CHAPTER SIX
“Mind if I join you?” Aveline asked quietly.
Bedford shifted in the couch to see her in the dim light. He quickly stood. “Miss.”
Aveline narrowed her eyes, then smiled. “I can’t tell how much you are doing this in jest and what’s just your upbringing.”
“Well, miss,” Bedford drawled, scratching his head as if he was thinking. “I have to say my parents didn’t raise no brute and I never jest. Ever.”
Aveline broke into a tinkling laugh. “Now look what you did! I had planned on chewing you out, and here I am, forgetting to be mad.”
“Oh?” Bedford asked as they both sat down, turned slightly to face each other. “Why are you mad this time?”
“‘This time’?” Aveline asked archly. “You are implying this is some sort of regular condition for me.”
“And it isn’t?” Bedford asked with as straight a face as he could.
Aveline mock-glared. They both laughed, hers light and shimmering, his more of a deep chuckle.
“Now I remember what I needed to be mad about! You and that Pierre are becoming much too familiar,” she finished with sincerity.
Bedford shook his head. “Aveline, it’s my attempt to make sure he has some attachment to us and doesn’t see us as mere pawns. Disposable pawns. Being kicked out of my own quarters delivered me to a position I couldn’t have achieved on my own.”
“Hmm. Be that as it may, Agent Corbusier is far more resistant to that than you’d think,” Aveline cautioned.
Bedford gave a curt nod. “So I’ve noticed,” he drawled. “Still, an opportunity presented itself, and I would have to be foolish to simply ignore it.”
“Is that why you are bunking with him?”
Bedford grinned. “Do you really think a captain on his own ship wouldn’t have options?”
She smiled. “No, I suppose you would.” She frowned. “Don’t you think Pierre would figure that out as well?”
Bedford shrugged. “He’s a smart man, and if he does, then he’ll be curious about what I am doing. He’ll play along to see what my goals are.”
“Either way, you get what you want,” Aveline mused.
“I generally do,” Bedford said, looking directly at her.
Aveline blinked then laughed, but not before a faint blush colored her cheeks. “Lucas Bedford, you are incorrigible!”
“You know,” Bedford said with a twinkle in his eyes, “my parents did tell me that. A lot.”
“I’m sure!”
“That aside, what did you find out?” Bedford asked, redirecting the conversation.
“Nothing useful,” Aveline said with a small pout. “All the cargo from Monsieur Champollion only uses some obscure written language. Not even your databanks had any sort of reference to them. Ensign LeRoy promised to examine them, but even with his research, nothing.”
“LeRoy? You have him around your finger, too?” Bedford asked with a raised eyebrow.
Aveline laughed again. “He’s a smart man with many talents. Is it my fault he’s just as susceptible to some batted eyelashes and a warm smile?”
Bedford narrowed his eyes at that. “I suppose not.” He frowned as a thought hit him. “Champollion didn’t give you a manifest?”
Aveline shook her head in frustration. “No. His influence is staggering to be able to obscure such information from us.”
Bedford leaned back in the couch. “I have to admit, Aveline, I don’t like this job.”
“I’m starting to agree.”
“Same here!” interjected Henderson as he came around the corner, grinning. “What are you two kids up to away from everyone else?”
Aveline cupped a hand around her mouth while looking around furtively. “Gossiping about the crew,” she whispered.
Both men laughed.
“Cap, I didn’t take you for doing things like that!”
“Oh, she gossips, I just pretend to listen.”
“Now, Lucas, it takes two to gossip!”
They all laughed.
“Just keep an eye out, both of you.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Of course, Lucas.”
“Five minutes before we drop into normal space,” Thompson said.
“All stations, stand by,” Bedford ordered. “Chief Davis?”
“Sequence already keyed in. System will automatically kick on.”
Bedford checked his harness.
The Red Fox dropped into normal space.
The first round struck before the shields were fully activated.
The alarms started blaring before Bedford could react.
“Where?”
“Port, above us!”
“Evasiv–”
“Rolling to starboard, tilting twenty percent!”
“Gunny?”
“Locking in.”
“Cap, it’s the Endeavor!” Thompson shouted as soon as the Fox identified the assailant.
If Bedford hadn’t already been strapped in, he would have fallen out of his chair.
“Gunny, fire when–”
“Aye, Captain!”
The Fox twisted and yawed out of direct line-of-fire, while trying to match the Endeavor’s trajectory long enough to line up their own weapons. Both ships’ ECM went into overdrive, pulling out power from the ship’s systems. The energy shields soaked up most of the damage, and yet long gouges were carved into hulls, the edges turning black as the night around them.
“Davis, cut all gravity except to my quarters!”
“Aye, sir!”
The Fox was too nimble, the Endeavor too doughty. Neither ship was making real progress against her enemy.
