Red skies at morning, sailor take warning…

— ancient mariner’s proverb

 10 Decem, 5249 PD

             She could feel the low hum of tension and hear the faint buzz of thoughts that weren’t hers, a buzz she tried to force out of her mind.  The Council was on edge.

Of course they’re on edge.  Why wouldn’t they be on edge?  There’s a war brewing and I’m sure half of them know that the Speaker’s stepping down today.  The other half have no idea why we’re having this meeting but they know that it can’t be good.

Lindsay closed her eyes for a moment and sucked in a deep breath.  How much worse is it going to be when everyone finally gets here?  This isn’t even the whole of the Council yet.  Brendan squeezed her hand.

“Steady,” he murmured in her ear, his breath tickling it.  “I’m right here.”

Thank heavens.  She nodded slightly and squeezed his hand back, tugging him with her toward her seat.  A few of the other figures in the room looked at them askance, though not nearly as many as she might have expected.  Brendan squeezed her hand again.

“They’re not looking as surprised as I’d expected,” he murmured as he sank into the chair that sat just behind hers and slightly to the right—her aide’s chair, most recently occupied by Frederick Rose.

“What, because you’re here?”  Lindsay’s nose wrinkled as she sank into her chair.  “Bastard D’Arcy outed us.  It was only a matter of time before he decided to take offense, of course, but he picked the worst possible time to do it.”  She sat sideways in the chair so she could look at him, wrapping one arm around the back of her chair.  “He was trying to undermine my position.  It didn’t have anything to do with you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Brendan said, his eyes narrowing slightly.  “It might have a lot more to do with me than either of us want to think about.”

Lindsay shook her head.  “It didn’t.  I’m sure of it.”  Of sure of it as I can get when it comes to D’Arcy, anyway.  He’s up to something, but I don’t think it’s some kind of vendetta against Brendan.  There’s something else going on that he doesn’t want uncovered.

“Well, it seems he is alive.  Rumors of your demise have apparently been greatly exaggerated, Commander Cho.”

Lindsay smothered a smile as she turned toward the sound of her uncle’s voice and Brendan answered.

“Seems so, even if I still feel like death warmed over.  When would you like me back at work, sir?”

Adam shook his head.  “Not until Dr. Grace clears you, which I’m thinking will be another week or so.  If you want to program some more simulations during your continued downtime, however, I don’t think any of us would argue with you about it too much.”  He smiled wryly and inclined his head toward the figure lurking in his shadow.  “Introductions will have to wait until later, I’m afraid.  Wouldn’t want to cause an uproar.”

She could see Brendan’s brows knit out of the corner of her eye and she reached back to squeeze his knee.  “Of course not, Uncle.  You can introduce your aide at the house after the meeting.  We’d love to come over.”

“Your aunt was hoping so.”  Adam smiled at them both and gave Brendan a firm nod.  “We’ll talk about your new array of duties, too, when you’re feeling up to it.”

New array of…?  Lindsay smothered a frown and glanced back at Brendan, who looked as surprised as she felt, but there was a tightening around his eyes that implied he suspected he might not like all of what Adam had in store for him.

“Maybe tonight, sir.  Thank you for the heads-up.”

Adam nodded and he and Frederick walked away, across the chamber to Adam’s seat with the other Marshals.  Daci glanced at Frederick as the pair joined she and Aiden, the ghost of a tremulous smile crossing her lips.

Lindsay smothered her own smile.   I guess she’s getting used to the idea of Frederick rejoining the world.  I just hope that we’ll be able to pull this off in a way that prevents us from having to continually save his life from assassins and crap like that.

Brendan leaned forward.  “Lin…I’ve seen him before.  I saw you knock him down when I had those visions after I touched Rachel.”

She nodded slightly, looking at him, their noses almost touching.  “I’ll explain who he is later.  This…really isn’t the place.”

