“It was my fault she got shot,” said Ingray, with a sudden, overwhelming rush of guilt, and relief at the news that Nicale would be all right. “I messed up.”
“That would be an understatement,” replied Over Captain Utury. “You disobeyed my direct order to go to a civilian shelter and stay there. Do you know what the penalty is for not seeking shelter when ordered, and remaining there until given permission to leave? It’s much higher here on the station than on the planet. For very good reasons, I might add.” Ingray frowned but didn’t answer. “What the hell did you think you were doing?”
“I told you what I was doing,” Ingray replied.
“Infernal powers protect us,” said Over Captain Utury. “Do you realize what could have happened? You could all three of you have ended up dead, yes. But many more would have died if Commander Hatqueban had ever become desperate enough to order her troops to attack the station structure directly. Just three deaths to prevent that—that would have been an entirely acceptable trade. I’d say as much to Representative Aughskold’s face. I don’t have to say it to Prolocutor Dicat. E already knows.”
“And those children?” asked Ingray.
“This isn’t a party game,” Over Captain Utury replied. “If it were up to me you’d be looking at public censure and years of punitive labor, no matter who your mother is, no matter how many Geck friends you have. No matter who you know from Tyr Siilas.”
Ingray blinked, alarmed and bewildered. “I don’t know anyone from Tyr Siilas.” Well, that wasn’t strictly true. After spending so much time there recently she had quite a few acquaintances there, but not friends. Not anyone who could bring any influence to bear in a situation like this.
“Captain Uisine approached me while you were standing in front of the lareum,” Over Captain Utury said, coldly. “He had a plan. Or rather, he insisted that once inside the lareum, you would have a plan. Once you’d had a few minutes to panic and then taken a look around you, he said. He would be there to look after you, and help you if he could.”
“That’s why you didn’t stop me,” Ingray realized. “That’s why that cleaning mech didn’t actually drag me away.”
“I confess I was dubious. But Captain Uisine also had those mechs, which he offered to use in our interest. Not as many as we’d have liked—if he’d had a half dozen more we could have ended the whole mess in a few hours. The Geck likely had enough to help us out, but of course we couldn’t ask them without potentially violating the treaty.”
The Geck. “Wait. The Omkem already think they’ve violated the treaty. They didn’t know the Geck ambassador was just a mech.”
“Yes,” agreed the over captain blandly. “Ambassador Tibanvori seemed unhappy that the Omkem have apparently come away with the impression that it was the Geck ambassador herself they shot. Apparently Mx Ket wasn’t entirely clear when e spoke to Commander Hatqueban about it. Still, even shooting her mech is likely to cause some sort of diplomatic incident, unless the Geck decide to be understanding about it.”
“But …” began Ingray.
“It would be extremely unfortunate,” Over Captain Utury broke in, sharp and deliberate, “if the Omkem were to get the impression that the Geck had intervened to retrieve a mech that actually belonged to a citizen of Tyr. That might open the door to suspicions that the whole thing had been contrived for some other purpose, like allowing Captain Uisine to attempt to send in another, hopefully better camouflaged mech. Because that would be a blatant violation of the treaty.”
Ingray remembered Commander Hatqueban asking, Is there another one with you? We can’t see any, but I’m sure it’s here. And Garal saying there hadn’t been. That if they’d sent another, the commander would have detected it. “Did they … but they couldn’t have! The Geck ambassador would never have agreed to do that.” Would Garal have? But clearly e had.
“Of course she wouldn’t,” said Over Captain Utury. “But if we’d known they were going to go in to fetch their mech, we might have been able to take advantage of that. Without their knowing, of course. If it were to come out it would look very bad and cause quite a few problems, so we didn’t do that. What Captain Uisine might have done on his own, though, well, we’re not responsible for that.”
Ingray frowned. The over captain continued. “Captain Uisine is one of the best mech-pilots I’ve ever had the honor to meet. We couldn’t have taken control of the Omkem freighters so easily without his help. Even with that help it was going to be tricky to do it without alerting Commander Hatqueban that we were up to something, and endangering you and the other hostages. We were still considering our options when you set off the alarm and gave us the opportunity to cut off communications to the Assembly Chambers and make it look like it was just part of the security system. And once we’d taken control of the freighters, it was simple enough—for certain values of ‘simple’—to break into their mechs’ controls and use them ourselves, with Commander Hatqueban none the wiser. Well, for a little while anyway.”
“But what happened to the vestiges? What happened to the Rejection of Obligations, and the Assembly Bell?”
“We have them, don’t worry,” said the over captain.
“But how …”
“The Rejection and the Assembly Bell were both inside the mech that Specialist Nakal was piloting. It’s a mystery how they got there. Frankly I can’t help but notice that you’ve spent quite a lot of time with a notorious thief lately. I’m not prepared to guess what skills you might have picked up.”
“But I …” Ingray was aghast. There was no way she could have done anything to either the Rejection or the Assembly Bell. “I didn’t do anything. And Garal’s not a thief.”
But Tic was. He had stolen three ships right out from under the noses of the Geck. Or, she didn’t think the Geck actually had noses, but. He’d been there, in the Assembly Chambers, even though she’d thought she was alone. But Over Captain Utury wasn’t going to admit that he’d been there.