HMS Nightingale (Alexis Carew Book 4)

by J. A. Sutherland

  Her jaw tightened as Nabb turned and she caught sight of his face. A large, livid bruise covered one eye and half of the lad’s cheek.

  In one piece, I’d prefer.

  She started to call out, then stopped — it wouldn’t do for her to single him out if he was having troubles. That would likely only make the matter worse.

  “Mister Ousley!” she called instead. “A moment, if you please.”

  The bosun approached and she gestured for him to follow her out of earshot of the others.

  “Aye, sir?”

  “Our young stowaway, Mister Ousley,” Alexis said. “Is he well?”

  Ousley pursed his lips.

  “He talked back a bit at first, sir, when things wasn’t to his understanding, but that ended quick. He’ll do first and question later, now.”

  Alexis caught her lower lip between her teeth, unsure of how to phrase what she wanted to ask. Common discipline was the province of Ousley and his mates — she didn’t want to undercut or question him, but neither did she want Nabb to carry marks like that back to Dalthus.

  “I’m not questioning your methods, Mister Ousley,” she began, “and I know it’s not usual, but the lad’s likely going to return to his home when we next make a call at Dalthus …” She let herself trail off.

  Ousley frowned. “Come to that, sir, young Nabb’s a quick learner. If I had a deck full of him instead of these …” It was Ousley’s turn to trail off. He cleared his throat and shrugged. “He’s quick as any landsman come aboard, sir, and twice as eager — I’ll give him that.”

  “Still,” Alexis said. She cleared her own throat. “I’d not have his mother think we’d abused him — when he does return home.”

  “Abused?” Ousley’s brow furrowed, then he drew his shoulders back. “Sir! My mates’ve given the lad a cuff or two, sure, but them marks ain’t from us.”

  “Then what?”

  Ousley sniffed. “Watch our young Nabb’s mess come next Up Spirits, sir, and you’ll see a thing. Him and his mates, they don’t give up a thing to … well, there’s no sippers or gulpers coming out of that lot to certain others, if you take my meaning.”

  Alexis struggled to think of who Nabb messed with and was a bit ashamed to realize she hadn’t taken note. There was so much to do, and Nightingale in such a poor state, that it had slipped her mind to check. She was glad, though, that some of the stronger men had taken the lad in and were helping keep him safe from the predations of the likes of Scarborough and his lot.

  She took a deep breath. “Well, it’s a relief he’s found a place with those who’ll keep him safe from that, at least. I am sorry I questioned you on it, though. I should have known the blows hadn’t come from you or your mates.”

  Ousley nodded, though he still looked puzzled. He scratched the back of his neck and pursed his lips as though considering something.

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but you may not have the right of it,” he said finally. “Young Nabb’s taken up with Widdison’s mess.”

  Now it was Alexis’ turn to look puzzled. The men in that mess were far from young or strong — they were three of the oldest men aboard Nightingale.

  “It’s Nabb’s driven the wolves off them, sir, not the other way around,” Ousley said. “Scarborough’s had a limp for nigh a week and that miner, Spracklen, well, there’s talk his voice is a tune or two higher, if you take my meaning, sir.”

  Alexis looked back to the assembled men, where Nabb and one of Ousley’s mates were assembling the antigrav pallets which would soon hold supplies to be loaded aboard the boat.

  “I see,” she said.

  Ousley nodded.

  “He’s a likely lad, sir,” the bosun said.

  “Yes.” Alexis paused for a moment. “Thank you, Mister Ousley.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  She watched Ousley return to the men and smiled slightly to herself. It was just like Nabb’s father for him to be watching out for those he could. She only hoped he wouldn’t be too disappointed when his mum came to get him on their return to Dalthus.

  Alexis turned her attention back to their reason for landing on Man’s Fall and scanned the horizon, frustrated at the delays. Why on earth couldn’t the landing field have been adjacent to a town as on other worlds, instead of here in the middle of nowhere?

