In Fire Forged Page 4

  “Where do they end up, Vincent?” Michael said. “I’m assuming they end up at the same place?”

  “Yes, sir. At the Colonial Memorial Spaceport.”

  “No!” Judith gasped, but she was already on her feet, heading for the door.

  Dinah grabbed her. “Judith, this was twenty minutes ago. Nothing can be gained by blindly following them.”

  Reluctantly, Judith slowed. She looked at Michael. He was looking at Valless.

  “Yes, sir,” Valless said in answer to an unasked question. “I’ve accessed the records from the cameras inside the spaceport. However, no one matching our two alleged kidnappers has left the parking facility and entered the port.”

  “Aren’t there cameras in the garage?” Todd asked indignantly.

  “There are, Lieutenant Liatt,” Valless said, “but they don’t provide a hundred percent coverage. My assessment of the situation is that the kidnappers had located one or more of these blind spots in advance, and made their arrangements accordingly.”

  “Reasonable,” Todd said, “but where did they go? Did they go into the port, or did they merely use the garage as somewhere to change vehicles?”

  Judith felt that urge to scream again, to remind them all that this was no intellectual puzzle, but her living breathing daughter they were discussing. Dinah’s hand tightened on her arm, and Judith nodded. Screaming would not help, any more than tears and protests had stopped Ephraim Templeton from raping his twelve-year-old “wife.”

  I must think, she thought. I must put aside that this is Ruth, and think.

  “Lieutenant Valless,” she said, “did you get a good image of the woman from Human Services?”

  “Not a very good one,” he admitted. “I believe she’d studied where the cameras were, and did her best to assure that her hand or hair would ‘accidentally’ block her face from view. You will note that the man from A.A. managed something similar between his uniform cap and the boxes he was carrying.”

  “Not a trick,” Michael said, “that would work at Mount Royal, but perfectly fine for an apartment building. Still, Vincent, pull me what you can. Judith, how did your image come out?”

  “Fairly well,” she said. “I think.”

  “Feed it to me as well,” Michael said, “and I’ll combine it with what Vincent has. I have some video feed of Ruth in here already.”

  He made a few adjustments with his minicomp as the data came in, then nodded to Valless.

  “All right, Vincent. Access images of the incoming traffic from the garage into the spaceport—foot traffic, arriving passengers, and the like. I’ve set up a program to search for any one of our three targets, separately or in combination. We’ll see what comes up.”

  “Separately?” Dinah asked.

  “That’s right. We don’t know that the same kidnappers will be operating at all stages. The woman from H.S. and the A.A. man might have handed Ruth over to someone else.”

  “You say ‘Ruth,’ ” Todd said curiously. “Don’t you mean the box?”

  “I don’t,” Michael said. “You’ve been in the Navy too long, bud. Routine security scans quite likely would find a child in a packing crate. My guess is that they’ve done a few things to change her appearance, and will bring her through as a sleepy little girl. No bored security officer would look twice except to be grateful that she’s not screaming or whining.”

  “Maybe,” Judith said eagerly, “we should call the space port, ask…”

  She stopped herself, shook her head. “I forgot. That would start questions, and while our enemies might like questions and the scandal they might generate, that’s the last thing we want.”

  Michael nodded. His dark brown gaze was abstracted, watching the datafeed, but his voice was perfectly alert.

  “Judith, I don’t care about the scandal, neither will Elizabeth when she understands why I did it. Just let me…”

  “No!” Judith said firmly. “I’m glad you and the Queen would be so willing to accept disgrace, but disgrace is the least of this. If the alliance with Grayson is disrupted, lives will be lost. How can I sacrifice someone else—many someone elses—for anyone, even my own daughter?”

  And, she thought to herself, how can I sacrifice you, who have been my friend? I know I should care more about Ruth, and I do care more about Ruth, but I care about you, too, Michael Winton. I care…

  “Judith,” Michael said quietly, “if it comes down to a choice between letting them get away with Ruth and our calling in reinforcements, I’m calling in the reinforcements.” He looked up from his display for a moment. “If we get her back, the scandal will be survivable, trust me, and I am not losing your daughter.”

