Commander (The David Birkenhead Series)

by Phil Geusz

  Well… Call me a softie if you must. After all, the Imperials had ravaged my own family as well. But I brought him aboard first on a trial basis, then wholeheartedly and for the long-term. He’d forgotten more than I ever expected to know about general shiphandling and good spacemanship, and his years of command experience lent him a sort of quiet authority that few regular-navy officers could match. If he sometimes tended to forget himself and acknowledge his orders with an informal “okay” or failed to salute, well… That was more than counterbalanced by his clear empathy with and high regard for our Rabbit crewmen. In short I considered Josiah Parker worth his weight in gold to an organization like the fencibles, and I knew even if he didn’t that he was penciled in to take command of Richard once again when I stepped down.

  My astrogator was Nathan Wu. Fresh out of college and even younger than I was, Wu was really too immature to make a good officer. He was flamingly gay as well, which evoked more than a few smiles among we Rabbits. While homosexual bunnies weren’t entirely unknown, the trait was far more common among our putative masters and we considered the resulting social hijinks to be, well… a bit amusing at times. I’d signed him on despite his immaturity for what I considered to be several good reasons. One was that he’d been awarded the Resistance Badge of Honor for doing something or other to the Imperials during the Occupation that must’ve been extraordinarily nasty—it was still classified. The second was that he’d not only graduated at the top of his astrogation class with full honors, but had already been published in Skytrails, his profession’s semiofficial publication. And the third was of course that eventually I expected him to grow up. A youth of proven courage and professional ability deserved our investment of time and effort.

  Richard had been commissioned in such a hurry that I’d been forced to accept whatever I could get in the way of an engineering staff; beggars, after all, can’t be choosy and qualified engineers were always in tight supply. Fortunately, however, I was fairly satisfied with the crew the navy had loaned us. Warrant Officer Asweyo had risen up through the ranks the hard way, and the scars he carried were physical as well as mental. His forearms, for example, were a mass of old burns. He’d picked up them up from weld-spatter during his long years as an enlisted man. Similarly, his face and cheeks were pockmarked with dozens of little craters from where something or another had once literally blown up in his face. He was a year older than First Officer Parker, and they’d already become fast friends. He had three certified watchstanders under him, and while they were certainly nothing special I couldn’t find much fault with them either.

  If my crew had a serious weak point, it was my sergeant of marines. Like far too many others of his kind, Sergeant John Petranovich had a serious drinking problem. He’d reported aboard fully sober just minutes before up-ship, and I didn't see him in that state again for weeks. Petranovich was a last-minute replacement for Snow, who was so desperately needed for training duties that I’d been forced to leave him behind. Whoever’d dumped Petranovich on me had to have known exactly what he was doing—transferring a bad egg at the last minute was such a notorious practice that anyone who arrived aboard their new ship during the last day or so before a mission was automatically suspect. But in the navy one had to learn to make do with what one had. Corporal Silk, his chief subordinate, was a perfectly capable and eager-to-please Rabbit, if necessarily still a bit ignorant of his duties and lacking in his understanding of them. I resolved to work through him as much as possible and deal firmly with the sergeant at the first opportunity. In the worst case scenario, when we arrived on Earth Secundus I’d see that Petranovich was forced to confront his own shortcomings. Until then it seemed to me that giving Silk a chance to grow wasn’t entirely a bad thing.

