“I didn’t. I think it was part of the same shutdown as the lights going off,” Sylvester said. “Yarmouth, try to get it open.”
Yarmouth’s mouth flickered into a grim line at the dismissive order, then relaxed again, and he walked to the door and tried a few times to open it. “No go,” he said.
“Maybe it’s the Caruso,” Linao said. “They were pretty unhappy with us.”
“And why is that, Linao?” Sylvester asked. “You were supposed to ease our people off their ship, and leave them thinking we were friends, and suddenly they’re shooting our team. Where did that come from?”
“Nirro found out we were talking to the Caruso government. He took that news badly. Thought we were stabbing him in the back.” Linao was only just visible in the glow of the light Sylvester was holding, but Velda could see her nonchalant shrug.
“And how did he find that out?” Sylvester’s question was soft.
“You told me to ask him if he’d seen the silver balls before. When he denied it, I brought up I knew he’d been on that Caruson warship that tried to steal the ancestral ghost ship in Raxian airspace. He worked out the only way we could have known that information was from government sources.”
“You could have sold the story that we still have spies there,” Sylvester said.
“I could have, but before I could say a word, he shot me,” Linao said. “Have you ever been hit by a Caruson laz?”
There was a beat of silence.
“If it is the Caruso playing with the ship’s power, how are they doing it?” Brink asked, eventually breaking the tension. “Did they plant a virus in the comms system?”
“If they did, we could only see that if we had access to the bridge.” Sylvester turned suddenly as the door opened.
“The doors have emergency opening protocols,” the engineer who’d been talking to Sylvester before the lights went out said. He was holding a tool of some kind in his hand. “I’ll have to open each one individually, though.”
“Get to it, then.” Sylvester stepped out of the room, taking the light with him. “Brink and Linao, watch her while I do a full ship check. Yarmouth, get back to the med bay.”
He strode out, leaving everyone looking after him. None of the expressions were friendly.
As he turned into the passage, they were plunged back into darkness, and Brink moved around, banging into a few things, and finally activated another portable light.
Everyone’s faces spoke volumes when they were finally illuminated again.
“He’s a charmer,” Velda said into the silence.
Linao gave a sudden chuckle. “Oh, yes. That’s Sylvester.”
Yarmouth cleared his throat. “Do you need anything before I go?”
Velda was sure he was talking to her, but Linao assumed the question was addressed to her and answered.
“No, I’m feeling fine, thanks, Yarmouth. Better get on or you know he’ll have a tantrum.”
Yarmouth left reluctantly.
“Do you think Yarmouth’s afraid of the dark?” Brink asked when he was gone.
“Probably afraid of the Caruso,” Linao said. “And he’s not wrong there.”
“No.” Brink sighed and then sat on the arm of the chair beside Velda’s. “Things have gone wrong for us since the coup on Aponi failed.”
“Since Fjern,” Linao corrected. “When we blew up one of our own warships.”
“I thought that warship was never going to fly again anyway,” Brink said.
“That’s probably true,” Linao said, “but it told the crew, and me, everything we needed to know about how quick my father would be to cut us off, if there was even a hint that someone could gain an advantage over him. In the Fjern case, it wouldn’t have even been an advantage that would have affected him. Certainly not in the short term.” She lowered herself into a chair as well. “Sure, the Fjerna would have been able to gain some information about our tech if the warship had remained intact, but it would have taken them years to translate that into an edge, if they ever did.”
“The protocol is clear, though,” Brink said. “If you’re unable to escape, the ship you’re on will be destroyed. That’s what they did at Cepi and after the Parn incident.”
