Black Dawn (32 page)

She sighed.
“Ten more months and he’s not my guardian anymore. I don’t suppose the Boogeyman would rearrange his schedule of
galactic domination just for me would he?”

Coy had to grin.
“Sorry, I don’t think so. But there still might
be a way.”
“Oh?”
“Remember when we talked about your feeling uncomfortable
passing yourself off as an MD?” She nodded again. “It got me to thinking, so I had Asch do a little research. And we found an interesting
fact. We didn’t know exactly which planet you meant, but we only
found one where the legal adult age is 25. We also found that the age
can be waived under certain conditions.”
She frowned in puzzlement. “Such as?”
“Such as certain professions with a high degree of authority,
for instance.” Coy spoke into its wrist com. “Lamont to Butler. Gentlemen, if you please.”
The door to the briefing room swished open and Butler, Asch,
Bon and Schiff entered. Asch held a flat case. All four men came in
and stood in a semi circle behind Coy.
“I would have loved to do this in front of the whole fleet, but
the whole fleet isn’t here, and besides I figured you wouldn’t ever
speak to me again.”
Ceal just stood speechless, wondering what it was talking
about.
Coy took the case from Asch and opened it. Inside was a
framed document. “We took the liberty of transmitting the files of
some of the procedures you have done since joining with the fleet and
your notes on them, to your former medical school.
“The response was immediate. You have retroactively passed
all of your exams with superb grades. And it is my honor and privilege
as stand in for the president of the University of Servati Medical
School, to present you with this diploma, certification and all due honors.
“Congratulations, Dr. Byars. And welcome to adulthood.
Where your uncle can’t touch you.”
Coy handed her the case and shook her hand as she stood
numbly. By the time the fourth officer had also shaken it, she blinked,
came to the realization it was all true, and burst into tears.
* * * * *

Taylor hummed a non descript tune while he idly played his
instrument. Very few people were in the bar this early in the day and
he didn’t want to blow his whole repertoire now. He had to admit he
was rather enjoying his current employment. When he had been rescued from
the pirate fighters that had attacked the ship, he had wanted to do
something to repay the rescuers. But they were a mercenary fleet and
he could think of no use that they would have for a piano player.

Even after they had been dropped off safely at the next station
and he had gone on about his normal life, he kept thinking about it.
What could he do that would be of any use to the vigilantes? All he did
was travel all over the Beta Region singing and ….He remembered the
moment when the thought had occurred to him. All over the Beta Region. He traveled everywhere – probably to lots of places that would
never let a mercenary soldier in the door. But what about an innocent
piano player? ‘Don’t mind me sir, I’m just here to entertain you all.’

Entertain, and listen to everything anyone was saying.
So he had a self proclaimed contribution. Now how would he
go about contacting the BlackFleet to see if they were interested? The
more he thought about that, the more daunting it became. So he continued simply traveling and singing and listening.
And then the call came. The BlackFleet needed someone to
inconspicuously gather information for them on a transit station.
Would he be interested….?
His train of thought was interrupted by a handful of men who
came in the door just then. One, a little older and grimier than the others, swaggered up to the bar and pounded on it.
“Anybody work in this dump?” he bellowed. When the bartender was not instantly apparent, the man glared around the room.
His hard eyes fell on Taylor. “What are you lookin’ at?”
Taylor smiled placatingly. “No offense intended, sir. I’m sure
the bartender will be out to take your orders in just a moment.”
“Sir,” one of the others snickered. “He called you sir.”
The grimy man punched the other in the arm, hard. “Guess he
knows a gentleman when he sees one.”
Taylor was saved from further involvement in the conversation
by the bartender showing up at that moment. The men got their drinks
and went to a table. The room was small enough that the tables were
all arranged in the general area of the piano. When Taylor had suggested the arrangement to the owner of the establishment, his argument
had been so that everyone could hear him better and he would get more
tips. The owner had grinned at the thought of Taylor getting any tips,
but let him move the tables.
Now he employed his standard tactic. He started playing just
loudly enough that the men had to raise their voices just the tiniest bit
to hear each other. Then he gradually quieted down. Gradual enough
that the talkers would not realize it was happening and alter their tone.
He kept the
music going up and down like that the whole time they were there.
Every time it softened, he heard more of the conversation before they
lowered their voices as well.
“…’nother job…”
“…my fighter needs a new …”
“…hope it’s a rich one this time…”
“…back to base…”
At this last comment, the speaker was hushed by his companions. They all glanced over at the piano, he could tell from his peripheral vision, but he resisted the temptation to either look back or raise
the volume of his music. Either would tip them that he had heard
something. Instead, he just kept singing the same inane little song to its
finish. Then he turned around and pretended to be startled at them
looking his way.
“Do you have a request?” he asked, nodding his head vaguely
in the direction of his tip receptacle.
“Yeah,” one said, “Get some singin’ lessons.”
Taylor smiled one of those ‘the-customer-is-always-rightsmiles’ and began another song. The men tossed down the last of their
drinks and left, laughing loudly at their own humor. Taylor looked at
the bartender who smiled in sympathy and shook his head.
Then he looked down at the keys, mentally composing his
message to the commodore about a group of fighters heading to the
base to get information on their next job.