  “Michael—” she began, then stopped herself.

  What am I going to say to him? How noble can I be? This is my child. The trigger for our entire escape was to save her from being aborted by Ephraim, murdered before she was even born! God only knows what he’ll do to her now, if only to punish me. I can’t let her be handed back over to him, but I can’t hurt Michael, either, so—

  She forced her mind away from those uncomfortable thoughts and said aloud, “I’m tired of being used. Even if permitting someone to use you shamefully would get Ruth back, how could I ever feel safe again? No. I’ll get her back. We’ll get her back, without giving them any of the scandals they want, and then…”

  The words trailed off into inarticulate fury, but Judith was saved from having to explain what one lone refugee could do against those who had orchestrated this kidnapping by a sharp beep from Michael’s minicomp.

  “Match!” he said. “I’ll bring up the image.”

  He did. It showed a delightfully domestic unit. A man, a woman, and a sleepy little boy in a pram. The man was guiding along a trunk that hovered on anti-grav skids. The woman pushed the pram. Both looked peaceful as they turned to follow signs directing them to “private vessels.”

  “That woman doesn’t look anything like the one Judith was designing,” Todd said dubiously. “The H.S. lady looked like a Valkyrie turned executive secretary. This one is almost dumpy.”

  “Near perfect match,” Michael said satisfied. “The program ignores the things that have distracted you like hair color, weight, and attire. It focuses on subtleties like posture, shape of the eye, bone structure.”

  “Is that little boy…” Judith asked.

  “Even a closer match,” Michael said. “They’ve cut her hair and darkened it, changed her clothes. With her asleep, she’s not going to be talking and giving anything away. And—” he smiled thinly “—they lost time doing it, too.”

  He shook his head to dissuade further conversation. “I want to track where they’re headed.”

  No one spoke as the images zipped down corridors, through tubes, and down underpasses. The little family never paused, but they never hurried either. They acted like what they seemed: a moderately well-off family, heading back to their ship.

  Perhaps the father worked for a company located on Sphinx or Gryphon, and had brought the family to the city with him for the day. A nice outing. Now they’d take the company ship back home.

  Or perhaps they were wealthy enough to own a ship of their own. Interplanetary vessels were not as expensive as hyper capable. As the Star Kingdom became more prosperous, such “commuter ships” didn’t turn a head, and could even be considered economical if the time savings aspects were computed into the equation.

  Michael was slowing down the image. “Shuttle pad twenty-seven. And the shuttle on it was registered to Banshee out of Sphinx. Vincent can—”

  “I’m already on it, sir.”

  The words were polite as ever, but Judith was pleased by the thrill of excitement that underlay them. Vincent Valless was completely committed to their mission.

  “It’s registered to Highland Mining Associates of Gryphon. They have interests all over the binary system, sir, including corporate offices and subsidiaries on all three planets. I fear we won’t be able to use that to anticipat
e Banshee’s ultimate destination. The flight plan they filed with Astro Control doesn’t state more than Sphinx as a destination.”

  Michael nodded, but he was now pushing himself to his feet.

  “Right. That’s at least a four-hour trip, and that shuttle only left the pad three minutes ago. Time for us to get moving. My air car will hold all of us.”

  He looked at Dinah, but the older woman only shook her head.

  “No. I’m not coming. I’ll remain here and defuse any interest that arises. No one will be surprised if Judith goes off with her friends.”

  “Even if she goes without her daughter?” Valless asked. “We don’t want to trigger any alerts, and I know local law enforcement does keep an eye on this area.”

  Dinah shook her head, and it seemed to Judith that the older woman was trying to conceal what—given the circumstances—seemed like a wholly inappropriate smile.

  “No, I don’t think anyone will think it strange if Judith goes out without Ruth, especially if I lead them to believe the child is with me. Go with God, my friends, and bring back our lost lamb safe and sound. I will pray for you.”

