Forest of Gwyr, Carolyn Ranges, Commitment
Lieutenant Commander Fellsworth moodily poked at the small fire she had coaxed into life, its flames throwing splashes of yellow-gold onto the walls of the huge limestone cavern that had been her home for what seemed like a lifetime.
Cursing the fate that had posted her to the Ishaq in the first place, she spit into the fire and got up. Time to walk around her little empire. No sooner had she started to climb up the mound of broken limestone that nearly filled the mouth of the cave than a figure burst in, the spacer’s excitement plain to see.
“Got a tickle; my neuronics got a tickle!” the woman shouted. “We’ve been found!”
Looking back later, Fellsworth would swear that her heart stopped for a moment. For so long she’d wanted to believe that somehow one of her spacers had gotten a message through to the embassy in McNair. Now, when proof finally had arrived, she could not believe it.
“Show me,” she ordered, scrambling out of the cave into the open air.
Five minutes later, she sat watching in disbelief as a little flybot maneuvered with exquisite precision down through the forest canopy before setting down on the ground right in front of her.
“Fuuuck,” Fellsworth hissed through clenched teeth. They had been found. They really had been found. The Ishaqs around her erupted into cheers, laughter, shouts. Spacers and marines in tattered shipsuits were dancing around the little bot in an uncontrolled frenzy of joy, the noise rising as word spread, the rest of the Ishaqs pouring in to see what all the fuss was about.
It took a while, but finally Fellsworth restored order. She commed into the bot and, her identity confirmed, waved one of the spacers to flip the bot over, its belly opening to reveal the payload of comm gear. To whom it would connect her, she had no idea, but as long as it worked, she did not care. It sure as hell would not be to the Hammers.
Amos Bichel terminated the voice call from Fellsworth.
Finally, he thought, he had something to plan around, though how in God’s name they were going to get the Ishaq’s crew off-planet was completely beyond him at the moment. There was no obvious answer to that problem. At least they now had absolute, incontrovertible proof that the Hammer had been behind the destruction of the Ishaq. Helfort’s testimony was good but, on its own, not good enough. This was. It pinned the whole mership campaign on the Hammers; now they were on borrowed time.
Comming the ambassador, he started to put together his report. If he was quick, he would get a courier away in time to catch the next flight out.