The Merrimack Event (Shieldclads Book 1)

by David Tatum

  “Afraid of you?” Rachel snorted. Her headache didn’t need this. “That’s downright hilarious! Why in the world would I be afraid of you?”

  “Well, now, that’s a very good question, isn’t it?” Nathan said. “Why would an officer like you be afraid of three ordinary enlisted men like us?”

  “She’s probably afraid she’ll forget what she’s supposed to be doing while we’re around,” Franco joked.

  “And just what is that supposed to mean?” Rachel asked, her voice lowering dangerously.

  “Well, gee. Here we are, three handsome members of the male species,” Nathan said. “And here you are, a slut pretending her Academy standing makes her an officer. I wonder what kind of distraction we might provide?”

  Rachel stilled. “Excuse me, but what did you just call me?”

  “You heard us,” Nathan said, smirking.

  It took all her willpower not to strike him, but she held back. She knew he was trying to provoke her into a fight, but she didn’t know why. Regardless, she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She took a deep breath to compose herself. “Leave now or I’ll have you arrested for insubordination.”

  The quietest of the three started to leave. Nathan, however, grabbed him and kept him there. “Hold on a minute, Sergio.” He turned to face Rachel. “You can’t make us leave, ‘ma’am.’ This is a public place, and while you might not be off duty, we are. Furthermore, we aren’t under your command, so we don’t need to listen to your orders anyway.”

  “Then I’ll have you arrested for harassment!” Rachel growled. “Now, leave me alone!”

  “No,” Nathan said calmly, smirking.

  Rachel shut down her hand-comp and slowly stood up, glaring at the three men in front of her. As she stood up, she was able to catch a whiff of Nathan’s breath, and detected the strong smell of alcohol in it. They’re drunk. Damn, this doesn’t look good. She glanced around at the lounge. And it doesn’t look like there’s anyone inclined to help out, either. I’m in serious trouble.

  “Fine,” Rachel said evenly. She picked up her hand comp and started walking away, making sure that she could still see them in the corner of her eye. “Follow me all the way to the security office.”

  “Oh? Why are you headed there?” Nathan chuckled. “You whoring yourself out for security, too?”

  Remember, he’s drunk, Rachel thought to herself between clenched teeth. Her headache was killing her, and she just couldn’t handle this. That’s the only reason he’s being this crude. Right. And if I really believe that, I’ll probably buy the next bridge offered to me, too.

  “Hey, bitch,” Franco slurred. “Just how do you keep it up? I mean, I gotta figure you’re doing everyone in the Academy, but how do you manage that and security, too?”

  Franco didn’t even see the elbow that crashed into his nose a split second later, sending him tumbling to the ground. A foot stepped on his throat, and he glanced up to see a hard-faced Rachel Katz, still holding her hand-comp, standing over him.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” she apologized sarcastically. “I didn’t see you there.”

  She was tackled off of him by Nathan, who charged in to attack once he saw his comrade fall. She dropped her hand-comp as she fell to the floor, but there were other things on her mind.

  She kicked out of Nathan’s grasp and stumbled to her feet, backing up so the wall would protect her back. Franco was already standing, wiping the blood from his nose and looking downright homicidal. His friends were grinning viciously, and she was starting to wonder just how much of their drunkenness was feigned – they seemed decidedly too steady on their feet to be that drunk, making them all the more dangerous.

  “Now, this hardly looks fair,” a voice said from behind her three attackers. “It’s not very nice to gang up on a lady, three on one.” They spun around, and Rachel caught a glance at her new ally. She recognized the renowned Colonel Beccera standing there, grinning. “Now, why don’t we even those odd out a bit, shall we?”

  Sergio stepped back, seeing the handwriting on the wall. “I’m not ganging up on no-one, old man. I was just drinking with my friends when she up and belted poor Franco.”

  “Then get the hell out of here,” Beccera snapped. “And leave your ‘friends’ to us.”

  Without another word, Sergio walked away. Their job had been done, anyway – they’d goaded one of Schubert’s friends into attacking them. Now, all he had to do was wait, watch his roommates get pounded into the dust by Rachel and the man in the Army uniform, and let Farmburg know what had happened.