  Michael Winton gave the older woman a slight bow. “Thank you, Dinah. We’ll need every prayer you can spare. I’m going to leave you with two very important things. One is a priority code that will enable you to contact us if there are any difficulties. The other is a short report I’ve dictated explaining to my sister why I’ve made the choices I did. If anything happens so that I’m not in a position to explain, I want you to get this to her.”

  Dinah accepted the information, shooing them out of Judith’s apartment as if they were wayward schoolchildren.

  “I’ll take care of it. Now, go. And hurry.”

  * * *

  Michael was glad Judith hadn’t broken down. He thought she’d been close, but she’d managed to collect herself. That was a relief, because if she’d started crying, then he wasn’t sure he’d have been able to keep from gathering her up in his arms, and that would almost certainly have made matters worse.

  Even though Michael had started falling in love with Judith on the bridge of her embattled ship, he had never spoken of his feelings—not only refusing to speak to her of his love, but to anyone else. He wanted no pressure, no matter how subtle or well-meaning, put on her. These last two and a half years had been the closest Judith had ever had to a life of her own, and he wanted her to have a sense of her own self before he tried to convince her to join her life with his own.

  Michael thought Todd knew how he felt about Judith, and he was beginning to think Dinah did as well. He wondered how many other people had read significance into what he thought was his very guarded, very proper behavior around the lady.

  Certainly at least one person has, Michael thought grimly as he settled himself into the back seat of the air car and let Todd handle the driving. Or they wouldn’t have thought they could use Judith to manipulate me.

  After giving Todd instructions and warning air-traffic control that he intended to exercise the royal family’s priority clearance, Michael pulled out his minicomp. The ride wouldn’t be overly long at the speed his clearance would permit, but he had an idea or two. Hopefully, before long, he’d have narrowed the field regarding precisely who the kidnappers might be.

  * * *

  “Mount Royal spaceport,” Judith repeated when Michael announced their destination. “We are going after them.”

  “That’s right,” Michael reassured her, his fingers still busy with the minicomp balanced between his hands. “I’ve already requested flight clearance for one of the ships that was set aside for me when I came home on holiday.”

  Judith now understood the flurry of quiet activity that had held Vincent Valless since they had entered the air car. Without ever losing his attitude of quiet alertness, Valless’s fingers had been skittering over his own minicomp, doubtless handling the security arrangements that would make the crown prince’s arrival and departure so fluid as to almost create the impression Michael Winton was an ordinary person, who could come and go as he chose.

  Michael touched a send icon on his minicomp and looked up at her, his dark brown eyes holding an expression both serious and reassuring.

  “Banshee,” he explained, “is a Pryderi-class ship. It’s a nice little runabout—bigger than a standard cargo shuttle, but not a lot—and it’s got some fairly comfortable passenger accommodations. But it’s an off-the-shelf civilian design, and it’s way too small to be hyper-capable. That means they aren’t getting out of the system without our being able to track them. And anything we can track, we can chase.

  “And, speaking of chasing,” he smiled that thin smile again, “Ogapoge, the ship I’ve arranged for us to take, is an Arrow-class. The Pryderis aren’t bad, but they use standard civilian components because they were designed for economic maintenance and extended service life. The Arrows, on the other hand, use Navy components. BuShips designed to them as high-speed intrasystem VIP transports, and they’re a little smaller than the Pryderis, which gives them a higher acceleration rate. And Ogapoge’s one of the Arrow-Alphas. That means she’s armed.”

  Ruth’s eyes widened, and he shook his head.

  “Don’t be thinking they’re any sort of warship, Ruth. They’ve basically got the same weapons fit as a standard assault shuttle, but they were intended from the beginning for really important VIPs.” This time, his smile was more than a little crooked. “Vincent’s people will actually let me fly around in one of these without insisting that an entire destroyer follow me around ‘just in case.’ ”

  Judith nodded in understanding, and he shrugged.

