“No wonder he hated Galen,” said Quinn softly.
Elena’s glance was rather sharper. “There’s nothing you could have done. You didn’t even know Mark existed, back then.”
“We should have known.”
“Right. So to what extent is this retroactive guilt distorting your thinking right now, Admiral?”
“Some, I suspect,” he admitted. “That’s why I called you all here. I feel the need of a cross-check, on this.” He paused, and forced himself to sit again. “That’s not the only reason, however. Before this mess with the Ariel leaped out of the wormhole, I had started out to give you a real, bona fide mission assignment.”
“Ah, ha,” said Baz with satisfaction. “At last.”
“The new contract.” Despite his distractions, he smiled. “Before Mark showed up, I had it figured for a mission where nothing could possibly go wrong. An all-expenses-paid vacation.”
“What, a no-combat-special?” quipped Elena. “I thought you always looked down on old Admiral Oser for those.”
“I’ve changed.” He felt, as ever, a brief flash of regret for the late Admiral Oser. “His command philosophy looks better all the time. I’m growing old, I guess.”
“Or up,” suggested Elena. They exchanged a dry look.
“In any case,” Miles continued, “Barrayaran high command wishes to supply a certain independent deep-space transfer station with a better grade of weaponry than they presently own. Vega Station is, not coincidentally, just off one of the Cetagandan Empire’s back doors. However, said vacuum-republic is in an awkward junction in the wormhole nexus. Quinn, the map, please.”
Quinn keyed up a three-dimensional holovid schematic of Vega Station and its neighbors. The jump routes were represented by sparkling jagged lines between hazy spheres of local space systems.
“Of the three jump points Vega Station commands, one leads into the Cetagandan sphere of influence via its satrapy Ola Three, one is blocked by a sometimes-Cetagandan-ally, sometimes-enemy Toranira, and the other is held by Zoave Twilight, politically neutral with respect to Cetaganda, but wary of its big neighbor.” As he spoke of it, Quinn highlighted each system. “Vega Station is outright blockaded through Ola Three and Toranira against the import of any kind of major space-based offensive or defensive weapons systems. Zoave Twilight, under pressure from Cetaganda, is reluctantly cooperating with the arms embargo.”
“So where do we come in?” asked Baz.
“Literally, through Toranira. We’re smuggling pack-horses.”
“What?” said Baz, though Elena caught the reference and suddenly smirked.
“You’ve never heard that story? From Barrayaran history? It goes, Count Selig Vorkosigan was at war with Lord Vorwyn of Hazelbright, during the First Bloody Century. The town of Vorkosigan Vashnoi was besieged. Twice a week Lord Vorwyn’s patrols would stop this crazy, motley fellow with a train of pack horses and search his packs for contraband, food or supplies. But his packs were always filled with rubbish. They poked and prodded and emptied them—he’d always gather it carefully back up—shook him down and searched him, and finally had to let him go. After the war, one of Vorwyn’s border guards met Count Selig’s leigeman, no longer motley, by chance in a tavern. ’What were you smuggling?’ he asked in frustration. ’We know you were smuggling something, what was it?’
“And Count Selig’s leigeman replied, ’Horses.’
“We’re smuggling spaceships. To wit, the Triumph, the D-16, and the Ariel, all fleet-owned. We enter Vega Station local space through Toranira, on a through-flight plan, bound for Illyrica. Which we really will be. We exit through Zoave, still with every trooper, but minus three aging ships. We then continue on to Illyrica, and pick up our three brand-new warships, which are being completed even as we speak in the Illyrican orbital shipyards. Our happy Winterfair gift from Emperor Gregor.”
Baz blinked. “Will this work?”
“No reason it shouldn’t. The spadework—permits, visas, bribes and so on—is all being completed by ImpSec agents on-site. All we have to do is waft through without alarming anybody. There’s no war on, not a shot should be fired. The only problem is that one-third of my trade-inventory just left for Jackson’s Whole,” Miles concluded with a descending snort.
“How much time do we have to recover it?” asked Elena.
“Not as much as we need. The time-window ImpSec has set up for this smuggling scenario is flexible in terms of a few days, but not weeks. The fleet must leave Escobar before the end of this week. I’d originally scheduled it for tomorrow.”
“So do we go without Ariel?” asked Baz.
“We’re going to have to. But not empty-handed. I have an idea for a substitution. Quinn, shunt those Illyrican specs to Baz.”
Quinn bent her head to the secured data cube in her comconsole interface, and released a burst of code to Baz’s station. The engineer began keying through advertising displays, descriptions, specifications, and plans from the Illyrican shipbuilders. His thin face lit in a rare smile. “Father Frost is generous this Winterfair,” he murmured. His lips parted with delight as the ships’ power-plant specs came up, and his eyes moved avidly.
Miles let him wallow for a few minutes more. “Now,” he said, when Baz self-consciously came up for air. “The next-up ship in the fleet from the Ariel in terms of function and firepower is Truzillo’s Jay-hawk.” Unfortunately, Truzillo was a captain-owner under independent contract to the Fleet corporation, not a Fleet employee. “Do you think he could be persuaded to trade? His replacement ship would be newer and faster, but while it’s definitely a step up in firepower from the Ariel, it’s a slight step down from the Jayhawk. I’d meant us all to trade up, not even, when we first cooked up this deal.”
Elena raised her eyebrows and grinned. “This is one of your scenarios, isn’t it?”
He shrugged. “Illyan asked me to solve the arms embargo problem, yes. He accepted my solution.”
“Oh,” Baz purred, still awash in data, “wait’ll Truzillo sees this … and this … and …”
“So do you think you can persuade him?” asked Miles.
“Yes,” said Baz, with certainty. He glanced up. “So could you.”
“Except I’ll be headed the other way. Though if things go well, it’s not impossible that I might catch up with you later. I’m putting you in charge of this mission, Baz. Quinn will give you the complete orders, all the codes and contact-people—everything Illyan gave me.”
Baz nodded. “Very good, sir.”
“I’m taking the Peregrine to go after the Ariel,” Miles added.
Baz and Elena exchanged only one quick, sideways glance. “Very good, sir,” echoed Elena, with scarcely a pause. “I shifted the Peregrine from twenty-four-hour to one-hour alert status yesterday. When shall I schedule our departure with Escobaran flight control?”
“In one hour.” And, though no one had asked for explanations, he added, “The Peregrine is the next-fastest thing we have that packs significant firepower, besides the Jayhawk and the Ariel itself. I think that speed is going to be of the essence. If we can overtake the Ariel—well, it’s a lot easier to prevent a mess than to try to clean up after one. I’m sorry now I didn’t leave yesterday, but I had to give it a chance to be simple. I’m assigning Quinn to myself as floating staff because she’s had valuable previous experience with intelligence-gathering on Jackson’s Whole.”
Quinn rubbed her arm. “House Bharaputra is damn dangerous, if that’s where Mark’s headed. They have heavy money, heavy shit, and a sharp memory for revenge.”
“Why d’you think I avoid the place? That’s another danger, that certain Jacksonians will mistake Mark for Admiral Naismith. Baron Ryoval, for example.”
Baron Ryoval was a persistent danger. The Dendarii had disposed of the latest bounty-hunter Ryoval had sent seeking Admiral Naismith’s scalp only three months ago; he had been the fourth to appear so far. It was shaping up to an annual event. Maybe Ryoval dispatched an agent on each anniversary of their first encounter, as a memorial tribute. Ryoval did not command great powers, nor possess a long reach, but he had undergone life-extension treatments; he was patient, and could keep this up for a long, long time.