  If not for a single, small building and a break in the trees beside it marking the road to town, there was no evidence of human habitation. Toward the opposite horizon, though, a tall column of smoke rose into the air.

  “What do you suppose that’s from?” she wondered aloud.

  Villar spoke from behind her, making her jump. “Some farmstead burning debris, I imagine, sir.”

  Alexis frowned, continuing to stare at the distant column of smoke. Had she just seen …

  “Did you see that?”

  A glint, as of reflected light, had flashed momentarily before disappearing.

  “See what, sir?”

  “Just there —” Alexis pointed — she thought now she could make out a darker speck in the air to the right of the smoke column, far away and moving farther, then gone from her sight. “Something in the air just to the right of the smoke. An aircar, perhaps?”

  Villar looked, frowned, then shrugged.

  “I don’t see it, sir. Certainly not an aircar, though. They’ve none of those on Man’s Fall. A bird between here and there, perhaps. The perspective might make it seem farther away.”

  Alexis stared at the smoke column for a moment longer. The more she thought on it, the more certain she became that it had been a human craft, not some bird.

  Birds do not reflect light — and she was certain she’d seen a glint in the sky.

  “Everyone back aboard, Mister Villar,” she said suddenly. “We’re going to investigate that smoke.”

  “Sir? What? We can’t do that —”

  “We most certainly can, Mister Villar, and I intend to. If Man’s Fall truly has no air vehicles at all, then what I just saw should not exist, and that’s far too much smoke for a simple brush pile to be burning.”

  “Sir, the colony’s charter doesn’t allow for us to land anywhere but here, they’ve specifically —”

  “I’ve reviewed the charter, Mister Villar.” Alexis fixed her gaze on him. As her first lieutenant it was his prerogative to advise her, but also to carry out her orders. “See the men back to the boat — instanter!”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Alexis made her own way back to the boat’s ramp. She’d explain her reasoning to Villar once they were airborne again — it would help them both if he understood her thinking, but didn’t want him in the habit of expecting to hear it before following her orders.

  An aircar or ship’s boat on a planet where one shouldn’t be, flying away from a smoke column, not toward the planet’s only town. Though there were no other ships in system, she knew that new colonies were often preyed upon — she’d heard her grandfather tell the story of a band who’d attacked Dalthus in its early years.

  Bloody pirates.

  The site, when they reached it, was worse than Alexis had feared — worse than her grandfather’s stories of the pirate attacks in Dalthus’ early years.

  Every building on the farmstead was in flames. The barn had been consumed quickly and was already collapsed, while the house was still recognizable as a structure.

  To Alexis, the layout looked very much like her home on Dalthus — too much like home for her comfort, given the destruction.

  Rasch, the boat’s pilot, landed well away from the flames, and Alexis quickly exited along with Villar and the rest of the boat’s crew. There was little sound other than the roar of the flames, and no movement around the farmstead.

  Alexis looked around and frowned.

  “There’re no animals.”

  “Sir?”

  “No horses, cows, nothing … not even chickens left behind. They must have taken them.”

  “The farmers did?”

  Alexis
shook her head. “What do you think happened here, Mister Villar?”

  Villar looked around. “The fire got out of hand and the farmers fled to a neighbor?”

  Alexis sighed. “I think not. No settler would flee like that and rounding up a farm’s complement of livestock isn’t so easy. No, the farmers would still be here fighting the blaze and trying to save their livelihood, if they had the chance.”

  She pointed to the farmhouse where flames were licking up the sides of the open doorway. The door itself was shattered and hanging from one hinge. A line of holes stitched across it from corner to the other.

  “What does that look like to you, Mister Villar?”

  Now it was Villar’s turn to frown. “I’d say it was flechette shot, sir, but Man’s Fall has no modern weapons — they barely accept chemical propellants, and those only for hunting.”

