by E A Wicklund
Springbok sailed along for about half an hour without incident when Raj suddenly shifted course, then almost as quickly brought the ship back.
McCray leaned into his hand. Ship’s navigators could do that and captain’s weren’t allowed to criticize them for it. Space monsters, Raj? McCray thought to himself. The Navigator’s Guild used to claim creatures, powerful enough to destroy ships, lived in the strata. McCray thought it was all hooey. No substantial proof had ever been offered.
As he looked towards Ando, the officer’s normally cheerful expression abruptly changed and his face fell.
“Anything wrong, Ando?” McCray asked.
“I’m receiving a broadcast from Huralon. It’s a news transmission from the Schubert News System.”
SNS was based in the Egalitarian Stars of Elysium but was popular enough that it was broadcast throughout all nations in Human space.
McCray watched his comms officer carefully. “Why the long face, Ando?”
“Perhaps you’d prefer to view it in private, sir?”
McCray felt a twinge in his gut. What could’ve happened to put a frown on the light-hearted Ando? Was it war? “If it’s a broadcast, everyone will know soon enough, Ando. In the tank, if you please.”
The familiar screen of the SNS lit the tank. The rotating banner at the bottom of the view displayed the text, “Urgent News Bulletin!” as it always did no matter what. The main news screen displayed the DPM’s Prime Minister Zaman. He spoke to the cameras, shaking his fist. His customary righteous indignation, suggesting he was being personally repressed, had kept in office for many decades.
He stood at a podium raging, purple-faced before members of the press.
“This premeditated attack upon the innocent people of the Democratic Peoples of Madkhal is further proof of the imperialist intentions of the infamous Elysium military forces. Leading this attack was none other than the war criminal, Captain Terrell Callaway. He ruthlessly and heartlessly attacked the DPS Scirocco while it carried medical supplies on a mission of mercy. This dog’s blood-thirsty nature led him on crusade for glory resulting in the deaths of thousands of innocents. I call upon the Egalitarian Stars to bring this madman to justice!”
“There wasn’t a thousand on the whole ship,” Piper said.
“XO,” said McCray. “Were there medical supplies aboard the Scirocco?”
“No, but there was a significant store of red wine. I’ve found it medicinal, especially after Ando had the watch.”
“Hey!”
Chuckles danced around the bridge.
“Well, Zaman is a great speaker, albeit categorically dishonest,” McCray said. “Was this what you were concerned about, Ando?”
“No, sir. It’s this part coming up.”
An SNS anchorwoman replaced Zaman’s image saying, “Despite earlier reports of a naval victory, questions are being raised about how lawful Captain Callaway’s actions actually were. Admiral Gaatz had this to say.”
The image of Admiral Gaatz replaced her. Though nanomeds had kept his face young, he still wore the salt-and-pepper, lambchop sideburns of an older man from a bygone age.
“The efforts of the Egalitarian Stars Navy are entirely peaceful. We wish only to maintain positive relations with our neighbors and ensure safe navigation of the space lanes. How ESS William Martin’s anti-piracy patrol led to these unfortunate events is unknown at this time. This was a rogue act and not reflective in any way of Navy policy. At this point, Captain Callaway has been placed on administrative leave, pending a thorough investigation of his acts. No questions please. Thank you.”
Only the hum of machinery punctured the stunned silence on the bridge. Everyone knew that “Callaway” was code for McCray. What was said about Callaway was said about McCray. All eyes turned to him.
McCray felt like his heart had been ripped from his chest and squeezed until it gave one last quivering beat. The very deck beneath his feet seemed to drift away, leaving him to fall helplessly back into hell, back to a soul-sucking lifelessness on the beach. He steeled himself and managed to keep his expression neutral as he stood.
“I don’t believe it,” said Zahn. “We just pulled off an intelligence coup. There must be some kind of mistake, sir.”
“I agree, XO. We’ll get to the bottom of this.” McCray’s voice to his own ears was toneless, cold as space. “You have the Conn.”
