Zero-Option | Page 3

square of metalastic over to her and watched as she took it
and examined it in a perfunctory manner.

"You're surely joking," she growled, with all the pretense of one who
knew he was not. "We're hardly in shape for 'spooking.' "
She set the file-chip down on her desk, ignoring it; and he wondered
how someone claiming to be at the edge of patience could be so
indifferent to its contents. Her renowned discipline, he supposed.
"This isn't a deep-cover mission," he assured her—though he reflected
on how that wasn't altogether true.
He detected a hint of curiosity in her eyes, but it was held well in check
by that same discipline he found unnerving. He wasn't sure he liked the
thought of having to serve on this ship under this captain. She was too
reserved, too cold, too much a part of this vessel of hers. She could
have been a machine; and he was inclined to think it must have
something to do with the fact that she was from Tartarus. There were
rumors, though, that it had something to do with an event in her past,
on her first mission. Something that had happened to her on some
backwater planet out on the Fringes. But that sort of thing was kept in a
closed file. Admiralty would have told him if he had needed to know.
They hadn't, so clearly he didn't.
"I hope this isn't a courier mission," she said with evident disgust. "I
find it difficult to believe Admiralty would pull a ship of the line out of
service when we need every one we can get out fighting the Unity."
"The file-chip, sir," was all he would say.
She looked at him sharply and grunted. But she picked up the square
and dropped it in the com-link slot. The script that had floated in the
cube vanished, replaced by new tracts, which glowed an angry red as
they hovered in the air above her desk. She read them quickly, the
scowl on her face growing darker, until at last she looked up at
Imbrahim again.
"There's a war on, commander," she said simply.
"I know, sir."

"Ships disappear all the time. From battle. From poor phase-shifts.
Sometimes in shift. Any number of things can happen to you out there.
When someone doesn't report in, it's hardly cause to go traipsing out
there after them. Especially not with something like the Connie."
"If it were any other ship, I might be inclined to agree with you,"
Imbrahim said. "Though to be honest, sir, I rather hope someone would
come looking for me out there if I were long overdue."
She said nothing, but merely stared, waiting for him to continue.
Waiting for him to explain.
"What the report I gave you doesn't say, and what the Navy doesn't
want commonly known, is that it was the Niagara that disappeared,
Captain."
Jhordel visibly stiffened, but said, "The Niagara was fresh out of the
slips."
"Aye, sir."
"There was a lot of untried technology on board," she added, as though
that might explain everything.
"It broke Earth orbit a little more than two weeks ago on its shakedown
cruise," he agreed. "And it's possible something might have gone
wrong."
"Why not send out a probe? Cheaper, faster, and just as effective."
"We've already done that, sir. Twice." And she had almost certainly
guessed that, he told himself.
Jhordel relaxed and slowly sat back in her chair. "I take it you found
nothing."
You know we didn't. "The results were less substantial than that," he
confessed.

"You lost your probes," she said, a smile quirking the corners of her
mouth.
He felt the heat of irritation, annoyed she could see anything even
remotely amusing about the situation.
"Forgive me, Commander," she apologized, reading the look on his
face. "I don't mean to make light of the situation, but despite your
revelation, I still find it difficult to get all worked up about this." Her
features hardened. "I've seen too many good people die out there to
shed tears for any more. Besides, everyone remembers the Phoenix.
This merely could be more of the same."
She may have been young for a captain of her experience, but the war,
he decided, had made her very old indeed. He realized she was much
like the masters of the other warships he'd served on, though if
anything she was tougher, harder, and perhaps a shade more cynical.
He was older than she, but somehow in her presence he felt her junior.
He felt the way he had always felt in the presence of his father, and it
was a feeling of intimidation he didn't like at all.
"Tell me, Commander," she said, regarding him shrewdly; "since it
seems Intelligence doesn't believe the Niagara