Innes in Command
Copyright© 2026 by Lumpy
Chapter 27
Innes was spending this shift trying to get as much in order as he could before the Illustrious arrived, and he would be relieved. He already knew his reputation was shot, and this was going to set him back years in his career, but that didn’t mean he had to give up on himself.
He wasn’t going to leave behind a mess for the next guy to deal with. Being the black sheep didn’t mean he couldn’t have pride in himself.
Besides, he’d gotten used to being the black sheep.
“Sir, I’m getting an encrypted, tight-beam burst transmission toward the asteroid belt,” the ops crewman said, sounding genuinely confused.
For good reason. While there were mining cooperatives in the belt running their logistics through Shiro, they didn’t use encrypted channels to do that. For one, that kind of equipment was generally not available to the public, and what was would be much too expensive for the shoestring operations that worked out of the belt.
And for another, in the time they’d been here, they had never seen anyone do that before.
“Can you pinpoint where it originated?”
“That’s the strange part,” he said, as if the transmission itself wasn’t strange enough. “It’s coming from station ops itself.”
“Station ops?” Innes asked, now equally confused.
While they were one of the few people on the station able to send regular encrypted transmissions, why in the world would they be sending one to the belt?
“That’s what it shows.”
“Get me Commander Jun.”
It took a few minutes for the connection to be made and for someone to track the Commander down, his face appeared on Innes’s screen.
“Ensign, what can I do for you today?” Jun said.
“I just wanted to check with you on the encrypted transmission that just came from ops, tight-beamed out to the belt. I wanted to make sure we’re not reading things wrong down here.”
“Transmission? One second,” he said, and the line was muted as Jun turned from the camera pickup and talked to someone else.
Innes couldn’t hear what they were saying, but from the expressions on Jun’s face and how animatedly he was talking, they were equally as confused as he was.
After several long minutes of this, Jun unmuted and looked back at the pickup. “It’s damned odd. We’re seeing the transmission too, but it did not originate here. None of my people sent it, and it looks like it was routed from somewhere else in the station, but if it was, whoever did it covered their tracks very well. It’s going to take us some time to work out where it came from.”
“Can you see where it was sent, specific location?”
“No. We have a rough sense of the coordinates, but the belt obscures our sensors from seeing exactly where. We could probably give you coordinates to check, if you want to send your shuttle out there.”
Innes immediately thought of the sensor ghost and the impression both Paquette and the shuttle pilot got that it was a good-sized contact, much larger than their own shuttle.
“Not yet, not until we know what’s out there. I don’t want to fly blind into something like that. Not with the pirates operating all across that area.”
“Probably a good call. I’ll comm you as soon as we know more.”
“Thanks, Commander. Kingsford out,” he said, disconnecting.
“Sir,” Chief Baker said almost as soon as he’d disconnected. “The Distant Horizon just filed a departure plan and is firing up her drives.”
“What?” Innes asked.
The ship had been sitting there almost the entire time he’d been on the station, just holding idle, and now, all of a sudden, it wanted to leave. It hadn’t loaded any cargo or unloaded any, and the story had been that they were waiting for a rendezvous, so it made no sense that they suddenly wanted to leave.
Except the story had always sounded like a cover to him, but the timing with the tight beam out to the belt was troubling.
“Yes, sir, they’re requesting clearance for a lane back to the GATE point.”
“There was another transmission just after the transmission to the belt,” the ops crewman said. “This one came from the trade consul’s office. It was unencrypted, but we didn’t get a read on it.”
Unless in a very heightened state of security, like during wartime or some kind of security breach, the Navy didn’t go about reading other people’s comm traffic without very specific reasons. That went even more so for this detachment, which was already in hot water for ‘stepping over the line.’
He wished he’d put orders to record every transmission out of the trade counsel’s office, though, because he was sure Tan was up to his neck in all of this, and the sudden departure of the Distant Horizon on the heels of the signal to the belt all but proved that.
“Shiro control is granting her request. Should we ask them to hold?” Chief Baker asked.
“Not now, but keep track of her. What’s her time to the GATE point?”
“At her weight, nine hours if she pushes her engines.”
He knew this was all connected and something was about to happen, and the smart move would be to hold the Distant Horizon until he could work the whole thing out, because once they made it through the GATE, they would be out of his reach and a piece of the puzzle gone with them.
