Free Death World (Undying Mercenaries Series Book 5) by B. V. Larson Page B

reason.
    “Sir?” I asked. “Should I come back another time?”
    “Will your visit be any less annoying if it is postponed?”
    “I’m not sure I can promise that.”
    “Then let’s get this over with. Take a seat, James.”
    James. She usually didn’t call me that. She only did so, in fact, when she was in an amorous mood, or drunk.
    You have to understand that I’d had an inappropriate relationship with the imperator some years back. Most people, especially Winslade, still considered my familiarity with her to be improper.
    She came out of her inner sanctum a moment later with her hair still hanging limp and wet. She had clothes on, but they didn’t amount to a regulation uniform. She wore something like a sleeping jumper with rank insignia on the epaulets. It was the sort of thing officers wore to bed. But as usual, it was tighter than it was supposed to be. Smart clothes could be told to cinch-up if you wanted them to.
    “Uh…is this your off-duty shift, sir?” I asked.
    “Unfortunately, high level officers are never truly off-duty. Your visit is a clear exemplification of that reality. Now, before you waste any more of my time, get to the point. Why are you working so hard to see me in person?”
    “Because I think you’re making a mistake. I think you should check out all three of the systems where our enemy might have taken refuge as we originally planned.”
    “The raiders…of course. James, I know of your personal loss in this tragedy. I too, would like to hold the raiders accountable. But I have to be honest with you—we’ve lost them.”
    I blinked at her in surprise. “That’s not how I understand the situation.”
    “We had one chance, really, that first stop. After that, the odds that we’re following the right line grew very long indeed.”
    “But the techs did the math. This course should match that of the raiders. They have to come out eventually.”
    “Let’s assume you’re correct,” she said, toweling off her hair while I watched. “We may have been following the right course initially, but we must admit to certain realities. Any raider with a modicum of intelligence should have used the last few weeks to come out of warp, switch courses and fly in another direction. They could have done that a week ago, for example, and we would never have known as we were in a warp bubble ourselves and thus blinded. They could be doing it right now in fact—and again, we’d never know.”
    “I understand that. But a ship’s crew will normally take a straight path toward their destination while fleeing. We had three target stars they might have been trying to—”
    “Not really. We never had three targets. That first one held promise. The odds were high we’d catch them there. But now, the probability is slim. It’s simple mathematics. We drew a line following their initial path as best we could. But our measurements couldn’t be exact. Therefore, each lightyear we fly from the original starting point creates a cone of space, not a line, containing places they might stop. We’re reaching the wide end of that cone, and there are a great number of destinations within it. So as I explained, that first binary system was our only real hope.”
    I felt a wave of frustration. She might be right, and in fact I sensed that she at least believed she was, but I didn’t want to give up. Not yet.
    “You’re talking about the margin of error,” I said, “about probabilities. Well, if it’s hopeless, why aren’t we abandoning the hunt right now? Why not simply turn around and go home today?”
    “Politics and public relations forbid it,” she said, setting aside her towel and walking languidly around her desk to my side of it. She put her butt up against the edge of the desktop and leaned back, resting her hands on the desk. “We must make it seem we’ve searched everywhere to satisfy the angry mob back home. We’re going to return empty-handed in the end, and it would be best that we