Ships of My Fathers (26 page)

His smile slipped away entirely. “Well, I can wait a few days. You’ll leave him a message that I called?”

“Certainly,” she said. “How can he reach you?”

He had not even selected a hotel yet, so he had few options. “I’ll be in the port registry,” he said and handed her his card: Commander Samuel Collins, Naval Intelligence, Arvin.

Michael sat at the pilot’s station on the bridge of the
Blue Jaguar
. They were already sailing under tach, so the pilot’s job was over, but Captain Lewis had offered to let him monitor the navigation readings. Felipe Toro sat beside him at the actual navigator’s station. He was much quieter than Gabrielle had been, but he clearly knew his navigation.

“We’re much nimbler than your big freighters,” he told Michael. “We don’t waste our time with all those off-axis sail calibrations. We weave through a lot of turbulence that would collapse the bigger sails you’re used to.”

He nodded knowingly. That was similar to how the
Sophie
had been run, but until he had been on the
Heinrich
, he had never understood why. The
Jaguar
was not quite as maneuverable as the
Sophie
, or perhaps Toro was simply not as deft a navigator as Malcolm had been. Michael knew better than to speculate out loud on which was more true.

They were two days out of Latera en route to Magella. It was a smaller station than any that the
Heinrich
would visit, but it was exactly the kind of world he and Malcolm frequented during his childhood: small, rough, and a little off the beaten path. It was also more directly on the path back towards Taschin than retracing
Heinrich
’s path would have been.

He saw a wiggle on the cross-spin third derivative, but it did not hold. He looked over to Toro, but he did not seem to pay it any attention. Then it happened again, and an alert popped up on both of their stations. “Wake Detection,” it read. “Crossing course, eight by three degrees, closest approach four light hours.”

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Nothing,” Toro replied, and dismissed the alert on his display.

Michael read it again and hit the icon for more information. It brought up a display with their present position, an animated display of the current winds, and a ragged gray line projecting across their path, growing broader and fainter the further it went. Its direction and length corresponded to the course projected by the initial alert message.

“Is it that damned wake warning again?” It was the first officer, Marcus Nieru, standing over his shoulder.

“Yes, sir, but I’ve never heard of a wake warning before.”

“Oh, it’s some cocked up theory about tach sails leaving an imprint in the wind, like the wakes of those groundside ships, the ones that run in the water.”

Michael raised an eyebrow. “I’ve never read that in any of the navigation texts.”

“Well, if it actually worked it might have made it in.”

“It doesn’t?”

Nieru shook his head. “These supposed wakes are indistinguishable from other noise. Isn’t that right, Mr. Toro?”

Toro stirred next to him. “Yep, nothing but noise.”

“They tried to make it work back during the war,” Nieru continued, “to give us some kind of proximity detection to look out for other ships, but it never worked. I swear, the next upgrade we do is going to rip that shit out of the system.”

“That would be nice, sir,” Toro replied. “It’s damned annoying having that pop up all the time and not being able to do anything about it.”

“Well, perhaps soon, Mr. Toro. Soon.”

Michael looked back at the display on his station. The gray line remained, and a small note appeared next to it: two-sail configuration, 780 tau, 83% confidence. For noise, it seemed awfully specific, but with Nieru standing over his shoulder, he decided it was not worth the trouble. He closed the display and canceled the original wake warning.

“Good to be on the bridge, isn’t it?” Nieru asked him.

“Yes, much better than engineering,” he replied.

He got another wake warning two hours later, and this time he cleared it as quickly as Toro did.

Felicia Corazon stepped onto the bridge of the
Heinrich
. “It’s an hour from end of liberty. What’s our count?”

Walter Brookstone checked the display as his station. “Fifty-nine aboard.”

“Is that counting the dock officer or not?”

“No, ma’am. Karl Roth has dock duty, so we’re only missing three at this point: Feldman, Fletcher, and Tennyson.”

She nodded. Charlie Feldman and Michael Fletcher had become reasonably good friends and would probably show up together, and Tennyson was notorious for hitting the shops up until the last minute. But then she remembered Karen Larkin.

“Wait, didn’t Fletcher go groundside with Larkin?”

“I believe so,” Brookstone replied.

“Do you have contact information for her?”

“No, ma’am, but I can look it up.”

“Give her a call. I want to make sure Mr. Fletcher isn’t still asleep in some beachside hammock.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She checked the cargo and fuel status and went back to her ready room. Fifteen minutes later, her door chimed. It was Brookstone.

“Ma’am, everyone has reported in except Fletcher.”

“And did you find Miss Larkin?”

He licked his lips and gulped. “Yes, ma’am. She says Mr. Fletcher did not go with her.”

“What?”

“According to her, he dropped her off at the shuttle dock, said his goodbyes, and left her there.”

