“Okay, Moe, thanks.”
Shit!
He was back to Dynamic Paradigms and the cheat code. If he broke his nondisclosure agreement and turned the cheat code over to the supply folks, would his old company make an exception for him? Would they decide the critical situation on K’tok justified the breach of trust? No. The Navy had already been trying to get them to allow cross-access and the firm hadn’t budged. If they wouldn’t budge for the US government, they weren’t going to cut him a break.
Why hadn’t they turned the cheat code over? They were defense contractors. Sure, this wasn’t covered by the original purchase orders, but the company could probably charge the Navy a small fortune to go outside the agreed terms. They were in business, weren’t they? What was this about if not money?
He really didn’t like the Navy, and the prospect of making it his career by default did not appeal to him. In all likelihood the Navy wouldn’t have him anyway when this was all done, he being a scummy reservist and all. Dumped unceremoniously on the beach with no job, no money, and no prospects. Delightful future.
And that wasn’t all. Navy regulations explicitly prohibited him from breaking the law in pursuit of his duty or in following orders. Corporate proprietary information was covered by law. He’d actually be breaking Navy regs to turn over the cheat code. For all he knew he could end up in jail.
There was only one sensible, legal course of action: keep his mouth shut. It still wasn’t too late for Dynamic Paradigms to come through with the master codes to allow cross-programming. Come on, you bastards. Give them the codes.
He looked at the unopened containers of his lunch but they had gone cold and no longer looked appetizing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
2 January 2134
(the next day) (twelfth day in K’tok orbit)
Although Sam did not have a fixed spot in the watch rotation, he tried to spell one of the OODs for a few hours once a day. This afternoon he was covering the second half of Marina Filipenko’s watch when the comm came through.
“Captain, incoming request for tight beam holocon from the task force N-2,” Signaler Second Rosaria Lincoln said.
“Got it,” Sam said. He retrieved his helmet, clipped it on, and triggered the link. Sam looked at the holoimage of Commander Cassandra Atwater-Jones, Royal Navy, and smiled. She was weightless again, just as he was, her face framed in a barely contained cloud of red hair. That tailored dark blue Royal Navy shipsuit really did fit her well. He looked again and noticed her smile lacked its normal jauntiness, seemed tinged with melancholy.
“Commander, are you okay?”
“Yes, Bitka, but the news from K’tok has been unhappy, hasn’t it? Especially as we on Pensacola are all safe and snug, rocketing away from danger.”
“That wasn’t your call.”
She shrugged with her eyebrows. “A matter of moral consolation, but little else. I rather liked Captain Rivera, you know, despite our verbal sparring. Now I have also received word that a . . . a dear friend has been badly wounded. Things are not going well for Forty-Two ROMAC.”
“Forty-Two ROMAC?” Sam repeated.
“Ah. Forty-Second Royal Marine Commando, the British cohort on the ground, defending our perimeter around the needle downstation. Freddie is—was—the cohort commander. I believe he’s being evacuated up the needle. Of course, the fleet auxiliaries, with their fully kitted-out trauma suites, have all withdrawn with us, so he’ll have to make do with whatever medical facilities they have at the Highstation.”
Sam closed his eyes and felt dizzy for a moment. Even with his eyes closed, he saw or sensed the flickering shadow appear on the edge of his field of vision, watching him.
“My turn to ask: are you unwell, Bitka?”
Sam opened his eyes.
“No, just experiencing my own moment of shame. Maybe I’ll explain someday. I’m very sorry about your friend.”
“Thank you for your sympathy,” she said and frowned at him, but he thought from concern rather than annoyance. “That sounds rather pro-forma, doesn’t it? But I mean it, and Freddie’s made of fairly stern stuff, so I expect he will recover. Now, before this becomes completely maudlin, to the business at hand.”
Her face cleared and she picked up a data pad and waved it gently at him.