  James and the rest of the Marcus family chose to make a big deal out of my departure, though I would’ve preferred otherwise. A huge feast was held in my honor the night before, while First Officer Parker performed the final inspections that by rights I should’ve taken care of myself. Afterwards I was absolutely festooned with gifts. The bunnies of Rabbit Town took up a collection and commissioned a bronze statuette of me in full dress uniform walking down the street I’d been born on, while the House of Marcus ceded me personal estates on each and every one of their worlds to build a private home on, if I liked. But the gift that meant most of all came from the little core-group of fencibles I’d assembled at the very beginning, though Nestor must’ve been the one who masterminded it. When I’d first clambered aboard Javelin after escaping from Zombie Station what seemed like forever ago, I’d inadvertently carried an Imperial blaster aboard with me. The battlecruiser’s marines had quite properly relieved me of it, and I never thought about the thing again. Apparently, however, someone else had. Because after a long and torturous journey it found its way back into my hand that night, after having along the way been worked over by one of the finest gunsmiths in the universe. I’d always preferred Imperial blasters to our own—like most of our enemy’s weaponry, I considered it better designed and thought-out than its Royal equivalent. Plus the grip was slimmer, a key factor for a Rabbit whose hands were significantly smaller than human. I’d complained several times about the matter while taking mandatory target practice, and now… Well, not only did I have an Imperial weapon of my own, but one that’d been accurized and fitted with a custom high-capacity battery that allowed for more shots without recharging. While it was against regulations to wear the thing on duty, considering its provenance I thought I might be able to get away with it under combat conditions. I fear that I shed a few tears as I looked around at my old staff, who were being left to carry on with such a difficult, oversized job. But if anyone was capable of measuring up, they were.

  “Good-bye,” I told each of them individually that night. “Thank you so much for your hard work. You’ve performed miracles, and everyone with an even halfway-open mind knows it. I’ll never, ever cease being grateful to you.”

  17

  It took us almost forty days to hit our first Jump point, and by the end of them I considered us to be fairly well settled in. Commanding a recently-overhauled ship during peacetime wasn’t so difficult after all, I soon came to realize, so long as one’s key officers were both capable and willing. Our engines and other subsystems performed without a hitch, Wu kept us dead on course, and belowdecks… Well, things weren’t going quite so smoothly there. Eventually a livid Sergeant Petranovich came to see me in order to lodge a protest regarding how I was bypassing him and dealing directly with his subordinate. “I issued that particular order at fourteen-thirty hours Tuesday,” I pointed out, after leaving him standing at attention just long enough without a reply to make it clear that my rudeness was intentional. “Where exactly were you at that time, Sergeant? I looked all over the barracks-deck.” He gulped, but said nothing. Though he should’ve been on duty, I had in on the best authority possible—the cabin-bunny, via Nestor—that he’d been lying in his bunk suffering from the hangover from hell.

  “I could—and quite possibly should—devote this entire mission to breaking you, Sergeant,” I continued after once more letting the silence drag on just a little bit too long. “But it so happens that I consider alcoholism to be a disease, not a character flaw that can be beaten out of a man through punishment and intimidation. It’s something that the victim has to find the strength to cure from within.” I paused and looked deep into his eyes. “I know that you’ve probably had other captains that’ve let this sort of thing slide so long as everything’s nice and shiny at inspection-time. But I’m warning you—I’m different. I’ve served under a drunk, you see, and have seen where this particular road leads. I absolutely will not tolerate this sort of thing in a ship under my command. So you have a choice, Sergeant. You can either take advantage of this milk-run of a voyage to get your act together on your own, or as sure as space is black I’ll have you hauled off this ship on a stretcher the second we hit dirt on Earth Secundus, on your way to either rehab or a discharge.
It’ll be up to you, I suppose—by then it won’t be my affair any longer. Do you understand me?”

  He visibly paled. “Yes, sir!”

  “Good,” I acknowledged. “You can either report to me in my cabin at sixteen-hundred hours with your vacuum still and your stash of bottles, or the next time you’re drunk on duty so help me the last thing you’ll want to complain about is my going directly to your subordinates behind your back. Do you hear me, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, sir!” he repeated. By now he was breaking out in a fine sweat.

  I nodded. “Are you prone to the DT’s?”

  He pressed his lips together for a moment, then answered. “Yes, sir.”

