Ships of My Fathers Read online

  “You’re very sharp, Mr. Bishop.”

  He shrugged. “The shipping networks reported Anders’ ship at Ballison six weeks ago, at Arvin three weeks ago, and at Folsom nine days ago. If he is tracking the boy, Latera is a very logical next stop.”

  “Excellent deduction, Mr. Bishop. Anders’ last message suggested Latera as the best point for a rendezvous. The kid is supposed to be on board the Heavy Heinrich.”

  Bishop nodded. “I thought he might, given that the Heinrich was reported to have diverted to Taschin. The Cerento and the Dolicia were both possibilities as well.”

  Elsa stared at him for a moment. She trusted him, at least to a point, but she kept details from him mostly to see how well he was able to deduce them on his own. As rare a mind as Bishop had, it was not unique. If he could figure it out, so could others.

  “If I may be so bold, my Lady, are you sure you should engage in this diversion when we have the cargo at Arvin?”

  “I’ve considered that.”

  “And?”

  “It’s a rare opportunity to close out a troublesome account. Besides, it’s been a long time since I tangled with Malcolm Fletcher. I want to see how much of him is in the boy.”

  “And if there’s too much?”

  She smiled. “Well, Mr. Bishop, that’s where your particular talents come in.”

  He nodded. “Then I look forward to putting them to good use.”

  Michael sat alone in his quarters. They would reach Latera sometime the next morning during his shift, and he was still steeling his resolve. The letter on the screen before him effectively sealed his fate, but he knew better than to send it now. He could easily arrange for it to trigger at the end of liberty. That way, if he changed his mind, no one would need to know.

  He scrolled back to the top and read it one more time.

  “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...”

  Chapter 19

  “You’ve made some pretty bad decisions before, son, but this one deserves a trophy.” — Malcolm Fletcher

  JIMMY ANDERS LEANED FORWARD AGAINST the railing, looking at the schools of fish swimming on the other side. Most were grayish, but several sported more colorful orange and yellow stripes. His first warning of Elsa Watkins’ approach was her image reflected against the glass next to his.

  “Picking out your dinner, Jimmy?” she asked.

  “No, merely enjoying the movement. They say that groundside you can go swimming and see them even closer. It’s like an environment suit, but for water instead of vacuum.”

  “The aquarium is good enough for me,” she replied. “I prefer things to be boxed up, under control. Speaking of which, how’s our boy?”

  “Our boy?”

  “Yeah, I figured I came all this way. That makes him as much mine as yours.”

  “Fair enough,” he replied. “His ship is due in sometime tomorrow. I already spoke with him back at Folsom, and if I read him right, he’ll come looking for me as soon as he hits the dock.”

  “How are you playing it? I’m fine with snatching him, but accessing the data would go more smoothly with his cooperation.”

  Jimmy smiled. “Oh, he’ll cooperate all right. After all, that’s his whole point in going back early, to look at that data.”

  “And where do we come in?”

  “Why, you remember what good friends we all were with Malcolm, don’t you, Elsa?”

  She shuddered. “Good angle, Jimmy, but don’t you ever call me that in public again, okay?”

  “Sure thing, Lady. Sure thing.”

  They held Karen’s farewell party at the Short End. It was one of the smaller clubs on Latera station, but it was both classy and cozy. As was tradition, they had rented it out for the night, restricting it to Heinrich crew and guests. The guests ended up numbering forty-eight, but it still felt tight-knit. Stories were told, toasts made, and farewells said. The station itself was heading into its afternoon when they wrapped up, though it was well into third shift back on the near-empty Heinrich. Karen, of course, was still going strong when the last of her comrades faded, but Michael stuck it out to the end.

  Drunk, but not staggering, they picked up their luggage and made their way down two rings to the groundside shuttle docks. They ate a few snacks while waiting for their flight, and Michael focused on drinking as much water as he could.

  “They’ll have water on the flight,” Karen teased him.

  “Yeah, about that… I’m sorry, Karen, but I’m not going.”

  “What?”

  “I’m not going down to Latera with you.”

  She stared at him with dizzy eyes. “You’re kidding, right?”

  He shook his head. “I’m sorry.”

  Her eyebrows pinched together. “Well why the fuck not?”

  “I can’t explain,” he said. “Not now, but there are things I have to do. This really isn’t about you, and that makes it that much harder.”

  “It’s not you, it’s me?” she shot back at him. “That’s pretty lame, even for a kid.”

  He stood. “I’m not a kid, Karen.”

  “Well you’re acting like one, dropping this on me at the last minute. I made plans with you, you little spoiler.”

  He picked up his bag. “And I’m sorry. I’m sure you’ll have a good time anyway. I’ve never seen you alone when you didn’t want to be.”

  “And what the hell is that supposed to mean?”

  He shook his head and took a step back. “I do wish you the best, Karen, and I honestly hope to run into you again at some future port of call, but I have to do this now.”

  She scowled at him and started to say something, but she held it back. She finally settled on a nodding frown. “Yeah, okay Michael. You do what you have to do, but the next time I see you, you’d better have a damn good explanation.”

  “I will,” he told her. “I promise.”