“Captain.” Champollion’s sneer carried across sound.
“How is he on our channel!” Bedford snapped while trying to read his screens. “Davis, ignore that and divert another three-percent to the port guns.”
“Aye.”
“Never fret, Captain, while your ship is fine for hauling cargo, and while I fear–”
A jolting shudder ran through the entire ship.
“I fear,” Champollion continued as if nothing had happened, “your enemy matches your limited strength. Therefore, I shall solve your problem in ten minutes.”
“Davis, shut him out! LeRoy, get the Endeavor on the tank!”
Captain Harrington’s visage appeared in the holotank. A stocky man, a square jaw, hawk-like eyes.
“Captain Lucas Bedford of the illegal an–”
“Shut up!” Bedford commanded. “Harrington, shut up and listen! You have nine minutes to get out of here or something far worse will happen to you than just getting a hole punched through your hull!”
“How dare yo–”
“Harrington, on my honor, I’m trying to save your worthless Republican hide! Seven minutes! Live, and we can have this argument some other day!” Bedford practically begged.
Harrington’s jaw worked, his eyes piercing. He nodded curtly. “Fine.”
The Endeavor turned and fled, her engines bright as stars. With a minute left to spare, she jumped.
The bridge was silent. Bedford slumped in his harness.
“Uh, Cap, not to overstep or anything, but, what was that about?” XO asked calmly.
There was a burst of static where the Republican ship had been as something out of the range of vision exploded, not with light and sound, but the very antithesis of something real and measurable.
“That,” Bedford said grimly.
The conference room was becoming Bedford’s least liked and most important place on the Fox.
The men argued while he ignored them.
Finally, he stood and squared his shoulders. The men fell silent.
“Enough. I know–by God, oh how I know–what I did. I know our passenger takes liberties we’ve never seen. Arguing won’t solve any of it. How close are we to the final destination?”
“Four hours,” Thompson replied.
“Good. Damage report?”
“Surprisingly little,” Chief Davis said. “Mostly superficial, thanks to Navigator Thompson’s skills and the Fox herself.”
“Surprisingly good. Gunny?”
“Still loaded for at least another two bouts with those d—ed ‘Publics,” Gunny grunted, one hand playing with his cross.
“Fair enough. Now, I have to go talk to our guest about proper Confederate etiquette, hired help or no.”
“Back to your duties!” XO sang out.
Captain Harrington found himself biting his lower lip. He stopped. Deliberately, he held his hands behind his back.
The bridge was running efficiently and with the precision he had personally drilled into each officer.
“Second, status.”
“Sir, we have our exit time to normal spa–”
Harrington listened without hearing, his mind still unsettled. What scared that cur so much as to demand–demand!–Harrington to turn tail and run? And what prompted him to do so?
“Second, can we jump back to the same general area in four or so hours?”
“Roger, sir. I want to take a look around myself.” Harrington’s Second in Command was a short, burly fellow with a bulging right eye. Competent, focused, disciplined, but dour. Harrington could almost forgive the men calling him “Lefty” behind his back.
“Indeed, this whole thing has a certain smell about it, and I don’t like things unsettled. If Bedford did save us, we’ll owe him, and that offends me deeply.”
“Roger, sir. We’ll jump back around 500 klicks outside our last point.”
“Carry on.”
Bedford met Aveline in the corridor running to his quarters.
“Lucas, before you say anything–”
“No, Aveline, I cannot bear this latest–” Bedford clamped his mouth shut while he tried to think of the correct words for this situation.
“I understand,” Aveline placed a small hand on his breast, gently, tentatively. “But you can’t–”
“Who says!” Bedford snapped.
Aveline dropped her hand as she sighed. “You do, Lucas. You do.”
Bedford snapped his mouth shut again. She was right and he hated it.
“So, let’s calmly go and discuss things with Champollion,” Aveline said in measured tones.
“Fine.”
They took two steps toward the Captain’s quarters when Pierre stormed up.
“Captain! What is the meaning of all this! I watched your little tete-a-tete with who-in-the-Kingdom knows, then you talked him down?! Have you lost whatever brains you had rolling around in that flattened skull of yours! An esteemed peer of the Kingdom was attacked!” The agent shouted in a low hiss, his arms flailing as he ranted.
“Pierre. Right on time,” Bedford said dryly.
“Well? I demand answers!”
“Come on, let’s have a chat with your ’esteemed peer’.” Bedford strode off before the other two could react. He reached his door and resisted the urge to pound on it. Instead, he toggled the intercom. “Monsieur Champollion, I have some matters I would like to discuss with you, should this prove to be an auspicious time.”
The door unlatched. Pushing it open, Bedford stormed inside, not waiting to see what the agents did.
The room was empty.