***
In his stateroom, McCray yanked the comms cable from his neck and threw the coffin door open.
Aja was in his stateroom. “Hey, sweetheart. You’re finished early. I poured you a glass of this terrific brandy—”
McCray picked up the brandy and heaved it towards the bulkhead. Aja caught it in the air, her outrageous motor skills meant not a drop spilled free.
She looked at him like he was a child having a harmless hissy fit “Oookay. So that’ll be a ‘no’ on the brandy?”
That fact he couldn’t even break something properly just made things worse. His fists clenched impotently. He was failing on all fronts. He couldn’t stay out of trouble with the Admiralty. Damn, he couldn’t break a glass if he wanted to, and then his choice of lovers seemed dubious at best. Oddly, that last hurt the worst. He wondered if he was just a naive plaything for Aja.
Had he been projecting some fantasy of perfection upon her? Betrayal swarmed about him on dark wings; the people he wanted to trust were taking advantage of his vulnerability. If he couldn’t trust Admiral Gaatz, then how could he trust an IS-3 assassin? McCray dropped in a chair with his head in his hands. Then he felt Aja at his side, her hair tumbling across his shoulders as she held him. “What’s wrong, Vann?”
McCray murmured at the deck, “Captain Callaway has been placed on Administrative Leave.”
Being the intelligence officer assigned to the mission, she would know what that meant, and she stood up abruptly. “What? What the hell for?”
“Apparently, I committed a ‘rogue act.’”
“That’s bullshit! I saw the reports. They were preparing to fire on us.”
“See for yourself. It’s in the shipwide queue.”
She called up the broadcast on her datapad, growling as she hunted for it. She watched the SNS broadcast three or four times; McCray wasn’t sure. She played it too many times for his taste.
“Something’s not right here. Gaatz knew we might be engaged by a Madkhali ship. He never ruled out hostile action, in fact he considered it likely. I know, I wrote part of the op plan.”
So she had been in on it from the beginning.
“Seems like Gaatz changed his mind.”
“No. Something else is going on here. It smells like political bullshit to me.” She stepped to his side once again. “It’s going to be fine, sweetie. Trust me. I’ll get to the bottom of this.”
McCray lifted his head but stared at nothing. Admiral Gaatz had asked for him specifically. He said he liked McCray’s tactical savvy and his aggressiveness because the mission would likely need both. He had made it clear that it if it came down to shooting, Gaatz would guard his back.
Except now he didn’t.
Who could he trust? It seemed like a godsend when Gaatz stood up for him when no one else would. But then, sometimes when things seemed too good to be true, they were. They had needed someone to tangle with the pirates, but the political implications of a firefight with a Madkhali vessel made that diplomatically bad news. The Admiralty needed an unwitting pawn, someone they could throw the blame on when the shooting finished.
And that was McCray.
With this happening, those old nagging concerns about Aja returned from their cave to haunt him. Aja and Gaatz worked together on this op plan, right? They knew he was vulnerable, willing to do anything to get off the beach. Throw in a woman to keep a lonely fellow manageable and the plan was complete. Of course they gave Aja a farm girl persona, someone that anyone raised in metropolitan areas instinctively believed were scrupulously honest. It was unrealistic of city-folk to think th
at, but the knee-jerk reaction existed and could be manipulated. They didn’t need a real farm girl either. Just a good actress. McCray was so inexperienced with relationships, she’d probably considered it child’s play to work her way into his heart. Anyone could’ve made that sim of Curassus. For all he knew, she grew up in New Chicago.
McCray no longer felt safe revealing vulnerabilities to her. He gently disentangled himself. “And how do I know you’re not putting on a show too, just like Gaatz?”
“Huh? What show?”
“It’s…it’s this. This perfect sweetheart routine. Is this really you?”
An angry fire he’d never seen before lit in her eyes. “Of course, it’s me!”
“How do I know that? Are you even really from Curassus?”
She held her hands up. “Okay, okay. I see where this is coming from.”