  “Bring me that still,” I allowed, “and I’ll authorize the sick-bay steward to dispense whatever medications he has on hand that might help. I’ll also authorize him to rate you as unfit for duty for a day or two if necessary, though that’s usually considered insufficient cause. So long as you work through him, I’ll adopt an understanding approach.” Then I scowled again. “But never doubt that there’s a limit to my patience.”

  I knew the odds were against me when I gave my little speech—one of the nastiest symptoms of alcoholism is a powerful sense of denial. Rather to my surprise, however, the sergeant knocked on my door at the appointed hour, carrying the tiniest, hardest-to-detect vacuum-still I’d ever seen in an old carton. Alongside it were seven fifths of the worst tequila I’d ever seen. “Sir!” he declared, snapping to attention after depositing the whole mess on my desk.

  For a long moment I just stood and stared at him. “Well,” I said eventually, tilting my head to one side and crossing my arms. “Thank you, Sergeant. You’ll have my support, as promised.” Then I let my curiosity get the best of me. “May I ask why you’ve chosen to do things this way?”

  His lips worked for several seconds before he spoke. “Captain Holcomb, sir,” he explained finally. “Everyone knows you served under him. So did I, about three years before you. And, sir…” His eyes teared. “When you mentioned how you’d been under the command of an alcoholic, I knew right away who you must’ve meant. When you compared me to the likes of him…”

  “I understand,” I replied softly. “Now, go see the pharmacist’s mate. Let’s get on with this, and know that I wish you the very best of luck.”

  In the Royal Navy, it was routine practice to go to full Action Stations at every jump. This was because one could never be quite certain what might be waiting on the other side. The possibilities were as limitless as the universe, and it was better to face them with weapons charged and everyone fully awake and ready to react as part of a team. Astrogator Wu rang the gong twenty minutes before the translation, as per standing orders, and so all of us officers were on the bridge sipping tea and coffee and such as the critical moment drew near. It was just before four in the morning, ship’s time.

  “Sometimes I miss the navy life,” our single passenger declared after a long, languid yawn. “Not at the moment, however.”

  I smiled back at him. “You could’ve stayed warm in bed, Uncle,” I countered. Lord Robert had sought passage back to Earth Secundus with us at almost the last possible moment—it’d been decided that he’d be more valuable to the House representing us on the capital world, a role he’d previously filled for his late brother. Accommodating VIP’s wasn’t a problem for an ex-freighter like Richard. We absorbed him, his two personal footbunnies and all his gear without even noticing the difference; our holds were four-fifths empty. I was more than eager to bring him along with us; his companionship was welcome, and Robert was an ex-captain in his own right. Not only would he know what to expect aboard a king’s ship, but if I needed advice there couldn’t be anyone better to ask. Because of his high social rank and retired-navy status no one questioned his presence on the bridge—it wasn’t like he was liable to get in the way or anything like that. In fact, he perhaps spent more time there than I did.

  “Warm and in bed, maybe,” he replied with a smile. “But not asleep again, after that nasty klaxon. I’ve never heard such a vile one! How cheap was it, anyway?”

  I smiled. In the interest of keeping expenses down to the bare minimum, we’d bought the least expensive annunciator-system capable of complying with navy regs. The result, I had to agree, sounded pretty ragged. In later ships we’d gone ahead and spent a few credits more.

  Then there was no more time for small talk. “Jump in ten seconds,” Wu reported. “Five, four, three, two, one…”

  Richard leapt across the void like the well-tuned machine she was, with hardly a trace of leaked Field effects. I was just reaching down to call the engineer and congratulate him on a job well done when First Officer Parker interrupted me. “Sir! There’s an Imperial corvette dead ahead!”

  For just an instant my mind locked up; we were in Royal space—this wasn’t right! Then I forced myself to think and give orders instead of sitting there like an idiot. “Cameras! Put it on the main display!”

