“If you’re concerned about the Hub’s kitchen continuing to be supplied during my absence, Mr. Townsend—”
“I’m not,” he assured her. And he wasn’t. With weather conditions removed as a factor, the food production deck was the smoothest running-part of the station. It was mostly automated, and he had a list of the techs who had trained on Ajda’s detail and could replace her if necessary.
Not that he anticipated anything unpleasant happening to her. After all, according to Holchuk, the Nandrians were all about honor, and nothing could be more dishonorable than allowing an allied House’s high speaker to come to harm.
“Will the Hak’kor be sending a shuttle to pick her up, as he did for your adoption ritual?” Townsend asked.
“Not this time,” Holchuk replied. “It’s a secret meeting, after all. Each high speaker is to be accompanied by just one person, a pilot who is also a trusted member of the Second Shield of the House.”
He said that so casually. Townsend could only shake his head in wonder.
“Well, we’ve got a couple of major problems, then,” he said. “First, we have no shuttle. And second, there is no Second Shield aboard the Hub.”
“The Second Shield is responsible for the safety of the First Shield,” Holchuk explained. “Basically, it’s the palace guard. And we do have one, just not aboard the Hub.”
“Where?” Townsend began. Then it hit him who Holchuk meant, and his jaw nearly dropped. “On Zulu? You’re talking about the Rangers?”
“Rodrigues did hear you refer to yourself earlier as the Hak’kor of House Daisy Hub. You must have known you were going to have to bring him onside eventually,” Holchuk argued. “Besides, he’s an experienced pilot with his choice of three small craft, all Gate-enabled. I guess the question is, can he be trusted to keep secrets?”
Of course, he could, Drew thought wryly. EIS agents were the soul of discretion. However, Paul Rodrigues was also that rara avis, a truly honest man. He played things by the book. So, the question that was front of Townsend’s mind at that moment was, what version of the facts would be both safe and credible to tell the Ranger captain, knowing that he would probably feel obligated to report them somewhere?
Making his decision, Townsend swiveled his chair and called across the deck, “Lydia, I need you to set up another private meeting for me with Rodrigues, aboard his shuttle.”
“On it!” she called back.
Returning his gaze frontward, Drew noted with surprise that Ajda was blushing.
“Ms. Gray?” he inquired. “Is there something you’d like to add?”
She blushed more deeply. “No, I just—”
“She and Rodrigues hit it off the last time he was here,” Holchuk explained, struggling to keep a straight face. “And the time before that.” He paused. “And before that as well.”
“I get the picture,” Townsend cut in. To Ajda he said, “So, I gather you won’t mind being alone on the shuttle with him for four or five days?”
Visibly composing her features, she replied, “Not at all, Mr. Townsend.”
Hmm. Vera Beale had chatted up a Ranger on Zulu and come away with the parts for a control panel for their field generator. Now love appeared to be blooming on the hydroponics deck. There were distinct possibilities here. In fact, Townsend reflected, considering what lay ahead, it would probably do them all a lot of good to foster a few emotional attachments between the Humans on Daisy Hub and the ones on the Zoo.
—— «» ——
“Run that past me again. Not all of it. Just the part about Daisy Hub seceding from Earth to join Nandor.”
Townsend swallowed the first words that leaped into his mouth. Claiming (truthfully) that it was all the Nandrians’ idea would have sounded petty, and pettiness was unbecoming to a Hak’kor, even if the title was only honorary.
“Okay, from the beginning. We helped a Nandrian Chief Officer to identify and arrest a criminal who was part of his crew, thus preserving the honor of House Trokerk. Honor is a primary concern of Nandrian society, so this was a big deal for them. They decided to reward us by adopting Gavin Holchuk into one of their Shield clans and forming an alliance between Trokerk and Daisy Hub. It’s not official yet. However, we’ve promised to fulfill the final ritual. Until that’s done, they’ve been according us the same status as they would any other allied House belonging to an alien world.”
“So, you haven’t actually seceded. They understand that Daisy Hub is still part of Earth.”
Mentally crossing his fingers, Drew replied, “Of course.”
Rodrigues’s face assumed a stern expression. “The problem is, you’ve represented yourself to them as an independent political entity, and that’s not just a con, Townsend. It’s the kind of fraud that could get us both executed for treason — you for committing it and me for not reporting it.”
“With all due respect, Paul, we both know that Daisy Hub is an orbiting gulag, so how could it be treason when Earth’s own government has effectively disowned us? Everyone who’s posted here knows that there’s no going back home to Earth, ever. The powers that be would love to forget that we even exist.”
“Yes, and that’s precisely why this station has been co-opted by the EIS. Look, I sympathize. I know it feels as if you and your crew have been abandoned out here, but as long as there are operatives aboard the station, each carrying an EIS-issued decryption device, Daisy Hub belongs to Earth Intelligence. And so do you and I. No thanks, by the way, for removing any deniability I might have had. Now we’ll both have to answer for what you’ve done.”
Involuntarily, Townsend smiled. “I’m glad to hear you say that, Paul.”
“Oh?”
“If we’re to have any chance at all when the Corvou arrive, we’ll need all forty Houses of Nandor backing us up. The only way to ensure that is by finalizing the alliance between Daisy Hub and Trokerk. And to do that, I need your help.”
Leaning back in his seat, the Ranger captain said warily, “What kind of help?”
“Nothing dangerous. I just need you to personally ferry one of my crew to a secret meeting with a Nandrian official and back, and not tell a soul what you see and hear while you’re there. I’m told it’s a four day round trip.”
He let out a snort of laughter. “Are you serious, Townsend? You’re asking me to drop everything and disappear for four days without explanation, and then lie to everyone about how I spent them?”
“You won’t have to lie, Paul. We’ll do it for you.”