McCray pressed on. A little voice inside him warned about sailing into dangerous waters, but he couldn’t stop himself. “What are you like, really? Are the things we do together for just us? Am I in some report to Quartermain?”
Her expression hardened, eyes like jagged crystals. “Now, that’s over the line, McCray.”
“There!” He pointed at her severe expression. “There, is that the real you?”
She spun about and began picking up the clothes that had made their home in his stateroom for weeks. When she turned back, a tear was sliding across her cheek and she swiped it away with an angry gesture. “I can tell you need some time. You’re going through a rough patch, and maybe you need some room to think.”
When she left the stateroom, that little voice in his head started shouting. He ran to the door. “Aja, wait!” He looked into the passageway, but she was already gone.
***
Aja burst into her quarters and slammed her recorder down on the little desk. She started it up and began raging. “What are you idiots doing over there? When does the Navy suddenly give a damn about Madkhal’s feelings? Who gives a feck? Who told Gaatz to make that broadcast? You ham-handed fools have placed the whole mission at risk. I’m doing everything I can to keep Arthur from falling off his emotional tightrope, and then you morons nearly push him off it. What are we doing here? And where is the damned courier? We’ve been in Huralon nearly a day and nothing yet. What are you clowns doing?”
Her groan quickly built into angry roar, letting it all out in a kind of primal scream. She couldn’t send that, and it was pointless to edit it. Clearly, she was in no mood to give a reasoned, rational report.
She plopped down on her sleeping rack. “Erase my last.”
Damn McCray and his paranoia. She understood he feared being sent back to the beach and worried that she was a plant. It didn’t matter, she hated the whole damned situation anyway. It seemed like the loving arms of mutual trust would never hold her tight. She wanted a close relationship, one of trust and love, and believed she had found it at last with McCray. But once more, that same old specter of “You’re a spy? Then how can I trust you?” that had crushed every relationship before, raised its ugly head.
To make matters worse, it wasn’t anything she did that cracked the bedrock, it was Gaatz and his damned broadcast. That was so unlike him. What was he thinking? Twisting the sheets of the rack into her balled fists, she could think of a few scenarios. But if those were true that meant Gaatz would have sent a private message to explain himself. So where was it? They had been in Huralon for a day and they should have received a courier message with orders from Gaatz by now. For that matter, IS-3 should have sent orders for her along with them. The absence of either struck her as ominous. Was the situation on Huralon less stable than it seemed?
Aja stood up and collected a bag from a locker, jamming articles of clothing into it. At this point, she didn’t know if she wanted to continue with McCray or not, but she would make sure McCray knew his mistrust of her was baseless. For that matter, the Admiralty was publicly throwing one of its best captains under the bus. That was wrong and needed to be sorted out just on general principles.
Who knows? If the orders from Gaatz said what she thought they would, McCray might realize how much he’d misread her. Maybe, if he got on his knees and begged for forgiveness she’d take him back.The thought emerged with a half-smile and the realisation that if a way to make things good between them existed, she would find it.. The idle fantasy fell away quickly, no more than a leaf in the winds of real life, and she zipped the bag closed.
Healing like that had no chance just yet. The first step to repairing the rift between them meant finding Springbok’s orders. McCray would remain in a funk and be impossible to deal with, she expected, until he learned precisely what the Admiralty was doing. Without that, there could be no healing. She had work to do, and that meant reconnecting with IS-3 on Huralon.
.
Chapter 10
It took more than a day before they docked at Hikonojo Port. The orbital habitat’s nine kilometer diameter and twenty-one kilometer length dominated the view screens aboard Springbok. Seven other large vessels clung to its outstretched slips with room for plenty more, while countless small ships swarmed about it like bees tending to a honeycomb.
Springbok rang with myriad conversations as crewman, who would normally be working from their sarcos, walked through the passageways, chatting excitedly together. They obviously looked forward to liberty on Hikonojo, even if restricted in how they would enjoy it. The classified nature of the ship meant their entertainment was limited to certain areas in the habitat. The restaurants, theaters, and adult entertainments were all staffed by specially-cleared civilians; people who IS-3 had worked with successfully before.