Except he didn’t have nearly enough information to do that. If nothing happened, the captain would demand to know what evidence he had to justify holding a foreign ship, and he’d have to admit he had none.
He’d screwed his career enough. He didn’t need to tank it further. That didn’t mean he couldn’t do anything, however. With the two transmissions and the Distant Horizon leaving, he was positive that whatever was happening was happening today.
He was going to be as ready for it as he could possibly be.
“Chief,” Innes said, “Put the entire detachment on alert and prepare the shuttle and the remaining CAP fighters for immediate launch, including full combat loadout. Also, have the Marines prep their full loadout.”
“Aye,” the Chief said.
His people knew their jobs. On any combat ship, every crewman knew they might be called to service at any time and would come running out of a dead sleep if the alarms went off. For those not asleep, the alert status would tell them to keep an eye out. It also meant all crew had to stay in the detachment area and prepared for service, so if anyone was out somewhere on the station, this would bring them back in. They had only been off shift for about five hours, though, and it was best to let them get as much rest as they could until whatever was going to happen kicked off.
What else? What was the name of that ship, the one whose captain had stopped by to have a chat? The Skylark, that was it.
“Open a channel to Captain Delon on the Skylark.”
The connection took a moment to establish. When Delon appeared on screen, he looked like a man who had been enjoying a quiet morning before naval business intruded.
“Ensign Kingsford. What can I do for you?”
“Captain, I need your assistance. There is a chance we might need to deploy some military equipment that won’t fit on our shuttle, and I was hoping you could run it out for us. This might not happen, but I should know in the next few hours if it is necessary. I don’t want to keep you from your run, but if you haven’t loaded yet, would you mind holding off for a bit, and be prepared for my people to load some equipment on your ship?”
Innes wanted to avoid setting off any alarm bells if he could, both because there was still a chance he was wrong and, even if he was right, he wanted to avoid starting any panics.
“I ... uhh ... is what you want to load dangerous? I’m a commercial hauler. My insurance doesn’t cover...”
“I understand your hesitation, and your ship will not be in harm’s way, in any way. Also, if we do need you, this would be considered an exigent emergency, and you should fall under the CDF compensation plans. Additionally, I personally will guarantee to make right any damages to your ship, if the Navy doesn’t.”
Innes knew he was going out on a limb. He vaguely remembered the disaster and economic relief laws they studied in one of his constitutional law classes at the Academy, but what a textbook required and what the Navy would actually do were not always the same thing.
He was also pushing it by personally guaranteeing that much. He had a substantial trust fund, but cargo haulers, even smaller-sized ones like this, had heavy price tags well beyond what he could fund out of pocket.
Which meant if it came to it, he would need to have his father step in, which would be a truly uncomfortable conversation.
Still, the captain didn’t know that, and giving the promise of Kingsford backing changed his attitude quickly.
“I see. No, we haven’t loaded yet, but we were going to start shortly. Do you know how long this will be?”
“I don’t have an exact timetable, but it shouldn’t be more than a few hours.”
The captain was quiet for a moment, considering.
“Yeah, I’ll hold off for now and keep my guys nearby in case you need us. Call me in a few hours if nothing happens, though, okay?”
“I will. I promise,” Innes said, and cut the line.
He was taking a serious gamble. He truly hoped he was wrong, because if he was right, then something bad was about to happen. Of course, if he was wrong, his career would take another nasty hit.
The next two hours were the longest of Innes’s life.
He barely moved, all of his attention focused on the tactical displays in front of him, almost willing something to happen. And for two hours, nothing did.
The rest of the station went on with business as usual.
Enough time passed that Innes began second-guessing himself. Maybe he was reading too much into it. The transmission could have just been to a mining outpost, and the Distant Horizon’s sudden departure could have just been them giving up on waiting and deciding to return home.
But for that to be true, he’d have to ignore everything else, and the totality of the events since he’d arrived at the station said he wasn’t wrong.
He was running out of time, though. The Skylark’s captain would soon get tired of waiting, and the Distant Horizon was already picking up speed as it moved away from the station.
If something was going to happen, he thought, it needed to happen now.
Then the universe answered.
He was startled out of the almost meditative state he’d worked himself into, when a new signal appeared on the edge of his sensor display.
“Sir,” Chief Baker said. “I’m getting a contact emerging from the asteroid belt, bearing two-seven-three mark fifteen! Range approximately two point four million kilometers.”
“Give me a full scan, Chief,” Innes ordered.