  It took perhaps two or three seconds for Parker to comply with my order. During that time the bridge speaker-system kicked in as we received a transmission. “Heave to, Royal merchantman!” an Imperial voice ordered. “And prepare to be…” Then there was a pause, during which my screen finally came to life…

  …and the Imperial finally troubled himself to read our navy ID squawk. “Well!” he replied, sounding delighted. “Take your choice then, Royal Auxiliary Cruiser! Fight it out or not. It's up to you. We’ll kill you all either way!”

  18

  I didn’t like Imperials very much. It wasn’t just because they’d killed my father or turned my life topsy-turvy. That was war, which was mostly impersonal. The problem was that Imperial values and culture offended me to the core, and of all their blatant savageries their refusal to take military prisoners disgusted me the most. It was the macho ethic taken to the nth, most ridiculous extreme. Not only was it sheer barbarism to slaughter men who could no longer fight back, it was militarily contra-productive as well. Sure, in some ways the practice was an effective terror-weapon, and more than once Royal armies and even ships’ crews had mutinied rather than face battle against such an implacable foe. It probably accounted in part for our always-high desertion rate as well. But still… An enemy forced against its will to fight to the death will often inflict at least a few casualties and do damage along the way that might easily have been avoided. Even more, some of history’s greatest triumphs were won via convincing superior forces to surrender. Because of its own limiting traditions, no Imperial army could ever replicate such a victory. Killing prisoners was nothing but wasteful bloodlust for its own sake, a cultural throwback to the days of Genghis Khan.

  So it was with great pleasure that I introduced this particular Imperial and his crew to the new and improved sort of auxiliary cruiser, a development that he couldn’t possibly have anticipated. In the past, auxiliary cruisers had been poorly-armed transports with half-trained ex-civilian crews, competent to do little more than dispatch pirates. We fencibles, however, were a new breed entirely. A fully-armed and well-drilled one, in fact. I was quite certain long before the first round was ever fired that we were more than capable of dealing with his little mosquito of a warship. “Hard aport!” I ordered Mr. Wu, exposing our full broadside. Then I rang up the turrets. “Fire when she bears, Mr. Ghana! Aim for the center of mass—I want her dead, dead, dead!”

  For all the romance that surrounds them, for all the paintings and commemorative medals and stories that've been told, space battles between single vessels rarely require much in the way of tactical genius to fight. In the absence of a nearby fleet or planet or other outside influence, a single-ship duel in open space more closely resembles a husband and wife hurling crockery at each other than anything else. The important factors aren’t position or even vectors. What matters are the ships’ relative weights of metal, the determination and discipline with the weapons are crewed, the thickness of one’s armor, and the strength of the Field. While under
the old scheme of things almost any regular-navy vessel could curb-stomp an auxiliary cruiser, Richard was different in many ways. She’d spent weeks in the yard, for example, having warship-grade power-conduits fitted to serve her weapons. Her crew had been through a regular-navy training program, taught by regular-navy instructors, and her marksmanship met regular-navy standards. Our main battery weapons were of the same caliber and capability as those of most light cruisers, though we had only three-quarters as many mountings. And while our armor and Field-strength were almost nothing, those of a mere corvette weren’t any better.

  Our enemy, in short, had no idea of who and what he was up against. At least not at first, certainly, or he’d quite properly have taken to his heels. As it was, our first salvo took out his bridge. Our third took out his engines, and after the fourth we could detect no signs of life whatsoever. In exchange, we suffered a single burn-through into an empty hold.

  “Sir!” Lieutenant Parker declared just after I ordered the cease-fire. “There’s a corvette at Point Three as well, Plus, four destroyers at Point One.” He put them on the screen, complete with vector-arrows.

  I nodded and studied the tactical plot, shifting mental gears as rapidly as I could. We were passing close to the dead, glowing Imperial hull now. Part of me yearned to examine the fencible’s first victim more closely, but there’d be plenty of time to gloat over the films later. “Wu!” I ordered. “Work out the intercept problem from the Imperial’s point of view and make a recommendation. Those destroyers will come after us the instant the lightspeed delay has elapsed and they find out what’s happened.”