“I read Commodore Bonaventure’s summary of your analysis of the thermal tracks we detected. Are you trying to steal my job?”
“No, ma’am. Just following the commodore’s orders to look the sighting report over and tell him what I thought. Do I take it you agree with my SWAG?”
“SWAG?” she asked.
“Scientific Wild-Assed Guess.”
“Don’t be modest, Bitka. I doubt it was a guess and of course I concur with your judgment. There is really no other reasonable interpretation. I have several junior staffers—one of them supposedly a career intelligence officer—who were unable to puzzle it out.” She paused and flashed the playful, mischievous smile he remembered from before. “They were quite embarrassed when I told them a line officer, a reservist no less, had done so, and who, to make matters even worse, was an American. I’m sure you can appreciate their mortification.”
“Yeah. Tell ‘em to keep a stiff upper lip. So what are we going to do about those extra uBakai ships?”
“Haven’t the foggiest. I simply pass the analyses along to Dame Kliendienst, and trust that wiser minds than ours are—even as we speak—crafting a foolproof strategy for victory.”
“Well, everyone should have a dream.”
“Quite,” she said with a smile, and then leaned her head back slightly and examined him as if through imaginary spectacles. “Aside from the worry lines you look well, Bitka. Being a ship’s captain must agree with you.”
“It’s a boat, not a ship.”
“Right. Commodore Bonaventure was at pains to remind me of that. He also shared a rather amusing name: Bow-on Bitka? Somehow I imagined you as a more cerebral tactician than that suggests.”
“Don’t get the wrong idea. The bow’s where all the armor is. I’m just a guy trying to figure the best way to get home in one piece.”
Her face grew serious and she nodded.
“Quite so. As my friend Freddie once observed, the military is not a life assurance venture. Well . . . “ She gave one of her rapid eyebrow shrugs and the concern disappeared from her face. “Have to run now, but I wanted to personally tell you ‘well done’ on that sighting report. Any other insights you have of an intelligence nature, contact me directly. Especially as you are now an intelligence officer in your own right,” she added with an ironic smirk.
“Will do,” Sam said and her image flickered off, but he left his helmet on and the optics engaged. So far as the bridge crew knew he was still in conference, which gave him a moment with his thoughts. His mind crackled with visions of soldiers fighting to defend the needle downstation, an officer carried to the rear, his combat armor broken open and dripping blood.
Of course, he did not have to imagine. He could look. Video feeds were available of much of the fighting, but Sam had never looked at any of them. For a moment he pretended to wonder why, but of course he knew the answer.
He’d railed against the dark side of the Navy, against officers who put paving the way for their post-Navy career ahead of their their duty—nest featherers, Moe called them. So what the hell was he doing that was any different? He sat quietly for several long seconds, trying not to move, simply breathing slowly and steadily, searching for his soul, his true being, as if it were a cork bobbing somewhere in a storm-swept ocean of fears and desires and uncertainties.
Eleventh Principle of Naval Command: Seek responsibility, and take responsibility for your actions.
Don’t act like a captain. Be the captain.
He sighed and then took off his helmet and clipped it to his bridge workstation.
It hadn’t been a bad dream—to carve out a career, to have a family, to give his children some economic security
so they never experienced the humiliation which had driven his mother mad, never had to make the impossible choices which had destroyed his brother’s soul, never had to feel worthless for reasons beyond their control. It hadn’t been such a bad dream.
“Lincoln,” he said to the duty communication petty officer sitting to his left, “patch me through tight beam to the expeditionary brigade supply company. You’ll probably have to bounce the signal off one of our comsats. Supply folks are on the needle highstation and I’m pretty sure K’tok’s in the way right now.”
Signaller Second Class Rossaria Lincoln turned and looked at him. “Sir, if it’s not urgent, we can wait until our orbit track brings us across the horizon and we have line of sight to the Highstation. Should only be about fifteen minutes.”
