“And as for what happened to the Goldenfels,” he continued, “if you were cleared to know that you wouldn’t have to ask. Give us the codes, sonny, and go back to wiping windshields for tips.”
“Look, you!” the youth replied, flying hot before the situation really sunk in. When it did, he paused with his mouth open.
Daniel let his lip curl, which wasn’t really an act. Though young, Caravaggio was older than Midshipman Dorst. Dorst would’ve kept his temper until he understood what was going on—though if he decided then that there was a problem, he’d proved himself in the past to be strong and determined when he went about finding solutions.
“Look,” Caravaggio resumed in a less argumentative tone, “I have to report who you are. I mean, whoever you are, I have to report before they’ll clear you through.”
Daniel grunted. “I’m Kidd,” he said. “I was the Third Lieutenant. Lieutenant Boster, he was the XO till the same problem as took off the Old Man.”
In fact Lieutenant Kidd—whom they’d captured on Morzanga and released there with all the other Alliance spacers who hadn’t signed on with the freighter’s new management—was a lanky fellow who resembled Woetjans more than he did Daniel. Caravaggio and his superiors would very possibly have the Goldenfels’ crew list, but it would be abnormally bad luck if the Alliance officer happened to know Kidd by sight.
The important thing was that Kidd and Daniel were about the same age. There was no way a twenty-three year old could pass for a senior officer of a vessel like the Goldenfels.
“And if you’re wondering about Lieutenant Greiner,” Daniel continued after a heartbeat pause to make sure his luck hadn’t been abnormally bad, “don’t, because he wasn’t in the chain of command. If you take my meaning.”
Caravaggio did and grimaced, though the Commonwealth official looked in puzzlement from his advisor to Daniel, then back again. The Goldenfels was a spy ship, and as such the signals officer was a specialist from a pool of officers other than those of the ordinary Fleet. Spies were folk whose business and associations made fighting officers steer clear of them, lest some of the muck stick.
Daniel smiled musingly. He understood how Caravaggio felt. If Adele weren’t Adele, he’d feel much the same way about her.
“All right,” said Caravaggio. “I’ll feed the codes into your main computer, but be careful—once you enter the minefield, you have to follow the programmed course precisely. If you deviate by more than a few percent in course or speed, you’re dead. There won’t be a warning. The array’s like a mousetrap: it doesn’t think, it just acts.”
“Thank you, Lieutenant,” Daniel said calmly, as though the threat didn’t concern him. “If I lose control of the ship that badly on landing, we’ll auger in without needing a minefield to kill us. Follow me, if you will.”
Daniel reached back for the hatch coaming, then pulled firmly to send himself into the bridge again. He gave himself just enough spin to rotate his body so that he faced forward when he reached his console and caught himself. Caravaggio kicked off a bulkhead and followed in a similarly slow, graceful flight.
Adele was concentrating on her own display, but Daniel smiled at the back of her head as he went past. The way spacers learned to maneuver in weightlessness was rather amazing when he thought about it, which he normally didn’t, of course. Well, after all, you didn’t normally think about walking on the ground either; but if you considered all the muscles that had to work just so to keep you from falling on your face, that was pretty remarkable also.
“Here, you can couple to the command console,” Daniel said. He made a sweeping gesture with his right arm. “Or if you want to use another, be my guest. We’re short-handed since the trouble, as you can see.”
He gave Caravaggio a cynical smile. The Goldenfels was indeed short-handed. Daniel had thought about trying to conceal the fact by putting techs from the Power Room at the consoles. There were too many ways that could’ve gone wrong, though, so he’d decided to make a virtue of necessity and hint at the horrendous casualties which had also ripped open the freighter’s belly.