Brendan’s brows knit, but he nodded slightly.  “All right,” he murmured.  “I can handle that.”  A shiver went through him and he took her hand again, squeezing tightly.  His chair scraped against the stone floor as he eased it nearer to hers, further forward.  “I’m not liking the feeling I’m getting right now, though.  Regardless of what’s about to happen in here, everything still feels wrong.”

“Feels wrong?”

“That’s what I said.”

She frowned, looking away from him and at the Council.  She could feel the tension, almost taste it, but there was nothing that struck her as truly wrong.  “I don’t—”

“It’s okay,” he said quietly.  “I’m probably just paranoid.  It’s been a long time since I was at a Council meeting.”

The last was before you left, when the plans were made and you got roped into all of it.  She squeezed his hand again.  “This won’t be so bad,” she whispered.  “Just watch D’Arcy.  That’s all we need to do—watch D’Arcy.”

“For what?”  Brendan asked, traces of his rueful smile leaking into his voice.  “Shenanigans?”

She looked at him in shock, choking back laughter.  “Who the hell taught you that word?”

“Your uncle,” he said, smiling.  “Is that what we’re watching D’Arcy for?”

“Absolutely,” she said.  “We’re watching for shenanigans.”

 

•           •           •

 

“Stand by to drop out of jump in ten…nine…”

“Is this your first trip this far out, Inspector?”

Everyone keeps asking that question.  Is it somehow obvious?  Tim nodded, eyes not moving from the tactical displays on the hauler’s bridge.  “It is.  Not many Inspectors end up out on the Rim or the Fringe, let alone at the edge of the Reaches.”

“Well, brace yourself.  Even dead, the Whispers is a sight to behold.”

Cold shot through him, but Timrel managed to smile at the hauler’s captain.  “Of course, sir.”

He knew why the captain said it, of course.  The system was a longtime home for the Wanderers, a binary system with one star near and one flung far, far out, just near enough to cause a wobble in the orbits of a few of the worlds and to be a navigation hazard.  The second planet in the system had been the world that had taken the name of the system—or perhaps given the system its name—and had once been home to millions of Wanderers at any given time, whether they were stopping there on pilgrimage to the Weeping Caverns, Starlight Falls, or any of the other half-dozen sacred sites on the world.

Now they were all gone, blasted to bedrock.  The planet, according to reports, was nothing more than tomb.

His lips thinned as he concentrated on the tactical display.  They weren’t expecting any threats, but it never hurt to be vigilant.

The whole ship shuddered as they dropped back into realspace.  The tactical screens went bright white for the barest moment and Tim reeled back with a curse, dazzled for a few seconds before he shook his head and returned his attention to the display.  The sound of tiny bits of debris against the hull echoed through the ship.

“Tac clear?” the captain asked.

Tim swallowed twice, scanning over his boards.  “Tac is—”  What the hell is that?  “Wait one, Captain.  I think there’s something out there.”

The captain jerked around to face him, brow furrowing.  “There shouldn’t be anything out there.”

“I know there shouldn’t be, but there is.”  Tim peered closer.  “Bigger than us, but they’re running scramblers.  I don’t know what its designation is.”

“Has it seen us?”  The captain glanced toward the communications officer.  “Are they hailing us?”

“They’re maintaining their course,” Tim said.

“No chatter on standard frequencies,” the communications officer said.  “But I am picking up some tight-beam transmissions back to New Earth space.”

The captain scowled.  “I don’t like this.  Marcias, come about.  Let’s jump out of here.”

“Where are we headed, sir?”

“Eridani Trelasia,” the captain said.  “And step on it.”

“Shouldn’t we find out who’s here before we bolt?”  Tim asked, turning away from the tactical displays.

“We’re a hauler, not a warship, Inspector.”  The captain’s eyes narrowed.  “You’ll have forty-eight hours to figure out who’s giving the orders to that ship out there before we drop you off at E-557.  After that, as long as we don’t get blown out of the sky, you—and it—are no longer my problem.”