Randy shifte
d uncomfortably in the shuttle’s pilot seat for the
hundredth time. “Is it your turn yet?” he asked over his shoulder.
Andrea Pierce grinned at Marty Thomas and held out her hand.
“Pay up.”
The third member of the shuttle team sighed and handed over
an I.O.U. chit. “Sweggert can you just shutup for awhile? I’m going
broke here.”
The blond pilot turned around and looked at them. “What are
you talking about?”
“We’re betting on how often you complain,” Pierce told him
cheerfully. “Marty here actually believed you could go a whole 20
minutes.”
Randy opened his mouth to defend his honor but a readout on
the control panel riveted his attention.”Shit! We’ve got company,” his
voice automatically dropped to a whisper.
Pierce and Thomas moved up beside him to see the information.
“They’re coming close. Shut down!” Pierce ordered in a barely
audible voice. All three snapped their helmets into place instantly. All
systems up to and including life support were switched off. Silently
the trio kept their eyes glued to the console. “We’re not here, we’re
just a rock..” they each mentally chanted over and over.
The numbers and co-ordinates on the passive scanner readout
changed steadily as the passing ships came closer and closer. Almost
involuntarily Randy and Marty looked out of the front portal of the
shuttle at open space. Close enough to be a danger was not necessarily
close enough to be seen, but they peered into the darkness anyway. As
the numbers indicating the distance between them lowered, their
breathing slowed almost to nothing.
Pierce, ascommander” of this little team, had her hand over
buttons that would start the self-destruct sequence. As Rebel had said,
if their identity was discovered by the wrong people, everything that
the Commodore had worked for would be gone. She blanked her mind
of everything except the readout in front of her. But before it came
any closer to a decision, the numbers went up. The ships, whoever they
were, were moving away.
All three let out their breath at the same time as Andrea
brought her hand back to her side, flexing her fingers in relief. Randy
looked over at the others. “Permission to complain now.”

Hendricks and Drake continued their patrol of the boundary of
the Nebula, transitioning in and out of C-space at random intervals.
Life aboard the two ships became routine. But hardly dull. True to
BlackFleet standards, drills, training and exercise went on around the
clock. Both captains knew that if these information gathering missions
were successful, the next thing the Fleet would be facing was real war.
This was the perfect time to make sure absolutely every individual on
board was as ready as possible.

Mara Hendricks made the habit of working out in the gym herself where everyone could see her. She would never ask more of her
crew than she asked of herself. And she asked a lot of herself. But
over the months on the
Nighthawk
, Captain Hendricks had earned the
respect of everyone on board, and they would no sooner let her down
than the Commodore itself.

Over on the
Karasu
, Drake was still working his new crew into
a team. He rather wished Schiff were on board with his infamous repertoire of drills. He did the best he could working from memory and
what was stored in the ship’s library files. But the very best ones, he
knew, were only
in the major’s head. He overheard veteran crew being grateful for this
fact more than once.

Drake surprised Coy with a tradition breaking request one day,
after giving his normal reports.
“You want what?” Coy asked.
“A ship emblem, a symbol to rally around and help meld my
people into a unit.”
Coy thought for awhile. It realized that even after everything
that had happened, and the growth of the Fleet, it still thought of them
all as being one entity. But it had spread the ships out all over the Region, and given, by inference if not order, their commanders more autonomy than ever before. Maybe it was time to start treating the individual ships as individual teams. Each with their own identity and specialty.
“Sir?” Drake asked hesitantly after the long pause.
“What exactly did you have in mind?”
“Well, sir, a couple of my crew had some ideas, integrating the
avian theme with the
Karasu
’s heritage. We could send them to you.”
Coy had to smile to itself at the enthusiasm in the young commander’s voice. “Very well. Let me see them and I’ll let you know.”
It took less than half of an hour before word had circulated to
all the BlackFleet ships that the logo idea was a go and everyone had
submitted their proposals to Coy.
It showed them to Ken. “Did you know all this was brewing?”
Butler smirked a little guiltily. “They ran it by me, yes. First
Officer and all. For what it’s worth, I think it might be good for morale. We’re going to be asking a lot of everyone real soon. A little team
spirit couldn’t hurt.”
“So I assume you have your design for the
Raven
all ready to
add?”
“Yes, sir, I do, sir,” he said as he brought up the file on Coy’s
console…
By the next duty day, every uniform was sporting a ship emblem on one sleeve, and not to be outdone, Coy added a Fleet emblem
on the other. And although the mood of the day was momentarily
lightened by the uniform additions, Coy was proud to see that it did not
interfere in any way with the business at hand.
During the weeks of duty, the
Karasu
drones reported two
sightings of fighters or cruisers entering the Nebula, the
Nighthawk
,
one sighting. After extrapolating their courses from the three entry
points the I & S team found that they all converged in the same area of
the Nebula. Coy closed its hand around the holo image of the convergence.
“You said once, that the
Raven
had visited this site more often
than the other two,” it commented to Vennefron.
“Yes, that seemed to be the case.”
Coy smiled a smile that was anything but humorous.
“When
we’re ready to go in, I want to be here.”