“You’d run a con on Zulu?”
“It’s not like we’ve never done it before,” he pointed out reasonably. “Besides, if the detachment commander gives his permission, is it really a con?”
“I see splitting hairs is another of your many questionable talents,” Rodrigues growled. “And what about Earth Intelligence? You and I both know we aren’t the only operatives posted out here. There’s at least one other agent, filing separate reports with HQ. Are you planning to con your own crew as well?”
Actually, he was already doing it. Rodrigues had no idea how deep the crew’s resentment ran against the “faceless authorities” on Earth, including the EIS.
“Look, if you’d rather not transport Ajda Gray to this meeting—”
“Wait a second. Ajda is the passenger?”
“Yes. Didn’t I mention that? I thought I did.”
Townsend watched for a tell and found it, in the flush of color creeping up Rodrigues’s neck and along his jaw.
“And it’s two days out and two back, you said?”
“Yes. If you’d rather not accompany her yourself, I’ll understand. Ruby is quite an accomplished pilot and can take her instead. But we don’t have our shuttle anymore since Odysseus made off with Devil Bug, so I’ll need to borrow one of yours.”
“No.”
Townsend feigned confusion. “No?”
“I can’t let you have a shuttle without a Ranger at the controls. It’s regulations.”
“I see,” he said, doing his best to sound disappointed.
The Ranger gave him a long sideways look. “What happens if Ajda doesn’t make this meeting?”
The subtext was impossible to miss. Convince me. Please!
Townsend happily obliged. “The alliance will fall apart. And that would be disastrous, not just because of the Corvou, but because Daisy Hub would be breaking its word to House Trokerk. The Nandrians take betrayal very seriously. They’d hold everyone on the station accountable, and would probably save the Corvou the trouble of blowing us all to kingdom come.”
“Well, when you put it that way, I guess I have no choice but to help you,” Rodrigues concluded. “But you’ll have to come up with a damned good reason for me to give my second in command when I leave my post for four days.”
“Piece of cake,” said O’Malley, the Hub’s resident hacker, when Townsend met with him back on the station to explain the situation.
And so it was that later that day, Captain Rodrigues was summoned to testify at a top secret Space Installation Security briefing in deep space, regarding the first contact incident with the Corvou. The message was appropriately worded, with embedded verification codes to prove authenticity. However, rather than originating with SIS Headquarters on Mars, it appeared to have been forwarded from another off-world detachment’s data server. Lieutenant Carlisle, Rodrigues’s trusted second, was quick to point out the irregularity. However, as Rodrigues was equally quick to explain, it was, after all, a top secret meeting, no doubt relying on misdirection to keep it that way.
The lieutenant was doubtful, but he eventually conceded the point.
The summons instructed Rodrigues to provision his shuttle for an interval-long voyage, and to make a stop at Daisy Hub to pick up a second witness who would be testifying at the briefing as well.
Four people (none of them Ajda Gray) were waiting for him as he stepped through the docking portal onto A Deck the following day.
“Where’s my passenger?” he demanded.
Ruby replied, “She’s collecting the rest of her luggage.”
Rodrigues watched Hagman stride through the portal, a suitcase in each hand. “All that for a four-day trip?”
“Yep. She wanted to take more, but I talked her out of it.”
Holchuk stepped forward then and handed him a datawafer. “This contains your destination coordinates, plus everything else you need to know in order to pass for a member of the palace guard.”
The Ranger’s eyebrows shot up, seeming to straighten his spine in the process. “This is an undercover assignment?” he sputtered. “By whose authority? Townsend, I swear, if you’ve made me for a mark—!”
“No, Paul, that’s not what this is about. The Nandrians will be expecting two Humans at this meeting — our counterpart to their high official and her special escort, who has to be a member of Daisy Hub’s palace guard.”
The Ranger scowled. “They believe you have a palace guard?”
“Think about it for a moment,” Townsend told him. “The uniforms, the patrols, the lack of weapons aboard the Hub…”
“As far as the Nandrians are concerned, Zulu has been part of House Daisy Hub from the beginning,” Holchuk chimed in. “You’re not going undercover. You’re just pretending to be what they’ve always assumed you were — a member of the Second Shield, the elite force charged with protecting the leader and high officials of the House at any cost.
“Second Shield gives you status, but also a great deal of responsibility, and because you’re Human, the guard accompanying their high official might decide to test you. In fact, he might even have been assigned to do it. That datawafer is your crib sheet. Make some time to study it before you reach the rendezvous point.”
“Will do.” Rodrigues tucked the wafer into his uniform jacket pocket. “Townsend, I need to warn you about something—”
Everyone turned at the sound of the tube car door opening and watched Ajda Gray step onto the deck. She was holding a container carefully packed with glass and metal objects.
“I nearly forgot my measuring tools,” she explained, the words coming out in a nervous rush. “Lord knows what units of measurement the Nandrians use—”
When she saw Rodrigues, she nearly tripped over her own feet. He hurried to catch the box as it slipped from her grasp.
“Here, let me carry that,” he offered.
She said nothing, but the rosy glow in her cheeks was enough to light up the deck.
“I’ll bet a liter of lemon juice she doesn’t open even one of her suitcases,” said Ruby, just loudly enough for Townsend and Holchuk to hear. As they watched the “high speaker” and her pilot walk through the portal, she added, “Are you sure it’s safe to leave those two alone together for four whole days? Ajda could end up growing more than a tree.”
“Actually, I’m sort of hoping for something like that,” Drew told her.
“Matchmaking, Chief? I didn’t think that was your style.”
“Why not? Let’s grab all the happiness we can before the Corvou arrive.”
“Carpe diem,” ‘Mom’ murmured, nodding sagely. “Works for me.”