  “The settlers may have no modern weapons, Mister Villar, but someone does, and a ship’s boat as well.” She glanced back at the men gathered at the stern of Nightingale’s boat. “Have the men break out the boat’s firefighting gear. We should be able to put a stop to the burning —” She paused. “I expect we’ll find the worst of it inside the buildings.”

  The boat crew began dousing the buildings with flame retardant, putting an end to the flames and then gaining access to the building. Despite her hopes, Alexis’ worst fears were confirmed as the crew began pulling bodies from the wreckage.

  Leaving them to it, Alexis turned her attention to finding those who’d done this. She contacted Nightingale with her tablet. With no other ships in orbit, whoever’d attacked the farmstead must have a settlement or base of some kind on the planet. Man’s Fall would make a fine location for such a thing, being habitable and the colonists having no satellite tracking or modern craft of their own.

  “Mister Spindler,” she asked once Nightingale answered, “have you detected any air activity originating from our position?”

  There was a long pause.

  “Your position, sir?”

  “Yes, the boat’s position.”

  “Ah … at the landing site, sir? I thought there’d just be ours, as the locals have no air vehicles.”

  Alexis frowned.

  “Mister Spindler, is it your belief that the ship’s boat is still at the designated Man’s Fall landing site?”

  Another pause.

  “It’s not, sir?”

  Alexis clenched her teeth.

  “Is the tactical station not scanning the planet? Did you not track our movement from the landing field?”

  Yet another pause, along with muffled conversation.

  “It’s … well, sir, Dorsett says as there’s never anything to see here, what with them not having any kind of technology at all and never any ships visiting, well, he —”

  “‘Dorsett says’, Mister Spindler?”

  “Well, he —”

  Alexis’ temper broke. Her frustration with Nightingale’s crew had been building for some time — their inability to perform even the simplest of shipboard tasks without some sort of fiasco occurring, the time it took them, and now her officers. Villar’s questioning and quarrelsome looks at the start, Spindler’s …

  “Mister Spindler, do the standing orders not call for the ship to monitor all traffic in the system and on the planet when in orbit?”

  “They do, sir, but Dorsett —”

  “Dorsett is not a ship’s officer, Mister Spindler, you are!” Alexis could see the shocked look on Spindler’s face and a matching one on Villar’s, but she didn’t care at the moment. The boy might be young, but he’d been left in command of a Queen’s ship. “Nightingale was left in your hands, and you’ve failed in that duty! Dorsett’s desire not to do his bloody work is no excuse for your allowing it!”

  “I’m sorry, sir, I —”

  Alexis could see that the boy was blinking back tears, and a part of her felt bad about it, but it also felt good to finally relieve some of the frustration which had built up in her since coming aboard Nightingale.

  “So now you’ve no idea where we are in the ship’s boat, Mister Spindler, and believe me I’ll be having words with Rasch for not properly notifying you, but you should have had us monitored in any case! And, worse, there’re dead colonists here and we’ve no idea where the perpetrators came from or fled to thanks to your bloody Dorsett-saids!”

  Twenty-Six

  18 November, Man’s Fall System

  Alexis loaded the crew back aboard Nightingale’s boat and returned to their original landing site. Along the way, she shared some choice words with the boat’s pilot for not notifying the ship when they’d moved, then settled into a row of seats away from the others. She closed her eyes, already regretting her loss of temper.

  Spindler was young and hadn’t yet had the benefit of serving aboard a larger ship where there were other midshipman to take him in hand. He’d had only Villar and Bensley as models and she didn’t think much of either of those men, if Nightingale’s state was anything to judge by. Still, her words had been harsh and largely uncalled for — the result of her frustration with far too many things, she knew.

  “Sir? If I may?”

  Alexis opened her eyes to find Villar by her row of seats. She sighed.

  “Yes, Mister Villar?”

  “It’s about Mister Spindler, sir.”

  Alexis winced.

