“Even if there’s no human crew aboard?”

“Sir,” Dahak said with the patience of one trying not to be insubordinate to a dense superior, “we were challenged, which indicates the initiation of an automatic sequence of some sort. And, sir, Fleet Central should not have permitted a vessel of Dahak’s size and firepower to close to this proximity without assuring itself that the vessel in question truly was what it claimed to be. Since no information has been exchanged, there is no way Fleet Central could know my response to its challenge was genuine. Hence we should at the very least be targeted by its weapons until we provide a satisfactory account of ourselves, yet that installation has not even objected to my scanning it. Fleet Central would never permit an unknown unit to do that.”

“All right, I’ll accept that—even if that does seem to be exactly what it’s doing—and God knows I don’t want to piss it off, but sooner or later we’ll have to get some sort of response out of it. Any suggestions?”

“As I have explained,” Dahak said even more patiently, “we should already have elicited a response.”

“I know that,” Colin replied, equally patiently, “but we haven’t. Isn’t there any sort of emergency override procedure?”

“No, sir, there is not. None was ever required.”

“Damn it, do you mean to tell me there’s no way to talk to it if it doesn’t respond to your hails?”

There was a pause lengthy enough to raise Colin’s eyebrows. He was about to repeat his question when his electronic henchman finally answered.

“There might be one way,” Dahak said with such manifest reluctance Colin felt an instant twinge of anxiety.

“Well, spit it out!”

“We might attempt physical access, but I would not recommend doing so.”

“What? Why not?”

“Because, Captain, access to Fleet Central was highly restricted. Without express instructions from its command crew to its security systems, only two types of individuals might demand entrance without being fired upon.”

“Oh?” Colin felt a sudden queasiness and was quite pleased he’d managed to sound so calm. “And what two types might that be?”

“Flag officers and commanders of capital ships of Battle Fleet.”

“Which means …” Colin said slowly.

“Which means,” Dahak told him, “that the only member of this crew who might make the attempt is you.”

He looked up and saw Jiltanith staring at him in horror.

They went to their quarters to argue.

Jiltanith opened her mouth, eyes flashing dangerously, but Dahak’s electronic reflexes beat her to it.

“Senior Fleet Captain MacIntyre,” he said with icy formality, “what you propose is not yet and may never become necessary, and I remind you of Fleet Regulation Nine-One-Seven, Subsection Three-One, Paragraph Two: ‘The commander of any Fleet unit shall safeguard the chain of command against unnecessary risk.’ I submit, sir, that your intentions violate both the spirit and letter of this regulation, and I must, therefore, respectfully insist that you immediately abandon this ill-advised, hazardous, and most unwise plan.”

“Dahak,” Colin said, “shut up.”

“Senior Fl—”

“I said shut up,” Colin repeated in a dangerously level voice, and Dahak shut up. “Thank you. Now. We both know the people who wrote the Fleet Regs never envisioned this situation, but if you want to quote regs, here’s one for you. Regulation One-Three, Section One. ‘In the absence of orders from higher authority, the commander of any Battle Fleet unit or formation shall employ his command or any sub-unit or member thereof in the manner best calculated, in his considered judgment, to preserve the Imperium and his race.’ You once said I had a command mentality. Well, maybe I do and maybe I don’t, but this is a command decision and you’re damned well going to live with it.”

“But—”

“The discussion is closed, Dahak.”

There was a long moment of silence before the computer replied.

“Acknowledged,” he said in his frostiest tones, but Colin knew that was the easy part. He smiled crookedly at Jiltanith, glad they were alone, and gave it his best shot.

“’Tanni, I don’t want to argue with my XO, either.”

“Dost’a not, indeed?” she flared. “Then contend with thy wife, lackwit! Scarce one thin day in this system, and already thou wouldst risk thy life?! What maggot hath devoured thy brain entire?! Or mayhap ’tis vanity speaks, for most assuredly ’tis not wisdom!”

“It isn’t vanity, and you know it. We simply don’t have time to waste.”

“Time, thou sayst?!” she spat like an angry cat. “Dost’a think my wits addled as thine own? Howsoe’er thou dost proceed, yet will we never return to Terra ere the Achuultani scouts! And if that be so, then where’s the need o’ witless haste? Four months easily, mayhap five, may we spend here and still out-speed the true incursion back to Earth—and well thou knowest!”

“All right,” he said, and her eyes narrowed at his unexpected agreement, “but assume you’re right and we start poking around. What happens when we do something Fleet Central doesn’t like, ’Tanni? Until we know what it might object to, we can’t know what might get everyone aboard this ship killed. So until we establish communications with it, we can’t do anything else, either!”

Jiltanith’s fingers flexed like the cat she so resembled, but she drew a breath and made herself consider his argument.

“Aye, there’s summat in that,” she admitted, manifestly against her will. “Yet still ’tis true we have spent but little time upon the task. Must thou so soon essay this madness?”

“I’m afraid so,” he sighed. “If this is Fleet Central, it’s either Ali Baba’s Cave or Pandora’s Box, and we have to find out which. Assuming any of Battle Fleet’s still operational—and the way this thing powered itself up is the first sign something may be—we don’t know how long it’ll take to assemble it. We need every minute we can buy, ’Tanni.”

She turned away, pacing, arms folded beneath her breasts, shoulders tight with a fear Colin knew was not for herself. He longed to tell her he understood, but he knew better than to … and that she knew already.

She turned back to him at last, eyes shadowed, and he knew he’d won.

“Aye,” she sighed, hugging him tightly and pressing her face into his shoulder. “My heart doth rail against it, yet my mind—my cursed mind—concedeth. But, oh, my dearest dear, would I might forbid thee this!”

“I know,” he whispered into the sweet-smelling silk of her hair.

Colin felt like an ant beneath an impending foot. Fleet Central’s armored flank seemed to trap him, ready to crush him between itself and the blue-white sphere of Birhat, and he hoped Cohanna wasn’t monitoring his bio read-outs.

He nudged his cutter to a stop. A green and yellow beacon marked a small hatch, but though his head ached from concentrating on his implants, he felt no response. He timed the beacon’s sequence carefully.

“Dahak, I have a point-seven-five-second visual flash, green-amber-amber-green-amber, on a Class Seven hatch.”

“Assuming Fleet conventions have not changed, Captain, that should indicate an active access point for small craft.”

“I know.” Colin swallowed, wishing his mouth weren’t quite so dry. “Unfortunately, my implants can’t pick up a thing.”

Colin felt a sudden, almost audible click deep in his skull and blinked at a brief surge of vertigo as a not quite familiar tingle pulsed in his feed.

“I’ve got something. Still not clear, but—” The tingle suddenly turned sharp and familiar. “That’s it!”

“Acknowledged, Captain,” Dahak said. “The translation programs devised for Omega Three did not perfectly meet our requirements, but I believe my new modifications to your implant software should suffice. I caution you again, however, that additional, inherently unforeseeable difficulties may await.”