The Fleet 01 by David Drake (ed), Bill Fawcett (ed) Read Free Book Online Page A

ambush otherwise!
    That, though, was for Fleet Command to prove or disprove, with the resources of the computers at Port. Her task was now to gather data, nothing more. She drove herself to fulfill it.
    And very soon grew sick of what she found. The independent merchant ship, unarmed, had been slashed open as by a laser scalpel. In the axial corridors floated corpses, desiccated in the vacuum. They did not include her brother’s. Gone. As was the cargo, and much of the ship’s machinery. Not destroyed. Removed.
    And there was no other clue as to the nature or identity of the attackers—save one.
    Sealed compartments, slammed shut automatically when the hull was breached, where she might have hoped to find survivors, had been efficiently forced open. And exactly as many spacesuits were unaccounted for as there should have been additional crew members: five, including her brother. It looked as though they had been taken—well—prisoner.
    Yuriko’s mood grew ever grimmer as she pondered the implications.
    When at last she decided she had learned everything she could, she began to think about the message she was obliged to send back with her last-but-one courier projectile. At random, not seriously expecting an answer, she said inside the helmet of her spacesuit, “Nag, did they have time to fire off a CP?”
    The response took her by surprise.
    “Chrysanthemum’s computer records are garbled by radiation, probably associated with the weapon used, but decipherable data indicate she carried three, of which two were launched.”
    “Two were ... you mean there’s one left? Or was it stolen by the raiders?”
    “It has been retrieved and brought aboard.”
    She would have clenched her fists so hard her nails dug into her palms, but the suit gloves were far too thick and stiff.
    “Is it functional?”
    “Apparently.”
    “Then ...”
    An inspiration came to her. But she knew perfectly well what would happen were she to voice it aloud. She contented herself with saying, “That means the attackers may not have understood what CPs are for. I’m coming back.”
    Mouth dry, heart pounding, hoping the Nag would never guess what she had decided to attempt—transgressing the spirit of her orders, admittedly, but not the letter—she did so.
    The next stage was fully automatic. It involved dumping data into the last-but-one of her issue CPs and dispatching it, along with a verbal commentary concerning her own observations. As she was recording it, her voice trembled a little—not enough, she hoped, to register a disturbed condition on the medical monitors.
    The next stage, if not automatic, should have been reflexive. She should have instructed the Nag to head for Port, her mission being at an end. Instead, when the CP was safely on its way, she drew a deep breath.
    “Integrate possible interception courses for the ship that attacked Chrysanthemum and give me those which trace back to the stars in this volume most likely to possess habitable planets.”
    “Your orders are to—”
    “Return to base after the expenditure of the last-but-one CP on board! I quote! Are there, or are there not, two functional CPs inside this ship?”
    There could only be one answer. Thanks to a careless turn of phrase on the part of whoever had drafted the brief for the searchers ...
    Out here she was at the very fringe of human-explored space. But if the enemy were truly alien—from a gas-giant, say—why, after attacking a human ship, would they want to take living captives? The absence of precisely as many spacesuits as there were missing crew members might imply mere scientific curiosity ... or something else, something infinitely worse.
    Inany case, if there were a race out here that treated humans as no better than laboratory specimens—!
    My brother among them!
    She shuddered, and went on waiting for the Nag to perform her duty.

    What passed inside her mind during the next hour was unclear even to herself, let alone the computers at