Ballistic (The Palladium Wars) by Marko Kloos

Author:Marko Kloos [Kloos, Marko]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-05-25T16:00:00+00:00

The AIC was the nerve center of the ship, always staffed and busy, but it could be the loneliest place on board as far as Dunstan was concerned. They had to send off a report to fleet command, but that would trigger a response containing orders, and those would take away whatever elbow room he still had to make his own calls. It had been three hours since they’d boarded Zephyr, and Bosca and his team had finished searching the ship. There was no hidden missile tube, no concealed rail-gun mount. They had a few sidearms in the arms locker, properly secured, and all were registered and authorized. Other than that, the only weapon-like item on board was the set of kitchen knives the cook had tucked away in a storage roll in his berthing compartment.

Mayler approached him while he was looking at the plot, lost in thought.

“Sir, we got data on that warhead. The AI found a match for the radiation profile.”

Dunstan looked up. “We know where it came from?”

“We do. It’s one of the Mark Sixteens from RNS Nike.”

“I thought Nike was lost with all hands at the First Battle of Oceana.”

“That’s what the database says. But it said the same thing about RNS Daphne.”

“And we ran into Daphne just three months ago,” Dunstan conceded. “There were a lot of ships wrecked in that battle. We lost that one big. No way for us to salvage. The fuzzheads had all the time they needed.”

“Makes you wonder how many more they got,” Mayler said. “Nike had four nuclear launch tubes.”

“That’s something I’d rather not think about right now, Lieutenant. Or I’ll need more than a drink to help me sleep tonight.”

They looked at the tactical display, empty except for the solitary icon representing OMV Zephyr, which was patiently hanging in space a hundred klicks away, waiting for its crew to return.

“Have you decided what to do with the merchant crew, sir?” Mayler asked.

Dunstan rubbed his forehead with a soft groan.

“I haven’t quite figured that out yet, Lieutenant. But I am about to go down to the officers’ mess to talk to them, so I guess I should make up my mind before I get there.”

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