He smiled again and turned to walk briskly towards the waiting shuttle.

“I’m sorry, Commander McKeon,” Rafael Cardones said, “but we’re moving as fast as we can. There’s no load on the relay now, and the final stage was an omnidirectional receiver. We’re working our way through the possible lines of sight, but with no power flow to track, we’re having to do it all by eye. I’m afraid it’s going to take time, Sir.”

“Understood.” Alistair McKeon nodded and patted the younger officer on the shoulder with absent gentleness. “I know you’re doing your best, Rafe. Let me know the instant you have something.”

“Aye, aye, Sir.” Cardones turned back to his station, and McKeon crossed to the command chair. He eased himself down in it and glanced unhappily at the closed hatch to the Captain’s briefing room. The catastrophic consequences of the raid on the drug lab had shocked him to the core, and a subdued air of depression hovered over the ship. He knew the Captain blamed herself for it. She was wrong. It wasn’t her fault, nor was it the fault of anyone else aboard Fearless, but the entire crew seemed to feel a personal sense of guilt over the disaster, one that cut all the deeper because of their earlier sense of achievement.

Yet there was something else under the guilt and depression. Anger. A seething hatred for whoever had set those charges with murder in his heart. He could feel it pulsing about him, bare-fanged and ugly, and it throbbed deep inside him, as well. For the first time since Harrington had taken command, he was truly one with his ship’s company, no longer buttressed off by his own resentment and private despair, and the need to rend and destroy simmered in his blood.

He folded his hands in his lap, then looked up as a chime sounded from the com section. He turned his head, and his eyes narrowed as he saw Webster stiffen and begin punching buttons. He was over on the right side of the panel, in the secure channels section, and something about the way his hands moved rang a warning in McKeon’s brain.

He slid from the command chair and padded over to the com officer’s shoulder just as Webster plugged a message board into his terminal and downloaded the unscrambled message to it. The lieutenant spun his chair and started to spring erect, then stopped as he saw the exec.

“What is it, Webster?” McKeon asked quickly, worried by the lieutenant’s pale face and tight expression.

“It’s a priority message, Sir. From Lieutenant Venizelos at Basilisk Control. He says—” The lieutenant broke off and extended the board, and McKeon’s face clenched as he scanned the brief, terse message. He raised his eyes and locked them with the lieutenant’s.

“No one else hears about this until the Captain or I tell you different, Webster,” he said very softly. “Clear?”

“Yes, Sir,” Webster said, equally quietly.

The exec nodded and turned on his heel, striding briskly across the bridge. “You have the watch, Mr. Webster,” he called over his shoulder, and tapped sharply on the briefing room’s admittance panel. The hatch hissed open, and he disappeared through it.