Sam looked at the smart wall ahead of him, now set to show the view forward, the curvature of K’tok blurred by cloud-filled atmosphere to their ventral side, the star-flecked expanse of deep space stretching out ahead of them.
“No, Lincoln, better do it now. Might lose my nerve in fifteen minutes.”
As he waited for the circuit to open, he found himself wondering about Freddie, who he was, how seriously he was injured, what he meant to Atwater-Jones. It was a strange thought and it annoyed him. After all, it was her business, and he disliked it when people nosed around in his.
“Captain,” Lincoln said, “we have a small problem. The comsat circuits are all tied up, routine admin chatter, looks like. I’m trying to get a data pipe but we may have to wait for that direct line of sight.”
“Okay, keep at it.”
His commlink vibrated and he saw the ID tag for Senior Chief Navarro.
Have a minute, sir?
“Looks like I have fifteen of them. What’s up, COB?”
There was a moment’s silence before Navarro answered.
You wanted to talk about the crew again later today but something came up I thought you should know about right away.
“Okay, shoot.”
Well, sir, it’s partly about your name.
“Bitka? It’s Slovenian originally.”
No, sir. The ‘Bow-On’ part. A couple of the chiefs—mostly Gordy Cunningham and whoever will listen to him—are starting to think you’re trying to impress the brass, make a name for yourself by taking extra chances.
Damn! There was that name again. “That’s nuts, Chief. I’m about the last guy in the fleet likely to do that.”
He listened to the sound of his own heart for five or six beats before Navarro spoke again.
Sir, that’s just about the last thing I want you to say.
“Yeah, I see what you mean. Okay, COB, point taken. Let me think about it and we’ll talk this afternoon.”
Sam cut the feed and stretched his arms above his head. He looked around the bridge—everyone at their work stations, everyone absorbed in their work. Sensor Tech Second Ron Ramirez, sitting the Tac One seat beside Sam, was studying for his first class sensor tech qualifications.
“Sir, I’ve got that channel clear to Highstation,” Lincoln said.
Sam picked up his helmet, clipped it on, and opened the link.
Two hours later, back in his own cabin, Sam prepared to take the capsule provided by Medtech Tamblinson which, he now knew from experience, would drive Jules’s ghost away and clear his mind with two or three hours of untroubled sleep. Before he did so, he again had Lincoln open a tight beam holochannel, although this time not to Highstation.
“Why it’s Captain Bitka again,” Atwater-Jones’s holo-image said with a broad smile. “To what do I . . . what’s wrong?”
Sam looked down for a moment, collecting his thoughts. Although he had had plenty of time to get ready for this, he wasn’t ready, not really, and all the time in the world wouldn’t be enough.
“There is a manufacturer’s cheat code which will allow the US Marine cohort’s fabricators to manufacture the munitions the British cohort needs.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “We’ve been trying for a week to get the firm to release it, but without success.”
“I know the code.”
She looked at him, her expression curious. “You?” Then her eyes narrowed and her expression grew cold. “How long have you known it?”
“All along.”
“Did you by any chance think to share this information with anyone?”
Sam sighed.
“Yeah, just this afternoon, with the expeditionary brigade’s supply company. They won’t take it.”
“Won’t take it?” Anger rose in her voice and her eyes grew wide with outrage and surprise, but then she closed her mouth and looked away. Several long, slow breaths later, she nodded.
“Right. Of course they won’t take it. Can’t, you know. Frightfully illegal. When the uBakai Star Navy is blowing us to bloody pieces, our first concern must always be to protect the assets of Varoki corporations.”
Sam started.
“Varoki? No, Commander, it’s Dynamic Paradigms, the firm I worked for back on Earth.”
She looked him in the eye, her expression full of disdain. “Is it possible, Bitka, that you are really that oblivious to the world around you? Dynamic Paradigms is controlled by AZ Kamdaadik, a Varoki trading house trying to make a move into the fabricator industry.”
“Varoki own my company?”