She felt the room spin as she took a few deep breaths. “Shit,” she managed at last. “Put out a general announcement to the crew. I want anyone who has seen or heard from Mr. Fletcher since that farewell party, and get Miss Larkin back on the line for me.”

“Yes, ma’am. Do you want me to alert station security?”

“No, not yet, but call the local branch of Fidelity Union. Have them send all of Michael’s transactions since we got here. Tell them the captain asked for it.”

“The captain, ma’am?”

“Just do it.”

She fought the rising panic. The party had been five days ago. If he had jumped ship or gone groundside, there was no telling where he could be by now. Her monitor jumped to life. “I have Miss Larkin for you, ma’am.”

“Karen,” she said. “You said Michael didn’t go with you.”

“No, ma’am,” she replied. She could hear the ocean waves in the background. “He left me at the docks, said he’d changed his mind or something.”

“Or something?”

“I’m sorry, ma’am. I was pretty surprised and, honestly, still a little drunk at the time. He said that he had to do something and that I should understand.”

“That was it? He had to do something?”

“Yes, ma’am. He didn’t take the news well, my transferring and all. I figured he was angry at me. Is he all right?”

“I don’t know. We’re trying to figure out where he is. For all I know he’s heading for the dock right now.”

“Do you want me to come back up?”

“No, but if you think of anything else, call it in.”

“Yes, ma’am. Definitely.”

Brookstone chimed in as soon as the call ended. “The bank says the last transaction they have is at a food court near the shuttle docks, thirty-one minutes before Miss Larkin’s shuttle flight.”

“Nothing for the five days since then?”

“No, ma’am.”

Her door opened without a chime. It was Hans Schneider. “Felicia, I heard the announcement about Michael. Do we have a problem?”

She stood. “Yes, sir. I’m afraid we do.”

Chapter 20

“Take the help when it’s offered, especially if you think you don’t need it, because honestly, you’re not smart enough yet to know the difference.” — Malcolm Fletcher

C
OMMANDER
C
OLLINS HAD BEEN ACROSS
from the
Heinrich
dock all morning, watching the crew return. He had pulled a photo of Michael from the port registry the night before, but none of the crew had matched it. The stream had dwindled to a trickle, and now only the dock officer remained. He seemed increasingly nervous, as well he should. It was almost noon, and the
Heinrich
was scheduled for a pushback at thirteen hundred.

He approached the dock officer. “Excuse me, I’m looking for a member of your crew.”

The officer stood, his name reading Karl Roth. “Which crewman?”

“Michael Fletcher.”

Roth’s eyes went wide. “I see. Have you been in contact with Michael?”

“Not recently. He made an information request a few weeks back, and I wanted to speak to him about that request. I’ve already left a message for him.”

“I’m sorry. I wasn’t aware of that. Your name please?” He handed over another one of his cards. Roth took a brief look at it. “Could you excuse for me for a moment?” He stepped away and whispered into his wrist link. Collins did not like the way this was progressing, but Roth returned a few minutes later.

“Is there a problem with Mr. Fletcher?” Collins asked.

“I’m sorry, Commander. We’re having a momentary security issue. Would you be willing to wait here for a few minutes?”

“Would this security issue have anything to do with Mr. Fletcher?”

Roth’s eyes gave him the only answer he needed.

“It doesn’t matter,” Collins assured him. “I’ll wait.”

“Thank you, sir.”

Gabrielle headed down to her quarters on deck two. Pushback had been cancelled, or at the very least, it had been delayed past the end of first shift, so she was not going to be there for the up-tach. All for Michael! She stormed into her cabin and gave her duffel a solid kick.

“When I get my hands on him,” she growled.

She sat on her bed and looked at her duffel over by her desk. She might as well unpack. She started pulling dirty clothes out and transferring them into a bag to take down to Harry. A few things were still clean, so she hung them to get the wrinkles out. Finally she pulled out a few souvenirs and set them on her desk temporarily.

That was when she saw the message light blinking on her monitor. She signed in. Twelve messages. Four were automatic updates that should not even be sent during liberty. She had been on Wally’s back about that for months. Three were navigational forecasts for the upcoming leg. The data went directly into the charts on the navigation console, but the summary was traditionally copied to all the navigators. Two were from friends on other ships whose messages had caught up with her here at Latera. One was the agenda for tomorrow’s senior staff meeting. One was a copy of Wally’s general announcement about Michael.

And one was from Michael.

It was dated from before they docked, but it had only shown up now at the bottom of her message list. She opened it immediately and scanned through it. Then she read it again more carefully.

Gabrielle,

First of all I wanted to thank you for making me feel welcome and for all the help you’ve given me on the navigation math. I know it’s been a little rough between us this last couple of weeks, but I want you to know that my decision to leave was not because of you or anyone else on board. I can see that you all have the kind of bond I had with Malcolm, and I know you tried to form that bond with me as well.