“I’ll bite.” Hal gave a nod.
The main screen switched to the Garmman captain, standing with a few of his senior officers on the bridge.
“Captain Hunner?” Hal kept his voice clipped.
“I object to your behavior, Captain Vakeri. We experienced some mechanical difficulties on our way back to the space boundary, and had to stop for repairs.”
“No you didn’t.” Hal wasn’t playing games anymore. “You set your ship to look like a convoy. If you really had technical problems, you’d have sent us a comm to that effect. Please don’t waste my time. And I assume you know that the Balcoan government has listed Leader Baruke as missing and has appealed to the Grih for help in finding him. So if you get another transmission from him, I hope you’ll let the UC know about it.”
He flicked a hand to Gerbardi, and he cut the comms without waiting for a response.
“That’ll make him mad,” Chel said, with a laugh.
“I hope so.” Hal crossed his arms over his chest. He was feeling more than a little mean right now.
“Second convoy coming up.” Voa’s tone was one of suppressed excitement. “And . . . here it is.”
They rounded DX987, one of the ten other planets in Balco’s solar system—a dead rock of a place—and there was an actual convoy.
“Well, that’s something,” Chel said. “Even if the last one turns out to be a battleship, two to one is better than three to one.”
Hal gave a nod as they leaped over the convoy, issued an apology for the maneuver, and sped on their way.
Last one, and it was closest to Balco.
“Captain, the third convoy’s disappeared.” Voa leapt to her feet, hands braced on either side of her screen.
“Disappeared?” Hal joined her, looking over her shoulder. He turned to Chel. “Go to the last place it registered anyway.”
Chel nodded, and increased the speed even more, but when they arrived, so close to Balco he could see the ocean below, there was nothing but empty space.
“TheCiollalet them know we were checking all the convoys,” Gerbardi said. “They must have.”
“They jumped away, switched off the convoy signals, and somehow reversed the signal they used to make those small runners look like battleships.” Chel got to his feet, too, staring at the empty starscape in front of them. “They’ve made themselves disappear.”
Hal wondered where they’d got to. There was a reason theCiollahad taken the spotlight and then headed away from Larga Ways. It was trying to keep the focus away from Balco.
“They may be hidden, but they’re here somewhere,” Hal said. “Let’s go hunting.”
CHAPTER 37
Fee wasn’t taken straight backinto the base.
Instead, movement on the stairs up the side of the amphitheater seemed to catch both Vira and Bart’s eye and they stood, watching people going both up and down.
Something was obviously happening, because there were a lot more people using the stairs than there had been earlier.
She noticed that the people coming down were all carrying boxes.
“When did the runner from Distani come in?” Bart asked.
“They arrived as I finished my debrief,” Vira said. She paused, as if she was considering saying something and then decided against it.
“Was the?—?”
“It’ll be the last supply run, if things go well.” Vira cut Bart off, and Fee realized there was definitely something she didn’t want to talk about in front of an audience.
“Right.” Bart shaded his eyes and looked up. “Kyber’s Arm looks pretty far away right now.”