“Over thirty percent of it, which in a large publically traded corporation such as yours, all but guarantees them control over its management and strategic policy. I think it unlikely they will consent to our request.”
She looked away, mouth set in a hard line. Sam thought about the ownership of his employer and it started making a little more sense why they were not sharing the code, but he still didn’t understand the Navy’s position.
“We’re fighting the Varoki, so why not just say ‘We’re using the codes to save our soldiers’ lives, and if you don’t like it go fuck yourselves?’”
She sighed and shook her head. “No, much as I hate to admit it, they are absolutely right. We are fighting only one Varoki nation out of twenty-seven. Nothing will unite the rest of the Varoki against us as surely as will deliberate and flagrant violation of their precious intellectual property laws. Even two or three more joining the war could overwhelm our forces.
“More to the point, this war can only end with a brokered peace, one which is acceptable to the bulk of the Cottohazz. Opinion among its officialdom seems to be running in our favor now, especially among the non-Varoki, but disregard of Cottohazz law could sour that support rather quickly. There is no point in making gains on the battlefield and then losing them at the conference table.
“No, our high command will not violate the Cottohazz charter on intellectual property, because to do so will lose the war, one way or another. Had you decided to turn the codes over earlier, it would have made no difference. That may be some consolation to you.”
“It’s not,” Sam said.
“Well that’s something,” she said, still looking away. “What made you keep your secret so long?”
“Fear. Fear of ramifications, of disgrace, of jail, of losing the life I’ve made for myself, the one I’m trying to go back to. Fear of throwing away my future.”
As he said it he felt odd, somehow divorced from the person who had put so high a value on those things. Perhaps it was the revelation that his firm was owned, or at least controlled, by a Varoki trading house. Perhaps it was because he no longer understood what he had found so appealing about that future, aside from its safety—its dependable, predictable security. Now that he had probably lost it, it didn’t seem like much to have traded his soul for.
“And what made you finally share the code, or at least attempt to?” she asked, her voice cold and hard.
When he did not answer she finally turned to look at him, mouth a thin straight line, eyes narrow.
“That’s my business,” he said.
“Then why bother telling me all this? You don’t owe me an explanation—no
t that I’ve really had one.”
Sam looked away now, not because he couldn’t meet her eyes, but because he couldn’t think while looking into them, and he needed to think about that question. Why had he told her?
“The major commanding the supply company told me the information was so toxic, he didn’t even want anyone to know he’d spoken with me. The brigade commander would not speak with me—I think the major tipped him off. Maybe what I tried to do will leak out, I don’t know. Or maybe nobody will ever know I did anything, violated any confidences, or broke any laws. In case that’s what happens, I wanted at least you to know the truth—a sort of confession, I guess.”
“Confession? So I could absolve you of your sins? I’m afraid I am not in that line of work, Bitka,” she said, her voice clipped and hard.
“Secrets isolate us,” he said. “Carrying this secret all to myself will make me alone forever. So I’m dumping it on you too, and you can do whatever you want with it. But wait, there’s more. I’m haunted by a woman who was killed in the first attack—Lieutenant Julia Washington. I think we were just falling in love and then she was gone, and now I see her.”
“See her?” she asked quietly.
“Well, not really. It’s like she’s just on the edge of my vision, just out of focus, sort of a flickering sparkle, but I sense her presence. When you told me about your friend getting wounded, she came, watching to see what I’d do. She’s still there right now.
“So, I’ve given you enough ammunition to blow me out of the water. I’m not just a lawbreaker, I’m crazy, I’m hallucinating. Ghosts follow me around. I’m clearly unfit for command. My chief of the boat thinks Larry Goldjune, the XO, would be better in the job anyway.”
Atwater-Jones studied him, mouth pursed in concentration.
“What do you think?” she said. “About who would make a better captain, that is.”
“Goldjune’s a pretty smart guy.”
Chain of Command Page 21
