"Vatta's War - 03 - Engaging The Enemy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Moon Elizabeth)

"Maybe. Doesn't matter, really, as long as she pays her share." Though the cargo on Fair Kaleen was valuable enough to cover the fee, if any of the convoy reneged on their payment. If anyone would buy suspect cargo off a former pirate ship...but of course they would. Osman had been making a living that way, and a good one, too.
About a light-minute from the main station, a warning message met them. "All ships on approach. All ships on approach. Identify yourselves on Channel Eighteen. Report shipname, registry, ownership, organization, captain's name, number of crew. Do not depart from present course without authorization: you are targeted."
"Friendly bunch," Lee said.
"Better than what we were told about Leonora," Ky said. She entered the data for Fair Kaleen as if that ship had never been anything but a Vatta Transport ship. Her name matched her beacon chip, at least. Registry, Slotter Key. Ownership, Vatta Enterprises. Organization, Vatta Transport, Ltd. Captain, K. Vatta, crew of six.
Shortly a message came back, voice only. Ky was not sure if it was a live person or computer-generated: "Ownership and captain do not match previous contact. This ship and captain of record are interdicted in this system. Explain."
She had not wanted to explain this over open airways. "Request secure link."
"Secure link available..." Status lights blinked, then steadied: lightlag plus a minute or two.
"Go ahead, Captain Vatta," a different voice said. "This is Port Security, and I'm Division Chief Edvarrin." The blurred image on screen steadied to show a severe-faced woman in a green uniform with blue facings. Two rows of silver buttons ran down the front.
"The person operating this ship was not a Vatta employee," Ky said. "I understand you had issues with him?" She waited, watching the communications chronometer readout. Fifty-nine seconds for the message to go...fifty-nine for it to return...plus whatever time someone needed to frame a message.
Question answered question. "Was he a Vatta family member or using a false name?"
"By birth he was a Vatta, yes," Ky said. "He had been expelled from the family years ago. He stole this ship and represented himself as being part of Vatta Transport when he wasn't. Whatever he was doing, he did it for himself, not with any authorization from us." Again the wait. She tried to anticipate the next question, be ready to answer quickly.
"And your relationship to Vatta Transport's corporate structure?"
That was another sticky bit. How far had news of trouble with Vatta spread? "My father was chief financial officer," Ky said. "Until his death."
"We can't verify that with the ansibles down..."
"You should have some records on Vatta Transport," Ky said. "Are any of our ships there now?"
"No. A Vatta ship departed some ten days before the ansibles went down. If you're really Vatta, you should know what ships worked this route."
"A moment," Ky said. She queried her implant, and her father's data came up. Garth-Lindheimer lay on a lucrative trading circuit; Vatta had two ships constantly on the route. "Connie R., captained by Casamir Vatta, and Tregallat, captained by Benton Gallat." She paused again. "Unless something messed up their schedule, the ship that departed before the ansibles went down should have been Connie R. Sometimes they do overtake each other."
"That is correct. There is another Vatta ship in this group, Gary Tobai? It is on our list, with a K. Vatta as captain."
"Yes. That was my ship. My cousin Stella's the captain now. She took over for me when I...obtained this one."
"That is an issue, Captain Vatta. Precisely how did you obtain the ship you are commanding now?"
"Osman Vatta tried to trap me," Ky said. She had been thinking how best to tell it. "He hated my father, because my father and uncle were the ones who banished him from the family. Because the ship had a Vatta Transport beacon, I trusted him initially-"
"But surely you had been warned about him. Do you not use implants, you Vattas?"
"He was banished long ago," Ky said. "I suppose my father thought he was dead, or far away, and that I'd be unlikely to meet him. At any rate, I had no suspicion at first. We were traveling in convoy with a military escort-the Mackensee Military Assistance ships-and they advised me it might be a trap. I didn't agree, and stayed behind when they went on with the convoy. It was a trap, and Osman attempted to board and kill us; he had allies, two pirate ships. We improvised a defense...I was able to send a call for help, and after some hours-after Osman was dead-Mackensee was able to come back and take out the other ships before they closed with us."
"So they did not witness what happened? You have no corroboration for your story?"
"They can corroborate that they found his being there suspicious, yes. That I left the convoy to check on him, yes. That I called for help, yes. That there were two ships that when challenged tried to fight, yes. Exactly what happened when he tried to board, no." The usual delay, during which Ky wondered if any of the security recordings aboard Gary Tobai would help. With Gordon Martin, Rafe, and herself on this ship, would Stella be able to locate and duplicate them?
"It seems likelier that you yourself were the bait in a trap set by your convoy," Edvarrin said. "A small, apparently unarmed ship like Gary Tobai, but with military backup, captures a ship like the one you have now? Mackensee isn't known for that kind of thing, but mercs have gone rogue before. Traders just don't have the skills or equipment to deal with a pirate, let alone a group of them." A brief pause, then, "Mackensee informs us that you have a letter of marque from Slotter Key. And that you also have aboard an expert in ISC technology, who has been repairing inoperable beacons. Frankly, Captain, we have no reason to believe that you are in fact a legitimate trader or commercial carrier."