  ——————————

  "Well, the computer said you had an urgent message for me, Sergio. What is it?" Farmburg said from the other end of the comm unit. He hadn't activated the video feature, leading Sergio to believe the man had just woken up.

  "Yes, sir. Well, Nathan and Franco took the initiative and tried something," Sergio said. He hesitated. "I want to let you know that I tried to get the others to call you before we started. Nathan, well, he—"

  "My time is important. Stop dancing around the subject – something went wrong, correct?"

  "You could say that, yeah," Sergio admitted. "Last I saw them, Nathan and Franco were being dragged off to sick bay, to get treatment before they got thrown into the brig."

  "Just what the hell did you guys do?" Farmburg groaned.

  "I didn't do anything," Sergio explained. "At least, not after it came to blows. By that point, I knew things were hopeless, and I thought it would be best if one of us wasn't in the brig so that we could let you know what happened."

  "Start at the beginning, okay?" Farmburg sighed. "I won't know whether to agree with you until I hear it all."

  Sergio winced, but he was fairly certain he had done the right thing. "Yes, sir. Nathan had this idea to go after Schubert by targeting his friends. It probably wasn't a good idea, and I really tried to insist he call and get your approval first, but you weren't there, and Nathan said if we didn't do it right away our opportunity would be gone, so..."

  "You're babbling, Mr. Ramsey," Farmburg signed. "Calm down, take a deep breath, and tell me what Nathan's idea was."

  As instructed, Sergio took the deep breath and let it out slowly. Then he took another. Finally, he felt ready to continue. "Nathan thought it would be a good idea to pretend to get drunk and start a fight with Rachel Katz in the lounge." He paused. "He figured he'd try the same thing you did to get Schubert in trouble. He said they'd go easier on us if we were drunk, and he was planning on making sure Katz got the first punch in just so that we weren't the aggressors."

  "I think I understand," Farmburg replied wearily. "How badly did he step in it?"

  "Well, I think Franco really got drunk when he was only supposed to pretend to. At any rate, he got his wish – Katz punched him." For once, Sergio grinned. "Took a nasty elbow to the face, knocking him to the ground and splattering his nose. It'll probably never look the same again."

  "Well, it sounds like things were going according to plan," Farmburg snorted. "What went wrong?"

  "An Army Colonel interfered – and don't ask me why he was there, either. Near as I can tell, he overheard everything we said to Rachel, so he knows she was provoked. I ran off after that, but watched him take Nathan and Franco apart alongside the girl. I think Nathan'll end up with a permanent limp, and Franco... well, he didn't look too good, that's for sure."

  "And they were arrested, I take it?"

  "Yes, sir."

  Farmburg sighed. "Well, not much we can do for now. They'll probably just be tossed in the brig until they sober up and given a heap of demerits – they were already badly injured; I wouldn't expect anything worse for them as long as they were convincingly drunk. What about Katz and this Army colonel?"

  "They were unhurt, last I saw. They were arrested by the MPs alongside Nathan and Franco, but no brig time for them."

  "Well, it's too late to do anything about this, now. Keep me informed," Farmburg ordered, breaking the connectio
n.

  Sergio was quite glad that he'd gotten out of it so unscathed – Farmburg had a temper. But he was now the only member of Farmburg's gang left in the cabin – just how long would he remain unscathed?

  CHAPTER IX

  EAS Gnat

  Burkhard waited by the airlock for the shuttle’s crew and passengers to arrive. He glanced over to see one of his pilots, Weber, also waiting for this shuttle.

  “...would estimate at least four days before she’s airtight,” Cadet Lieutenant Christopher Desaix was telling fellow Cadet Lieutenant Wolfgang Schubert as they departed the shuttle. “So we’ll be keeping you busy not just running crew back and forth, but also running air tanks so that we can keep the shifts going longer.”

  “Won’t be a problem. It’s routine and boring, but I’m not the only pilot,” Schubert answered.

  “Mr. Desaix, Mr. Schubert, Ms. Flint, Ms. Weber,” Burkhard asked. “I need to discuss some things with you.”

