THE OUTMARCH QUADRANTS WHICH YOU ARE PATROLLING—SECURITY UNDERSTANDABLY BEING WHAT IT IS—BUT I CAN ONLY HOPE THAT THIS FINDS YOU SAFE, OR BETTER STILL, VICTORIOUS IN SOME SKIRMISH WHICH HAS LEFT OUR ENEMIES SMARTING.
MASTER ENGINEER TR’KEIRIANH HAS FINALLY MANAGED TO DISCOVER THE SOURCE OF THAT PECULIARITY IN THE WARP DRIVE THAT KEPT TROUBLING US DURING BLOODWING ’S LAST TOUR OF THE MARCHES NEAR THE HA-SUIWEN STARS. EVIDENTLY ONE OF THE MULTISTATE EQUIVOCATOR CRYSTALS WAS AT FAULT, THE CRYSTAL HAVING DEVELOPED A FLUID-STRESS FAULT THAT MALFUNCTIONED ONLY DURING MEGA-GAUSS MAGNETIC FIELD VARIATIONS OF THE KIND THAT OCCUR DURING HIGH WARP SPEEDS—AND NEVER IN THE TESTING CYCLE, WHICH IS WHY WE COULD NOT FIND THE SOURCE OF THE PROBLEM BEFORE. I HAVE RECOMMENDED TR’KEIRIANH FOR A MINOR COMMENDATION. MEAN WHILE, OTHER MATTERS ABOARD SHIP REMAIN SO UNREMARKABLE AND SO MUCH THE SAME AS WHEN I LAST WROTE YOU THAT THERE IS LITTLE USE IN CONTINUING THIS. I WILL CLOSE SAYING THAT VARIOUS OF BLOODWING ’S CREW HAVE ASKED ME TO OFFER THEIR OLD COMMANDER THEIR RESPECTS, WHICH NOW I DO, ALONG WITH MY OWN. THE ELEMENTS LOOK ON YOU WITH FAVOR. THIS BY MY HAND, THE ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH SHIP’S DAY SINCE BLOODWING ’S DEPAR TURE FROM CH’RIHAN, THE EIGHTY-NINTH DAY OF MY COMMAND. TR’RLLAILLIEU. LIFE TO THE IMPERIUM.
Ael smiled at the letter, a smile it was well that none of Cuirass ’s crew could see. Such a bland and uncommunicative missive was hardly in Tafv’s style. But it indicated that he knew as well as Ael what would happen to the letter when Ael’s ship received it. It would be read by tr’Khaell in communications, passed on to Security Officer t’Liun, who had tr’Khaell so firmly under her thumb, and avidly read for any possible sign of secret messages or disaffection—then put through cryptanalysis as well by t’Liun’s tool tr’Iawaain down in data processing. Much good it would do them; Tafv was not fool enough to put what he had to say in any code they would be able to break.
Oh, t’Liun would find something in cryptanalysis, to be sure. A stiff and elegant multiple-variable code, just complex enough to be realistic and careless enough to be breakable after a goodly period of head-beating. She would find a message that said, PLAN FAILED , APPEALS TO PRAETORATE UNSUCCESSFUL ; FURTHER ATTEMPTS REFUSED . Which, being exactly what t’Liun (and the High Command people who paid her) wanted to hear, would quiet them for a little while. Until it was too late, at least.
Ael leaned back and stretched. Tafv’s mention of repairs to the warp drive told her that he and Giellun tr’Keirianh, Elements bless both their twisty minds, had finally succeeded in attaching those stealthily-acquired Klingon gunnery augmentation circuits to Bloodwing ’s phasers—an addition that would give the valiant old ship three times a warbird’s usual firepower. Ael did not care for the Klingon ships that the Empire had been buying lately; their graceless design was offensive to her, and their workmanship was usually hasty and shoddy. But though Klingons might be abysmal shipwrights, they did know how to build guns. And though the adaptation to Bloodwing ’s phasers had bid fair to take forever, it had also been absolutely necessary for the success of their plan.
As for the rest of the letter, Tafv had made it plain to Ael that he was close, and ready, and waiting on her word. He had also told her plainly, by saying nothing, that his communications were being monitored too; that Command had refused to allow him details on Ael’s present location, which he evidently knew only by virtue of the new family spies still buried in Command Communications; that there was some expectation of the enemy in the quadrant to which Ael had been sent; and that her old crew was willing and ready to enact the plan which she and Tafv had been quietly concocting since the “honor guard” had come to escort Ael off Bloodwing to her new