  “Banshee’s acceleration rate is going to be somewhere around four or five percent lower than ours, but their particle screening is just as good, so we won’t be any faster than they are once we’re both up to maximum safe cruising speed. Still, we’ll reach max speed faster than they will, and we’ll decelerate faster, too, so it’s probable we’ll make up time in pursuit. But,” he looked at Judith, offering her the honesty she deserved, “it won’t be a lot, I’m afraid.”

  “How long will it take us to get there?” Judith asked.

  “If they’re going to Sphinx?” Michael replied. “I’ve run the numbers, and a Pryderi should do it in roughly four hours and fifty minutes. We can only shave about seven or eight minutes off of their time, and they’ll have a good twenty-minute head start. That means we aren’t going to catch them short of the planet, but we’ll be right on their heels, certainly close enough to see where they go, and I can com ahead to have a shuttle waiting for us when we make orbit. I expect we’ll have just a few advantages when it comes to getting Astro Control to clear us to planet, too. We may actually be on the ground before they are—assuming they’re headed for the surface, and not one of the orbital habitats. If we don’t beat them down, it’ll be neck-and-neck, at the very worst.”

  “And Ogapoge is large enough to fit us all?” Judith asked.

  “More than,” Michael said. “I’d hoped…”

  A funny note came into his voice and he cleared his throat and started over again.

  “I’d hoped to take some friends out to see more of the other planets in-system, but I wasn’t sure just how large our party might end up being.”

  Judith blinked. He means me. I’m sure he means he wanted to take me and Ruth out. And he prepared from the start not only for the two of us, but whoever I might want with us so I wouldn’t think the worst of him… And bodyguards. Always bodyguards.

  She sat mulling over this, thinking that the only time a young man worries about a young woman thinking the worst of him is when he thinks of her as more than a friend.

  Or maybe when he doesn’t want her to get any ideas that he thinks of her as more than a friend?

  She lowered her face into her hands and rubbed her forehead and temples, trying to clear the confusing maelstrom of thoughts before they overwhelmed her. Her muddled thoughts wove and interwove with her worry for R
uth until Todd gently brought the air car to rest at the berth that had been reserved for it.

  Vincent Valless was first out, and he spoke with the several security types who immediately bustled over. Their expressions were relaxed and easy beneath the formality that came from their all too great awareness that the young man swinging his legs out of the back seat of the air car was the current crown prince and their reigning queen’s only brother.

  Judith guessed that Valless had used Michael’s original explanation as to why he had reserved Ogapoge for his own use. Prince Michael was taking a few friends on an outing. That was all.

  I wish, Judith thought as she hurried after the others to the pad where the shuttle which would ferry them up to where Ogapoge waited, that this truly was all, that Ruth and I were going out with Uncle Michael, perhaps to visit the treecat preserves on Sphinx or go snow skiing at one of the resorts on Gryphon. God willing, this will be so, someday. Someday soon.

  When the shuttle reached Ogapoge, Judith realized that the little vessel’s armament was almost as well concealed as the guns of Ephraim Templeton’s privateers had been. Then she shook herself. Of course Security wouldn’t want to casually advertise the fact that the crown prince’s runabout was armed. Or, for that matter, draw any untoward attention to it in the first place. After all, concealment and surprise were weapons in their own right, and often decisive ones. That sleek hull probably concealed a deceptive amount of armor as well.

  For related reasons, the ship was not adorned with the Winton colors. The shining ice blue of the hull was attractive and expensive, but told nothing of the ship’s occupant.

  As soon as they cleared the boarding tube from the shuttle, they discovered that the ship was already occupied. A woman and two men sat in the seats closest to the back of the vessel. They wore the uniforms of Palace Security and the very neutral expressions of people who know their presence may cause someone important to lose his temper.

  Indeed, Judith saw the storm that swept across Michael’s dark features when he saw the three additional security operatives. She also saw the sigh he swallowed as he turned to Vincent Valless.