  Chris and Schubert looked at each other in surprise. “Yeah, sure,” Chris said, nodding.

  The three people who Burkhard had called approached him with curious looks on their faces. “What’s the matter, sir?” Schubert asked, voicing the unasked question all of them were wondering.

  “It’s about your roommates,” Burkhard explained.

  “No, it’s about Rachel,” Weber corrected.

  The threesome’s eyes widened in surprise. “Is she okay?” Chris asked, an unexpected tremor in his voice.

  “She’s unhurt,” Burkhard answered. “She’s in a bit of trouble, though.”

  “What happened?” Chris demanded, stepping up to his Captain, his voice tight and crisp with determination.

  Burkhard raised an eyebrow. He’d read all of the records on Christopher Desaix and not a single one of them suggested that he would respond so aggressively. He’d talked to all of the cadets’ instructors, and while Morrison had suggested that Lt. Desaix and Lt. Commander Katz had some kind of adversarial attachment to each other, nothing he’d learned had suggested anything beyond that.

  “I’m not entirely clear on the details, myself,” Burkhard said carefully. He didn’t want to make the boy any more agitated than he already was. “As near as I can tell, she and some of your other roommates got into some sort of verbal confrontation. She started to leave, but Cadet Kobe continued provoking her into a fight. My ‘Marine’ CO, Colonel Beccera, intervened on her behalf. Now two of my officers – Colonel Beccera and Ms. Katz – are being held for questioning in regards to the incident. Since both parties are your roommates, I was wondering if any of you might know something about what sparked all of this.”

  Chris turned his glare on Schubert, who shrugged and turned to look at another of their companions. “Why didn’t you tell him, Lauren?” Schubert asked.

  “Not my place to tell, Wolfie,” Weber said, a sad grin on her face. “That’s your job.”

  Schubert sighed. “Fine. Alright, Captain, I’ll tell you... but realize I can’t prove any of this, so there’s no point in my testifying.”

  “It doesn’t matter as long as someone explains just what the hell is going on.”

  “Yes, sir,” Schubert said. “But if you don’t mind, could we go somewhere to talk about this in private?”

  Burkhard wasn’t quite sure what to make of the situation. The people involved in this situation seemed to be his best and brightest – Katz was a remarkable tactician if Morrison’s reports were to be believed, Desaix was his best engineer, Schubert and Weber were excellent pilots, and Linda Flint was a superior environmental tech despite being an enlisted trainee. They all seemed to know something, but evidently one of them knew more than the others.

  “Very well,” he finally said. “Mr. Schubert, wait here. The rest of you are dismissed. You may head to the detention area and see how your cabin mates are doing.”

  With barely a nod, Chris almost ran out of the room in the direction of the brig. With a couple of muttered “Yes, sirs,” Flint and Weber followed at a more sedate pace. When they were finally alone, Burkhard turned to his pilot.

  “Well, Mr. Schubert. Just why the hell is privacy so important to this whole matter?” he asked.

  Schubert winced. “Well, sir, this all started a couple weeks ago at a campus bar. I swear I wasn’t drunk at the time – I hadn’t been there for more than a few minutes, and it takes me longer than that – but soon I got into an argument with a Cadet Lieutenant Joel Farmburg.”

  Burkhard frowned. “I believe that I read about this incident in your records. You started a bar fight with the man. You say you weren’t drunk at the time, though... so what the hell did he say to you that got you into that fight in the first place?”

  “That is what I wanted Chris – that is, Mr. Desaix – out of the room for, sir. See, Farmburg was... insulting him. Sort of.”

  Burkhard frowned. “You’ll have to explain better than that, Mr. Schubert. Just what did he say?”

  “It’s not so much what he said, as how he said it,” Schubert said, hesitating. “He implied, rather crudely, that Chris and Rachel were lovers.”

  Burkhard nodded. He’d just been speculating something similar, but evidently they weren’t. “Go on.”

  “Even the words themselves wouldn’t sound that bad, recited dryly – it was all in his tone of voice. I could tell that he was implying Rachel was ‘easy,’ insulting the two of them for being attracted to each other.”