  “Yes?”

  “At risk of speaking out of turn, sir, it was Lieutenant Bensley’s practice to leave off scanning the system here at Man’s Fall. He felt —”

  “I’m little concerned with what Lieutenant Bensley felt was the proper way to run things, Mister Villar.”

  “I … yes, sir.” He squared his shoulders. “I’m sorry to have brought it up, sir.”

  Villar started back down the boat’s aisle and she closed her eyes. She rubbed at her temples where a sort of perpetual ache seemed to have set in these last few weeks. She’d considered seeing Poulter about it, but loathed the thought of the surgeon’s probing questions more than the discomfort.

  He’d likely only suggest I drink a bit less, as Isom does.

  She sighed. Ache or not, discomfort or not, she couldn’t shake the certainty that Villar was right — and right to have brought it to her attention. She’d snapped at Spindler out of her own frustration with not being able to follow and finish those who’d attacked the farmstead — and her certainty that they’d do the same and more once Nightingale sailed.

  “Mister Villar,” she called.

  “Sir?”

  “A moment more of your time, if you please?”

  Villar returned and she gestured for him to sit. He did so, but stiffly, as though expecting some further reprimand, causing Alexis to sigh again. She seemed to be making a proper muck of her command, what with snapping at boys barely old enough to shave and setting her first officer to fear speaking to her. She thought about Villar’s apparent fear of speaking with Marie and wondered again what she’d done to cause that.

  Save for today, I’d not thought I was such a Tartar.

  “You were quite right to speak to me on the matter, Mister Villar,” Alexis said, “and I thank you for it.”

  Villar stared straight ahead, as though waiting for some other shoe to drop.

  “I spoke in haste and frustration to Spindler and regret it. I’ll say as much to him when we return to Nightingale.”

  Villar seemed to relax a bit.

  “I’m sure he’ll appreciate that, sir.”

  Alexis took a deep breath, wondering if that would be the case. She knew harsh words could take quite deep root in young officers. In many ways, they were far more fragile than the common crew, who seemed to shrug off harsh treatment as their due and considering such things over and done with once they were past.

  “I hope so. Are there any other oddities of Man’s Fall which I should be aware of?”

  Villar glanced at the boat’s position displayed on the forward monitor. They were now circling to put do
wn at the planet’s landing field again and a group of men on horseback waited at the field’s edge. He grimaced.

  “Likely more than we’ve time for me to acquaint you with, sir.”

  “It is an internal matter, lieutenant, and we’ll thank you to follow our charter agreement in the future, if you will.”

  Alexis clenched her teeth — it was the third time the Man’s Fall representative had said the same thing, not even varying his words to any great degree. The man was older, with a full beard and white hair, dressed in the common farmer’s clothes she’d expect to see on any Dalthus holding, but he spoke in a reserved, quiet manner — in an infuriatingly reserved and quiet manner, as he repeatedly denied Alexis’ assertion that anything other than an accidental tragedy had occurred on the burned out farmstead.

  Their meeting was taking place in an ill-lit shed assembled next to the landing field. Light crept in through gaps in the boards and the space was hot and stuffy from both the lack of windows and the flame of some sort of gas lantern on the table between them. Alexis suspected the shack, lighting, and her chair — which seemed to slant ever so slightly forward, forcing her to tense her muscles to remain in it — were all designed to make visitors as uncomfortable as possible. The better to hasten their leaving.

  Sweat trickled down her face and her neck itched where strands of hair escaped her pony tail and brushed against her skin. She took a deep breath to calm herself in the face of the man’s obstinacy.

  “Mister Stoltzfus, I believe, again, that I did abide by your charter. The Navy is explicitly required — not allowed, Mister Stoltzfus, but required — to investigate and address acts of piracy. This mandate overrides all other agreements in your colonial charter, you must agree?”

  “Were there any piracy, you would be correct, lieutenant, but, again, this was an int —”