Zero-Option | Page 6

myriad stars. For some reason it was a more stirring and poignant sight than it had ever been before. He wished he were back there instead of here; he had the feeling he'd perhaps seen it for the last time.

4.
The same ensign who had conducted him through the maze of corridors to Jhordel's office later showed Imbrahim to his cabin in officers' country on the accommodations deck. The Confederation, being a frigate of recent vintage, offered considerably better living quarters than the 'spook' he'd last traveled on. The cabin was spacious and well-appointed, not at all like the Spartan and cramped cubbyhole that had been his on the Aurora for three hellish weeks. Of course, large ships like the Connie were intended to spend months in space without visiting a port; the 'spooks' were purposely designed to be small and elusive, their missions seldom lasting beyond two or three weeks.
More than half the mass of a ship like the Aurora was engine; and it carried few weapons other than those necessary to safely navigate through the errant debris of space. Shields and sensing equipment on such vessels were the primary arsenal, given that those ships were designed for spying well behind enemy lines. The same properties that made them suitable to this task made them ideal as couriers for Naval Intelligence field operatives like him��which was why many of his shipboard days had been spent in the bowels of such craft.
The Confederation, by contrast, was a fortress with engines. As such it was less maneuverable, less agile than the Aurora, but with the power to raze the surface of a planet. And even though space on any ship was at a premium, the Connie was closer to the luxury of one of the commercial interstellar passenger liners than it was to the likes of the Aurora.
Under different circumstances he might have reveled in the good fortune that had won him an assignment on board the Connie. But this was no ordinary mission Admiralty had given him; and he suspected there was nothing fortuitous in being handed it.
He dropped his kit into a nearby chair and strode easily to the large viewport that filled a good portion of the cabin's bow-facing wall. From where he stood he could see along the spine of the ship, forward, towards the prow of the frigate. Between him and the bridge there was an array of weapons, some of them tucked away, others, like the laser cannons, jutting forth threateningly��the sharp, deadly spines of a quiescent beast. They were muted now, but they had not so long ago spat their fury into the eerie silences of space. He felt some reassurance in seeing them��though secretly he wondered whether even these formidable armaments would be sufficient to the task they were about to undertake.
He moved to the desk in the corner, sat down and activated the com-link. The cube formed above the projector rods, a faintly blue field that rotated to orient itself towards him.
"Personnel information," he said.
"Concerning?" the AI requested.
"Jhordel, Lhara."
"Clearance?" the machine queried.
He gave his security code, grateful his position in Intelligence provided him such easy access to information that would otherwise have been off limits. Admiralty might not have thought it necessary he know the truth about Jhordel, but he was damned if he was going to go on this mission in the dark. He liked to know as much as possible about the people he might be called upon to trust with his life.
"Jhordel, Lhara Annyselia," the AI intoned at length. It rattled off information he already knew: her birth on Tartarus, the ships she had served on, the missions of which she'd been a part. So many missions, in fact, that there could have been two of her and it would still have seemed a remarkable career. But it was the first that caught his attention. She'd been part of the mission that had started it all. The one that had started the war.
"Obsidian," he murmured to himself.
Obsidian, where Grenier had made her fatal mistake. She had raised the ire of Red Catholics throughout the empire, and there had been no turning back after that. The Red Catholic Unity had gained steam quickly, spreading throughout worlds on the Fringes, then rapidly inwards, towards the more populous regions of the Federation. The Unity had grown more and more powerful, until Fleet itself had been seriously threatened.
He listened through to the end of the AI's recitation, but was frustrated to find that one critical piece of data was still blocked. Whatever had happened to her on Obsidian remained a mystery. Nothing he could do would allow him to see the file on that. Admiralty was clearly determined it never be known but by a handful. Or someone in Admiralty was so determined. Because