“I don’t
know
why they wanted this stuff now,” Michaels argued with the traffic control officer on one the mining stations in the
asteroid belt. “They didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask. They gave me
money to haul it across the belt, so I’m hauling it.”

“
Well the next time someone gives you money and a cargo,
make sure they give you an accurate flight path and schedule,” the controller said disgustedly. “I don’t have any record of anyone authorizing
you to go through our space.”

Michaels made quite a show of looking around at everyone
else on the bridge. They all went along with him and pretended to be in
disagreement about something. Although in quiet enough tones that the
controller could not make out what they were actually saying. Finally
he turned back to the com. “Are you saying that we have to go all the
way around your perimeter just to get to the station right next to
yours?”

“
You catch on pretty quick for an old geezer,” the controller
continued his derogatory tone. “Now move that piece of junk along as
fast as it can, before one of my people confuses it for a hunk of debris
and recycles it.”

“I’m not…”
the station cut the com on Michael’s statement.
As soon as the holo vid vanished, so did Michael’s hunched stance. He
straightened up and narrowed his eyes at the blank vid. “Geezer indeed,” he said coldly.

Rebel moved up to his side.
“The next time someone calls this
ship ‘junk’ or ‘debris’ I say we skip the preliminaries and go straight to
war now.”

Parker shook her head at their posturing.
“If you noticed we
got what we wanted – an excuse to cruise the perimeter of the belt.”
Michaels and Rebel both looked as if they would rather enjoy
their wounded pride a little longer, but duty called. Rebel nodded at
Heyob, who was sitting in the pilot chair as he did for all such communication scenes. “Go ahead and take us back out and around.”
“Aye, sir,” Heyob could never quite keep the grin out of his
voice when he was given such an order. He had given up on stretching
out his usefulness beyond the ill fated colony ship. To be not only a
contributing member of the Fleet, but an essential part of this particular
mission, seemed to lift the weight of years off of him. He felt more
determined and focused than he had in a long, long time.
The pulled out of orbit around the station and headed out
into space at a painfully slow speed. The crew had plenty of time to get
ready to pick up the shuttle hiding out on a large asteroid and put down
its replacement. More teams than Pierce’s had recorded ships going
into the belt at locations where there were supposedly no factories.
Ships that were in no way ore freighters. Sometimes alone, sometimes
in groups of two to twenty. Beyond any doubt, this was a rendezvous
for something far outside the mining industry.
Rebel and company soon found out what was the very worst
part of this whole assignment. When those ships would leave the area
at full speed, obviously on their way to a “job”, and the
Rook
could not
disclose their existence, let alone their position to go stop them.
“Trust me, I know how you feel,” Lamont answered his frustration at their next communication. “Just focus on the fact of what you
are doing there and how it will ultimately stop them all.”
“Aye, sir,” Rebel replied, trying hard to sound comforted.
Lamont was not fooled in the least. “Adrian, if you didn’t care
about such things, you wouldn’t be BlackFleet. It’s your job to care
passionately about stopping these guys. It’s good to know that my
commanders have their priorities right. Pass on my appreciation for
jobs well done to your whole crew.”
This “Aye, sir,” held much more enthusiasm.
Coy nodded, returned the holographic salute, and cut the com.
It turned to Butler, who was spending almost as much time in I & S as
Coy and Vennefron had been lately. “We’re getting a very good picture of what is going on in their area.” Coy studied the image of the
asteroid field a little longer before switching over to the Nebula. “It’s
this one I’m worried about. We need a whole lot more intelligence
about this base. And if I’m correct in my assumption that this is his
main base, then it will also be the best protected. There are probably
picket ships all over in there. We are damned lucky none of the drones
have been picked up.”
“It’s a big place, Skipper, and little drones. I think it would
take more luck to bump into them,” Ken commented.
Coy raised an eyebrow at him. “So when did you become Mr.
Optimistic?”
“Me?!” he pretended to take offense. “I’ve always been completely supportive and …”
Coy was appropriately amused, until it looked beyond Ken to
see Vennefron frowning at his screen. It waved a hand to cut Butler
short and went over to see what was up.
“Do you happen to know how often you do that?” Butler
mumbled.
“A problem, Commander?” Coy asked.
Venn pursed his lips. I sure hope not, sir. But Taylor has
missed two communication times.”
Coy’s stomach dropped.
Butler lost all flippancy and joined them. “That’s not his
style.”
“Not at all,” Coy agreed “Signal him.”
“Aye, sir.” Vennefron sent the transmission that would make
Taylor’s wristcom vibrate. No one but the wearer would be aware of
the call. There were a variety of silent responses Dickerson could send
in return if he were in a situation where conversation would be impossible. No response came back at all.
Coy merely looked at Butler.
“I’m on it,” was the captain’s reply, even as he was raising his
own wristcom. “Butler to Bridge. Best possible speed to Tai Han.”