It wouldn’t be a great liberty, the choices being minimal, but it sufficed for the moment.
In the Captain’s Office—the physical one—McCray idly prodded the desktop with fingernail, trying to scratch it. The extruded altoferramic was too tough, of course, comprising much of the ship’s skeleton. “I should just turn the ship over to you now.”
It wouldn’t be long now, he expected, before a courier vessel arrived from the local Admiralty house. He’d have just a few hours to collect his personal belongings and go. This beautiful ship and her wonderful crew would be lost to him forever.
“No, sir,” said Zahn. “I told you I can’t accept that until I have orders in my hand.”
“You heard Gaatz say I was placed on administrative leave. Who are we kidding?”
“He said ‘Callaway’ was.”
“Which is me.”
“Which is not, precisely, you. Callaway is also a convenient punching bag if the Navy wants to punish him instead of you. The other thing is, you brought a victory back to the Navy just after it got a bloody nose with the loss of ESS Hardy. For them to publicly throw you to the wolves like that strikes me as suspicious. The Admiralty doesn’t normally work like that, except under duress. No, I’ll not take the ship from you without something concrete in my hand.”
McCray just nodded, remembering Aja had said something similar. “I still think you’re making a mistake, possibly one that will affect your career.”
Zahn shook his head. “I don’t think so. I have reservations, and I’ve put that in the record, too. I’m that sure.”
McCray heard the duty Comms Officer pinging him via Iris. “Captain here.”
“First ship from Arcoplex is approaching, sir. They’re ready to take on Scirocco’s crew. You asked to be notified.”
“Copy that. Thank you. How long will the transfer take?”
“That’s the bad news, sir. They have just two available shuttles that can take forty at a time. It’s going to take a while to get everyone off.”
McCray rolled his eyes. Factor in travel time for each trip and that could take days to get all six-hundred Sciroccos planetside. Springbok had four marine assault shuttles that could’ve helped, but they couldn’t use them. While it was believable a civilian ship could’ve been contracted to bring Scirocco’s crew to Arcoplex, military shutt
les emerging from it would leave observers asking uncomfortable questions. “Very well. McCray clear.”
“Everything okay?” said Zahn.
“Looks like we’ll be sitting in dock for a while.”
***
While most of the crew enjoyed liberty in port, McCray sequestered himself on the bridge, absorbing the feel of his beloved ship as much as possible until the Navy bodily dragged him off it.
Despite what everyone told him, he felt he would soon lose his ship. Zahn, Coopersmith, and others offered practical, logical arguments why he wouldn’t, but he felt the inevitable move by the Admiralty centered on political motivations. When any government bothered following logic at all, it was for the purpose of maintaining its own existence.
He stared down, watching ships pass by on the external view of the deck’s tactical screens. Normally, he would’ve visited Admiralty House in Hikonojo. Visiting captains usually did so right away. It wasn’t required but expected. He rather missed discussing naval tactics with his fellow captains over a game of snooker, single malt in hand. This time, it could not be. In the role as a civilian captain, he could not visit that bastion of military officers. The Q-ship must maintain an ironclad cover as a civilian vessel, and civvie captains did not visit Admiralty House. The sense of disconnection left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Looking around at the bridge, he knew he would miss it. He loved the Springbok; all the latest technology, all the latest concepts in ship design produced it. And, wonder of wonders, it all worked. Most new ship types would have revealed some major design flaw by this time, but not Springbok. She and her crew performed superbly during their first combat.
McCray leaned his elbow into the little divot he’d worn into the armrest. Captains didn’t normally stand watches on the bridge while in port Junior officers could manage the light workload. The bridge was staffed mostly to receive communications and be present in the event a sailor got into trouble with the local constabulary or worse yet, a local girl or boy, during liberty. McCray placed himself on the watchlist anyway, looking for an excuse to avoid the crushing emptiness of his stateroom without Aja. They hadn’t spoken since their argument, the moment had never seemed right to do so, and after it, all the life had fled the compartment.
