Before the Storm - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [79]
“Is that all? I have people waiting for me.”
“No,” said Drayson. “There’s one more thing. I understand you know Kiles L’toth, the associate director of the Astrographic Survey Institute.”
“We served together in the Dornean Navy.”
“More than that, you were friends. Perhaps he even owes you a favor.”
“Now I’m sure I don’t like you. You know too much.”
“You’re not the first to think so, or say so,” said Drayson.
“I want a better answer than that, Admiral. What does Kiles have to do with this?”
“Nothing, yet,” Drayson said. “I just think it’s been much too long since you and Kiles talked. A pity there’s so little contact between the Fleet and the civil service. Sometimes I think they’re two completely disconnected worlds.”
The bark in A’baht’s voice betrayed his growing anger. “Speak plainly! What are you getting at?”
“The Institute is a long way from the Fleet Office, or the Palace,” said Drayson. “About as far away from the Senate and the president and the inner circle as could be. It must be nice not to have everyone breathing down your neck. It must be nice to be able to just do your job, without anyone questioning your every move. And they’ve been given everything they need—a whole fleet of astrographic and survey vessels.”
A’baht stared, struck silent.
“Maybe you should call him before you leave,” Drayson suggested softly.
A frown hardened A’baht’s gaze still further as he weighed the implications. “I don’t like you, no, sir,” he growled at last.
“You don’t have to.”
“No, I suppose I don’t,” said A’baht, and hesitated. “But I suppose you’d better teach me that bloody code after all.”
“Kiles.”
“Etahn? What are you doing calling at this hour?”
“Calling in a debt,” A’baht said.
“I’ll be glad to have it paid,” said Kiles, touching the stump of his right leg unconsciously. “Long overdue. What do you need?”
“How many of your ships can you put together quietly, without attracting a lot of attention?”
“How quickly?”
“Very.”
“Well—six, maybe. Possibly seven or eight, depending on where you need them.”
“Farlax Sector.”
“Ah. Not much out there right now. Six is the best I could do without rolling some people out of bed, and that can’t be done quietly.”
“Then six will have to be enough,” A’baht said. “Kiles, I need an updated survey of the Koornacht Cluster and its immediate neighborhood. The old survey just won’t do. I can’t tell you why—”
“I didn’t ask.”
“I can’t even make this an official request.”
“I figured out that this was unofficial on my own,” said L’toth. “You know, Etahn, things don’t really change out there all that fast.”
“The things I’m worried about change all too fast,” A’baht said.
“It’s not navigation that concerns you.”
“No. It’s all the little flags—the who, the what, and the where.”
“Will my people be at risk out there?”
“I don’t know, Kiles,” A’baht said. “I just know that if it turns out that they are, it’ll be the most important work they’ve ever done.”
“All right,” Kiles said. “I can live with that.”
“I’d take my own people there if I could. You know that.”
“I do. I know you that well. You hate to ask for help from anyone. I was starting to think I was going to carry this debt to my death.”
“I need your help now, Kiles.”
“You’ll have it. I’ll start diverting the ships right away.”
“Thank you, old friend.”
“Good luck, Etahn,” L’toth said. “Watch your back out there—watch it better than I did.”
The Fifth Fleet had marshaled at an orbital parking site called Zone 90 East. It lay just outside Coruscant’s planetary shield, but within sight of the vast military space station which served it, and through which the Fleet’s crews and supplies flowed.
As the time for departure neared, there was little sign of sentiment or ceremony, either on the station or the ships of the Fleet. All the tearful and earnest goodbyes had been said at the Eastport, Westport, and Newport gates, most of them days