Weapons of War (16 page)

"No, Dahm."
 

She wouldn't dare repeat what she had said to him in his quarters in front of Gr'el and the crew. Even so, her reaction forced him to consider it. The lor'hai were sick and even the drumhr were at half-strength. At the moment the Ishur was barely able to stay operational. If the enemy had managed to harness the technology to damage the ship's armor, they would be on much more equal footing in a fight.

If they had conquered the technology. The plasma weapons were deceptively simple things, and the most important components were at nano-scale. Did the human ship even possess the means to see that deeply into the internals?

He doubted it.

"How quickly can we intercept?"

"Six hours, Dahm," Gr'el said.

"Zoelle, what will the state of the crew be in that time?"

"Not optimal, Dahm. A ten percent improvement, if that."

Tea'va could tell by her expression that she was trying to warn him subtly against moving forward once more. Some part of her believed the humans were capable of creating a weapon, and that the Heil'shur would be skilled enough to use it to destroy them. He didn't understand how that could be.
 

"We cannot let them slip away again," Gr'el said. "We must move forward now before they can reach a stream."

"If they run, we can follow," Zoelle said.

"Why is this lor'hai on the bridge, Tea'va?" Gr'el replied. "I do not recall you requesting her here, and I certainly did not."

Tea'va felt the fury rising within him. Gr'el wanted to make him look like a fool.
 

"If I did not want her here, she would not be here," he growled.
 

He didn't have the option of heeding her words now. It would make him look weak. Not that he was going to, anyway.

"Set a course for the anomaly at full thrust. Gr'el, order the Gi'shah Dahm to assess his drumhr and prepare the combat ready. Also, get an assessment of how many plasma batteries we have the crew to operate. We will devise our strategy based on our operational efficiencies."

"Yes, Dahm" Gr'el said.

"Zoelle, you are dismissed. Scientists have no place in war."

She bowed low, the subtle change in her face telling him she didn't approve.
 

Fortunately, the decision wasn't hers.

He stared at the purple blob in the middle of the display. His crew was sick from the many slips it had taken to reach the system, but it was a risk that was already bearing results. He hadn't come this far to back away once the humans came into his sights.

"Prepare for battle."

Gabriel was getting worried.
 

Twenty days had passed since the Magellan had dropped back into realspace.
 

Twenty days since his father had vanished from the bridge, retreating to his quarters to battle his addiction to the pain medication and to battle his ability to handle the pain.
 

Twenty days out of twenty-two that would see them reaching the planetary system where they could finally rejoin a slipstream and make their way back home.

His father had yet to make a public appearance. He had remained in hiding, secured behind the barrier of Diallo and Hafizi, who refused to let anyone into the quarters, not even to make sure Theodore was still alive. They insisted that he was. That was all the information they would give, even to him.
 

He had made a promise to his father that he would keep quiet, but it was getting harder to do with each passing day. There were whispers among the crew that his father had lost his mind, deteriorated to the point that he couldn't lead them, or had flat-out given up on the mission and abandoned them completely. Fortunately, that was the rumor that was least believed. Most felt he was in bad shape, an unfortunate casualty of war.
 

Even Gabriel was beginning to think that way.

The other thing that had him worried was Guy and Reza's lack of progress on the weapon they had recovered. In the first week, the pair had spent eighteen out of every twenty-four hours down in the laboratory, trying to crack the mystery of the device. It had proven to be harder than they had expected. By the second week, that time had been reduced to twelve hours. Now nearing the end of their third week, Colonel Choi had sent Gabriel to find Reza, who hadn't made an appearance in the lab in three days.

Gabriel wished General St. Martin would return to the bridge to pull them together. Sometimes, he even prayed that he would. A pall was being cast over the ship, despite the repair crews getting most of the damage shored up, despite their proximity to a slipstream that would finally get them back into the fight. The entire mission, the entire war, was beginning to come unglued by inaction, the cracks forming at the seams. He knew Theodore could fix them with one round of sharp commands cracked off in his signature Cajun accent.
 

But he also couldn't rely on it.

It was a hard thing for him to accept. His father had always been so dependable. He felt sick at the idea that this was a fight the General couldn't win. That after years of promises that he would get the planet back, he would fall apart over something as small as a pill. It was such a human thing, and he had never seen his father as human.

Reza's quarters weren't far from the central hub. He had been given a larger berthing than some of the other crew members, to allow him space and privacy and the ability to think without distraction. Gabriel had spoken to Miranda before heading down, trying to determine where Reza had been for the last three days. As part of operations, she was supposed to know where every crew member was when they were on duty. She had told him that the scientist had been spotted in the mess a few times each day, often with Sarah Larone at the table with him.
 

It was a worrying development for Gabriel. Guy was smart, but he was also a hothead, and if anything was happening between Reza and Sarah, it had the potential to explode. In a closed environment like theirs, it only took one detonation to cause a chain reaction of bad morale.

And morale was already down. They couldn't afford to let it get any worse.
 

