Ballistic (The Palladium Wars), стр. 49

“I was a Blackguard,” Jansen said. “Linguist, not infantry. Military intelligence. I was a major.”

“Company commander,” Dunstan said, and Jansen nodded.

“Signals Intelligence Company 300. We were stationed on Oceana all the way through the war.”

“Well, isn’t that something.” Dunstan looked at the man sitting across the workstation from him. He tried to imagine Jansen-Ragnar-Robertson in a Blackguard uniform, but his brain couldn’t quite make that stretch right now.

It’s the beard, he decided. Beards don’t look right on Gretian soldiers.

He studied Jansen’s face, looking for a glimmer of that haughty Gretian air of superiority he had seen in the expression of every fucking Blackguard he had ever encountered. They had been the shock troops of the Gretian army, the most dedicated and obedient of the lot. But there was nothing like that in this one. He just looked defeated, resigned, tired.

Dunstan’s first instinct was to call in the marine stationed in the passageway outside and have Jansen hauled off to the brig. He found that he had already started to open his mouth to do just that. Then he closed it again and took a deep breath.

All his crewmates said they found the nuke because of him, Dunstan thought. He must have known his ID would fall apart. We’ve had him as a prisoner for five years. And he warned them anyway. Because this is all he has left.

He wondered how he would feel in Jansen’s stead, at the mercy of a Gretian officer after losing the war to them, after spending half a decade in their custody.

We’re the same rank, Dunstan thought. Same job. Same age, give or take a few years. He once had a company. I still have a ship. If just a few battles had gone their way instead of ours, I’d be the one in that chair right now.

“The captain knows, but the others don’t,” Jansen said. “When you put me in the brig, just tell them I’m a wanted criminal. Make up whatever crime you want. Don’t tell them I’m Gretian.”

Somehow, that statement triggered a spark of pity in Dunstan. Maybe it was a combination of everything—Jansen’s scraggly beard, his flawless Rhodian, his concern for the crew that had accepted him—but it left Dunstan with no angle to vent his anger. There was nothing left to beat down. Jansen was so desperate to deny his old identity that he would rather have his new friends think he was a thief or murderer than discover he was Gretian. Dunstan knew he could never forgive Gretia for starting a war that killed dozens of his friends. He wouldn’t forgive the Blackguards for being in the vanguard of conquest. But right now, he knew that he would find no satisfaction in locking this man up, not after his act of caring for the safety of his fellow crew, even knowing that it would probably expose him.

What the hells, Dunstan thought. He got a nuke out of circulation. That’s a net good. Not enough to let him off the hook for his past. But enough to let him off for today.

“We’re in Rhodian space,” he said. “Your Oceana ID pass is Oceana’s issue. I won’t make it mine today. There’s more important stuff sitting in my cargo hold right now.”

Jansen looked up in wide-eyed surprise. Dunstan could almost see the shock that went through him from head to toe. If hope had a scent, the compartment would suddenly be redolent with it.

“Go rejoin your crew. Keep your secret for another day,” Dunstan said.

“Thank you, Commander,” Jansen replied.

Dunstan nodded.

“It will come up yellow again somewhere. That ID pass of yours. Keep that in mind. And you may want to come clean with your crew before it does.”

The AIC was the nerve center of the ship, always staffed and busy, but it could be the loneliest place on board as far as Dunstan was concerned. They had to send off a report to fleet command, but that would trigger a response containing orders, and those would take away whatever elbow room he still had to make his own calls. It had been three hours since they’d boarded Zephyr, and Bosca and his team had finished searching the ship. There was no hidden missile tube, no concealed rail-gun mount. They had a few sidearms in the arms locker, properly secured, and all were registered and authorized. Other than that, the only weapon-like item on board was the set of kitchen knives the cook had tucked away in a storage roll in his berthing compartment.

Mayler approached him while he was looking at the plot, lost in thought.

“Sir, we got data on that warhead. The AI found a match for the radiation profile.”

Dunstan looked up. “We know where it came from?”

“We do. It’s one of the Mark Sixteens from RNS Nike.”

“I thought Nike was lost with all hands at the First Battle of Oceana.”

“That’s what the database says. But it said the same thing about RNS Daphne.”

“And we ran into Daphne just three months ago,” Dunstan conceded. “There were a lot of ships wrecked in that battle. We lost that one big. No way for us to salvage. The fuzzheads had all the time they needed.”

“Makes you wonder how many more they got,” Mayler said. “Nike had four nuclear launch tubes.”

“That’s something I’d rather not think about right now, Lieutenant. Or I’ll need more than a drink to help me sleep tonight.”

They looked at the tactical display, empty except for the solitary icon representing OMV Zephyr, which was patiently hanging in space a hundred klicks away, waiting for its crew to return.

“Have you decided what to do with the merchant crew, sir?” Mayler asked.

Dunstan rubbed his forehead with a soft groan.

“I haven’t quite figured that out yet, Lieutenant. But I am about to go down to the officers’ mess to talk to them, so I guess I should make up my mind before I get there.”

The Zephyr crew were sitting around two of the