  She pulled her feet up onto her seat, crossing her arms across the top of her knees. “Then you go do what you’re going to do. I’m a big girl. I’ll be all right.”

  “Until next time,” he said with a wave that was almost a salute.

  She turned her head away and rested it on her crossed arms.

  He turned away and walked out of the dock. He found a public terminal and punched up the code he had been given twelve hours before. Captain Anders answered right away. “Good to hear from you, Michael. Are you ready?”

  “I’ve said my goodbyes.”

  “Excellent. I’m waiting at ring twelve, dock eighteen. It’s the Blue Jaguar.”

  “Wait, I thought you said you were on the Diving Belle.”

  “I’ll explain when you get here. See you soon.”

  He was not sure what to make of the change, but he was committed now. True, he could still go back to the ship and cancel his letter to Gabrielle, but after breaking it off with Karen, he felt he had already paid the entry fee. He was going to get what he came for.

  He shifted his duffel to the other shoulder and made his way up seven rings and out to dock eighteen. He spotted Captain Anders standing by the dockside watch desk talking to a striking woman with pale skin but dark black hair. He waved, and they beckoned him forward.

  “Good to see you, Michael. I’d like to introduce you to Captain Jana Lewis. She knew your father back in the war.”

  The woman extended her hand. “Glad to meet you, Michael. Your father was a good captain. I’m sorry to hear what happened.”

  Michael took her hand and shook it. It was warm but somehow felt delicate. He played the name over in his head but did not recognize it. Then again, Malcolm had rarely talked about his war years in any detail. “Thank you, Captain Lewis.”

  “So, Michael,” she said. “I understand you want to get back to Taschin to claim your dad’s old ship.”

  “Yes,” he replied. “The Sophie’s Grace.”

  She looked surprised. “Not the Hamme
rhead?”

  He shook his head. “No, she had a major drive failure a long time ago.”

  “Still, I’m sure Malcolm would have chosen a good ship. I also understand there’s some question of records?”

  “Yes,” Anders spoke up. “Michael wants to go through some of Malcolm’s old war records. I figure they would have transferred over from his old ship.”

  Captain Lewis nodded. “I wouldn’t believe otherwise. Malcolm was meticulous like that.” She turned back to Michael. “Well, I happen to be heading back towards Taschin. Would you like to hitch a ride?”

  He turned back to Anders. “I had thought I would be going with you.”

  “Well, as I was explaining to Jana here, I was hoping to tag along with you. That is, if you would be all right sharing the data on old battle sites.”

  “I suppose, but what about your ship?”

  He frowned. “Well, truth be told, I got confirmation on an old wreck near Pinot’s Hammer. The cargo won’t have any commercial value, but it’s old enough that it may have some historic appeal. Antiques, that sort of thing. My first officer manages most of the actual salvage operations, and he’s licensed, so I was planning to send him on and catch up later. This one’s going to take a while.”

  Michael nodded in gradual acceptance. It made a sort of sense, and he knew what Malcolm had always said about picky beggars. “They suck vacuum — you don’t want to suck vacuum, do you son?” He turned back to Captain Lewis. “Then I humbly accept your offer of passage, Captain Lewis. I do have a number of ratings, so I may be able to offer some help.”

  She grinned. “You sound just like him. I’m sure we’ll find something for you to do. Come on, Jimmy, you too. My pushback is set for two hours. Let’s get moving.”

  Commander Samuel Collins stepped onto the dock of Latera station. Normally he would have had to take the shuttle over from the navy’s station, but he politely encouraged the “captain” of the fleet courier to drop him off directly at the civilian station. After all, the captain was only a captain in the context of his ship, as couriers usually only rated a lieutenant for their command slots. Still, it was always considered rude to pull rank on another officer’s ship, so he had been polite. His boss’s reputation did not hurt matters either.

  He had already accessed the docking registry on their way in, so he headed confidently down six rings and out to dock four, the Heavy Heinrich. A middle aged woman was sitting at the dockside watch desk. She set down her pad as he approached.

  “What can I do for you, sir?” she asked.

  He read the name tag: Roxanne Collier. “I am trying to get in touch with one of your crew, Miss Collier, a young man by the name Michael Fletcher.”

  “And what would you want with this Michael Fletcher? I don’t think he’s looking to join the Navy.”

  He smiled as pleasantly as he could muster. “I’m not a recruiter. Mr. Fletcher filed an information request under the Records and Reconciliation Act. I’m here to give him that information.”

  The woman raised an eyebrow at him. “Must have been some request to rate a Commander.”

  He sustained his smile with effort. “It caught my eye. Now, is Mr. Fletcher aboard?”

  “No, he’s on liberty.”

  He nodded, letting his smile slip a bit. “Can you tell me where I might find him?”

  “I’m sorry, but it’s against company policy to give out that kind of information. Crew security, you understand.”

  “I see. Can you possibly get him a message for me?”

  “Normally I might,” she said. “After all, I suppose he asked for you, but this liberty is a little special. We have a crewman departing at this port, you see, and she and Michael had become close. I would hate to interrupt their time together for anything short of an emergency.”

  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.”