Ky could not think what to say. She had anticipated having to make some argument to gain title of the ship, but she hadn't guessed that anyone might think she herself was a pirate.
"I do have a letter of marque," she said. "But the fact is that Osman Vatta-whom you yourself interdicted-attacked my ship and intended to kill me."
"That will be for a court to decide," Edvarrin replied after a longer pause than usual. "Your military escort confirms your story, but also confirms that you insisted on taking Osman's ship as a prize. Under these circumstances, and in the absence of communication with Vatta corporate headquarters or the Slotter Key government-and with no Slotter Key diplomatic representative authorized to confirm or deny the validity of your letter of marque-we are unwilling to have you bring your ship in under your command. You will take up a station at least twenty-five thousand kilometers from our orbital station, under guard of our insystem security service, and transfer to the station by shuttle. You yourself may appear before a court as specified in the Uniform Commercial Code, Section 82, paragraph 32.b, this court to be convened upon your arrival. This court will then determine the legality of your actions and the ownership of Fair Kaleen. Should you choose not to submit to this procedure, you are forbidden to approach nearer than fifty thousand kilometers. On your present course, this intersection will occur in approximately sixteen hours."
Ky looked around the bridge and met expressions as blank as she felt. "That's...not what I expected," she said. "It could take days to straighten this out."
"If you go in there, you'll end up in jail," Rafe said. "Remember that determine the legality of your actions? If the civil court decides you were wrong to kill Osman and his crew, you'd be facing criminal charges in a system where you don't even have diplomatic representation."
"It's the only way to prove who I really am-" Ky said. "I need to get this ship in my name legally."
"It's the way to be stuck in a lockup with no chance at all to prove who you really are."
Martin gave Rafe a sidelong look, then nodded. "He's right, Captain. They want you to go alone; you don't know anyone here; you don't have any allies. You can't call on the Slotter Key embassy, even if there is one."
"There's not," Ky said. "I checked. Representation is through Fiella Consortium."
"There you are. No allies, no backup-it's insane."
"But if I don't go, they'll say I'm a pirate. And what will happen to Stella and the Gary?"
"Stella can take care of herself," Rafe said. "And she'll have Mackensee to speak up for her, as well as the other captains-she didn't make the decisions you made. As your designated representative, she can receive the funds due you from the rest of the convoy and pay off Mackensee."
"I've got to talk to Johannson again," Ky said. "And Stella. But I have to answer them first."
"No, you don't. You've got hours. And by the way, partner, I really appreciate your not telling me about that letter of marque. Were you ever going to?"
"Yes," Ky said. "When the time came."
The look he gave her was not reassuring. "Well, the time came at someone else's convenience. I hope you don't have too many more surprises for me. I do my best plotting when I have all the facts."
"No more that I know of," Ky said. "For what it's worth, I hadn't made up my mind to use the letter of marque, since by the time it arrived in my hands, I knew the Slotter Key government had turned against our family. If the ansibles were up, I'm sure they'd have recalled it or repudiated it or whatever they do."
Rafe blinked. "You weren't going to use it? What kind of idiocy is that? It's a marvelous opportunity to rebuild Vatta's fleet, if nothing else. Not every system government is as hidebound as this one; as long as you don't prey on their people and spend enough in port, they won't care."
"But if Slotter Key-"
"Why do you care what they think? They turned on your family, right? Let 'em howl. You have a good fast ship and a letter of marque. You'd be crazy not to use it to the hilt." The others, Ky noted when she glanced around, were staring at Rafe as if he'd sprouted extra limbs. He looked around, too, then back at her, a look as challenging as the flourish of a sword. "What-you haven't gotten squeamish, have you, or stricken with remorse or anything? After the way you killed Osman?"
She shook her head. "No...I'm not stricken with remorse. Osman needed killing. It's just-"
He interrupted. "It's just that you've always been a good girl, Stella says. Law abiding, rule following, all that. Well, look where it got your family. Dead, most of them. I'm not saying turn into a vindictive pirate like Osman, but if you want to do the survivors any good, you can't be too worried about what other people think."
Ky was aware of a tense stillness; the bridge crew's attention was palpable. Her mouth was dry; she felt as if she were about to jump out of the ship into vacuum and free fall. A trickle of humor worked its way through-she had done that already. With a bungee cord. And she wasn't the nice rule-bound girl she had been-if she ever had been. She had killed more than once, and she had enjoyed it...something she hoped no one else would suspect.
"I suppose," she said, drawing the words out, "if communications come back and Slotter Key tries to withdraw the letter of marque...I'll deal with it."