  “And that’s when you let the first punch fly,” Burkhard supplied.

  Schubert nodded. “Yes, sir. Insults to me I could just ignore, but I couldn’t stand to hear my friends talked about that way.”

  “I see.”

  “The story doesn’t end with the fight, though, sir.”

  Burkhard nodded. If these two incidents were connected, he wanted to know how. “Go on.”

  “The day of Mr. Orff’s party – or perhaps I should say the night of it,” Schubert explained. “Someone sent me a message impersonating Captain Anne Morrison, directing me to a meeting with her. When I arrived, her office was closed and locked up, and I later learned that she wasn’t even on-planet at the time the request was made. I soon noticed that I was being followed by several large men, whom I’ve since identified as Cadets Priest, Ramsey, and Kobe – our current roommates, curiously enough – and Seaman Trainee Jefferson Flay. They claimed they were going to put me into the hospital since I’d put Mr. Farmburg in the hospital. They were apparently his friends, sir, and definitely were out for blood. I’m not entirely sure they wouldn’t have killed me.”

  “How’d you get out of it?” Burkhard asked.

  “Ms. Weber and Ms. Flint rescued me,” Schubert said. “I didn’t know them at the time, but they nevertheless recognized me as a shipmate, and between us we kicked the crap – sorry, sir, I mean fought back against my attackers. We didn’t have any proof that the incident happened like we said, though, except for our word, and we were leaving for the Chihuahua the next day. Because of that, we didn’t report it.”

  “And so now, you’re rooming with three people who tried to kill you, and you think they’re trying to stir up trouble with you and your friends,” Burkhard concluded.

  “Exactly, sir.”

  Burkhard sighed. “Well, two of them will be stuck in the brig for a few days, and I doubt the third will act alone. I have no say in the accommodations, here, but I’ll talk to Captain Sharpe to see if he can do anything about it.”

  Schubert nodded. “Thank you, sir.”

  “Now, why don’t we join your friends in checking on Ms. Katz, shall we?”

  ——————————

  EAS Mouse

  Farmburg sat down to organize his reports, wincing. On paper he had long recovered from his hospital stay, but he still had twinges now and then. Perhaps he’d held back a bit too much when he provoked Schubert into attacking him – though, to be fair, the only way to have won that fight would have been to reveal his advanced hand-to-hand training,
which ‘Farmburg’s’ background story would not have been able to explain. Schubert was a lot more skilled than he expected.

  His small pool of allies hadn’t fared much better. To destroy the best and the brightest, he had started befriending the dregs of Academy life: The troublemakers, the idiots, and the petty rogues and thieves which had besmirched the names of every honorable military man since the dawn of time. Unfortunately, the fact remained that they were idiots and troublemakers, which made them rather... unreliable.

  The Wargame, however, presented more subtle opportunities. By no design of his own, almost a third of the people he had identified as the cream of the Academy’s crop were aboard a single corvette, the Chihuahua. It would only take a small miscalculation at a critical point to wipe that corvette off the face of the universe, and in a military exercise many things could occur that would be written off as ‘accidents.’

  His orders from Cygni continued to trouble him. The urgency expressed to him grew increasingly desperate, but his superiors weren’t providing the level of support that urgency would normally suggest. A number of the people who were supposed to join him as backup had been detained in Pleiades for some reason, but that only seemed to put his superiors more on edge. One would think they wouldn’t leave him relying on idiots like Nathan and Sergio to make these plans happen, whatever was going on in Pleiades. Something was definitely going on that he didn’t know about... maybe something that he didn’t want to know about.

  ——————————

  EAS Gnat

  Rachel sighed, rubbing her bruised jaw gingerly. She didn’t think it would swell too much, but it was purpling as she sat there. Oh, well, it was worth it to see that asshole’s nose turn into a pancake.

  A hissing sound signified the catches on her cell door releasing. Rachel looked up and was surprised to see Chris coming through the door. She wasn’t expecting him back from the Chihuahua for another few hours, at least.

  “Chris!” she chirped, getting to her feet. “What’re you doing back here so soon?”