He reached the scientist's door and banged the side of his fist against it. He knew the control pad was non-functional. Reza had rigged something to get himself in and out, and most of the time that was good enough.
 

Nobody answered.

"Maggie, connect me to Spaceman Locke," Gabriel said, asking the ship's computer to patch him into her station.

"Yes, Captain," it replied, the voice seeming to come from everywhere.
 

"Captain St. Martin," Miranda said. "How can I help you?"

"I'm at Reza's door, but nobody is answering. Can you verify he's in there?"

"Give me a minute, sir," Miranda replied.
 

He knocked again while he waited for her to get back to him, again receiving no response.

"I asked around. He isn't in the mess or the lab. Nobody has seen him in a while."

Gabriel wished the doors on the Magellan were a little less thick. "What about Sarah?" he asked, unhappy that he even needed to question.

"One minute, sir."

Gabriel waited again while she pinged the senior officers, asking after Sarah Larone's whereabouts.

"She hasn't been seen in awhile either, sir," Miranda said. "Guy said that if you do find her, he would appreciate a minute alone with his wife so they can talk."

"How did he sound when he said that?"

"Angrier than usual."

"I don't have a good feeling about this."

"No, sir."

"Have you tried to contact Reza?"

"Yes, sir. His comm is set to private."

"Sarah?"

"The same."

"Bad to worse."

"Do you think they're messing around behind Guy's back, sir?"

"Messing around? Yes. Behind his back? Not nearly far enough."
 

Gabriel sighed. Colonel Choi was doing the best she could, but she didn't want to get involved in people's private lives. His father would have never let this become an issue. He blamed himself for not doing more himself. Reza and Sarah were civilians, but they were on a ship at war, and they had a duty to conduct themselves with more tact.
 

"Maggie, connect me to Reza Mokri, please," Gabriel said.

"Reza Mokri has set his communication status to private," Maggie said.

"Command override," Gabriel said. "Captain Gabriel St. Martin. Reason: mission critical communication."

"Override accepted."

"Reza," Gabriel said. "It's Gabriel. I'm standing outside your door. You have ten seconds to open it before I get a tech to open it for me. I'm not usually a violent man, but if I have to do that, I will be."

He stood facing the door, tapping his foot to count off the seconds. He had reached five when the door slid open.

Reza had a pair of pants on without a shirt. His wild hair was even more wild than usual. He caught a glimpse of Sarah Larone in the background, sitting in bed with the blankets covering her.

"Gabriel," Reza said.

Gabriel grabbed him by the arm, tugging him from the room.
 

Reza hit hard against the bulkhead, his door closing behind him. Gabriel didn't want to be violent. He didn't want to be angry. He was angrier because of that.

"You do recall that we're at war, do you not Mr. Mokri?" he said, getting up in Reza's face.
 

"Gabriel? I... uh..."

"It's Captain St. Martin," Gabriel snapped.

"Uh... Yes, okay," Reza replied, still stunned.

"Yes, what?" Gabriel shouted.

"Yes, sir," Reza said.

Gabriel let him go, backing up a step and pointing a finger at him. "I don't want you to say a damn thing. I don't want to hear any excuses. What you do with your free time is your own business, as long as it doesn't impact the operations of this ship."
 

He paused, giving Reza a chance to try to speak. The scientist remained pressed against the wall, his eyes frightened.
 

"Number one, you don't have any free time on this ship. Number two, what you're doing with what you don't have is impacting our operations beyond my capacity to understand how you think it could possibly be acceptable."

"Colonel Choi," Reza started to say.

"Colonel Choi was giving you a chance to use some of your intelligence to figure things out for yourself. Apparently, you're incapable of doing that when there's a woman added to the equation. A woman who is married, I might add. A woman who also helped get you tossed into prison, by the way."

"Sarah's not like that. She was just trying to-"

"Trying to what? Save half the settlement? And suddenly that's okay for you, too?"

"Uh... No... Gab- Captain St. Martin, sir. Please. I can explain."

"I don't want you to explain. I don't want either of you to explain. I don't care if she came on to you, or you came on to her. I don't care if she's misunderstood, or you're misunderstood. I don't care if the two of you having sex with one another helps one, or the both of you think better." He paused. "Unless you can tell me that you have a solution to our problem with the Dread weapon that resulted from your romantic interlude?"

"Uh." Reza looked at the floor. "No, sir."

"Do you think that Guy is stupid? Do you think he has no idea what's going on with you two? I have three scientists on this ship. Three scientists that are supposed to be reverse-engineering an enemy weapon so that we can get our planet back from the Dread, which in my estimation is a little more important than a few minutes, hours, or days of physical pleasure. Now those three scientists are going to be impossible to get to work together with any kind of cohesive effectiveness. Do you get where I'm going, Mr. Mokri?"

"Yes, sir. I wasn't thinking-"

"I know you weren't thinking. Neither of you were thinking. If you were thinking, maybe you would have solved the damn problem already, instead of making a bigger one."