She’d learned that about Wheatfields. There was very little that aroused his interest, and practically nothing outside of Engineering. “What does this give us? Apart from irritating Pesadie, and I don’t care, it’s your neck anyway, Lieutenant.”
In the months she had been assigned to the Ragnarok , the number of times Wheatfields had spoken to her could be reckoned up on the fingers on her hands. Or even on the fingers of Wheatfields’s hands, and he had only the four fingers and the thumb to her five, since he was Chigan and not Versanjer.
To Jennet’s surprise it was Two who answered for her. “Pesadie must provide some suitable answers to questions from Fleet while they wait for the crew. Or even while they send for the crew. Pesadie maybe cannot wait. They’ll have to start some alternate investigation. It will only show that the Ragnarok ’s fighter could not have fired on the observer.”
Well, not that that particular issue would be a problem in and of itself. There were too many copies of the record, surely. At least three copies of training records were maintained by Fleet protocols; one of these was on the Ragnarok , and not under Pesadie’s direct control accordingly. If Pesadie wanted to tamper with that, Pesadie would have to get past Wheatfields to do it.
But the easy answer was that the round that the Wolnadi fighter was to have deployed had been exchanged for a more lethal weapon intended to destabilize the containment barrier, communicating sufficient disruptive energy to cause the station to explode — killing the Ragnarok ’s Captain by design.
It would be easy to prove out by confession once Pesadie got their hands on the Wolnadi’s crew. Not every Inquisitor with custody of a Writ to Inquire had Koscuisko’s delicacy of feeling where truth and confession were concerned.
People could be made to say anything, under sufficient duress — unless they were fortunate enough to die before they could compromise themselves. Their crewmates, other Security, Engineering, the entire crew of the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok , up to and including — she realized with a start — its acting Captain, ap Rhiannon, already unpopular in some Fleet circles for having taken an uncompromising approach to black–market weapons dealing in the recent past.
Mendez was watching the monitor, drinking his bean tea absentmindedly. The on–screen track that represented Koscuisko’s courier had closed on the entry vector, and was gone. “Well, that’s put one of however many parts behind us,” Mendez said. “Koscuisko’s away. So now we’ll all find out. Not that I’m arguing the abstract point, Lieutenant, your Excellency. If you can make this work, we’ll all be just as happy about it. With respect.”
“We’ll get formal notification from Pesadie Training Command about Cowil Brem.” There were things they needed to see to in the time they had left before an audit team came on board. “We’ll take it from there. Wheatfields will sanitize the Wolnadi line. Let them try to figure out how we’re supposed to have done it. Two will be listening to Pesadie while they think about it.”
She stood up. And, somewhat surprisingly, Wheatfields and Mendez stood up as well, while Two hopped down out of her chair, bracing herself against the floor with the second joints of her great folded wings. Respect of rank. It was an encouraging sign.
She didn’t really care if they gave her the formal signs of subordinate rank relationship or not, though. All that mattered was that they came together to protect the Ragnarok and its crew. Somebody at Pesadie had been storing something on that observer that they oughtn’t have; it was the only explanation she could see for the explosion.
And it was her duty to the Ragnarok to ensure that nobody made a scapegoat out of its crew to cover an administrative irregularity: not with lives at stake.
###
“We have the Pesadie vector, your Excellency.” Turning
In the months she had been assigned to the Ragnarok , the number of times Wheatfields had spoken to her could be reckoned up on the fingers on her hands. Or even on the fingers of Wheatfields’s hands, and he had only the four fingers and the thumb to her five, since he was Chigan and not Versanjer.
To Jennet’s surprise it was Two who answered for her. “Pesadie must provide some suitable answers to questions from Fleet while they wait for the crew. Or even while they send for the crew. Pesadie maybe cannot wait. They’ll have to start some alternate investigation. It will only show that the Ragnarok ’s fighter could not have fired on the observer.”
Well, not that that particular issue would be a problem in and of itself. There were too many copies of the record, surely. At least three copies of training records were maintained by Fleet protocols; one of these was on the Ragnarok , and not under Pesadie’s direct control accordingly. If Pesadie wanted to tamper with that, Pesadie would have to get past Wheatfields to do it.
But the easy answer was that the round that the Wolnadi fighter was to have deployed had been exchanged for a more lethal weapon intended to destabilize the containment barrier, communicating sufficient disruptive energy to cause the station to explode — killing the Ragnarok ’s Captain by design.
It would be easy to prove out by confession once Pesadie got their hands on the Wolnadi’s crew. Not every Inquisitor with custody of a Writ to Inquire had Koscuisko’s delicacy of feeling where truth and confession were concerned.
People could be made to say anything, under sufficient duress — unless they were fortunate enough to die before they could compromise themselves. Their crewmates, other Security, Engineering, the entire crew of the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok , up to and including — she realized with a start — its acting Captain, ap Rhiannon, already unpopular in some Fleet circles for having taken an uncompromising approach to black–market weapons dealing in the recent past.
Mendez was watching the monitor, drinking his bean tea absentmindedly. The on–screen track that represented Koscuisko’s courier had closed on the entry vector, and was gone. “Well, that’s put one of however many parts behind us,” Mendez said. “Koscuisko’s away. So now we’ll all find out. Not that I’m arguing the abstract point, Lieutenant, your Excellency. If you can make this work, we’ll all be just as happy about it. With respect.”
“We’ll get formal notification from Pesadie Training Command about Cowil Brem.” There were things they needed to see to in the time they had left before an audit team came on board. “We’ll take it from there. Wheatfields will sanitize the Wolnadi line. Let them try to figure out how we’re supposed to have done it. Two will be listening to Pesadie while they think about it.”
She stood up. And, somewhat surprisingly, Wheatfields and Mendez stood up as well, while Two hopped down out of her chair, bracing herself against the floor with the second joints of her great folded wings. Respect of rank. It was an encouraging sign.
She didn’t really care if they gave her the formal signs of subordinate rank relationship or not, though. All that mattered was that they came together to protect the Ragnarok and its crew. Somebody at Pesadie had been storing something on that observer that they oughtn’t have; it was the only explanation she could see for the explosion.
And it was her duty to the Ragnarok to ensure that nobody made a scapegoat out of its crew to cover an administrative irregularity: not with lives at stake.
###
“We have the Pesadie vector, your Excellency.” Turning
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