“Mister Carew.”
Alexis stopped. “Sir?”
“Where do you think you’re going?”
“I … sir? To the gunroom, sir?”
“The watch schedule, I said, Mister Carew,” Dorsett said.
Alexis furrowed her brow, confused, then the speakers on the quarterdeck began to sound with the soft ding-ding that marked the ship’s time — four times the double tone sounded.
“Eight bells, Mister Carew. Start of the Middle Watch … which is yours, if I’m not mistaken.”
Alexis closed her eyes and her shoulders slumped at the prospect of a full watch, four hours, standing on the quarterdeck before she’d have the opportunity to eat, bathe, or sleep. And the threat of a much worse punishment if she fell asleep on watch. She opened her eyes and swallowed.
“Aye, sir.”
“Very well, then.” Dorsett nodded to her and stepped to the hatchway. “You’ll be relieved at the start of the Morning Watch. The captain wishes to be informed of any sail changes, instanter.”
“Aye, sir.”
Dorsett left the quarterdeck and she took her place at the navigation plot. Inside the ship, under the influence of the inertial compensators and artificial gravity, the effects of the storm were barely noticeable. There was an occasional feeling that the ship had rolled or jerked to the side, but it was more a psychological effect of knowing the storm still blew around them and the images on the monitors than any real motion.
Alexis checked the helm to ensure they were on the expected course, but the helmsman, Batchelder, was a good lad and experienced. She noted that the log had not been thrown since seven bells, so that duty fell to her, and turned to the signals console.
“Please tell the sail watch that I’d admire that they threw the log, Hache,” she said.
“Aye sir,” the spacer said and began sliding his fingers over his console. Out on the hull, a display of fiber optic lights would relay the order to the men Outside. One of them would go to the keel and cast a heavy, weighted bag attached to a line away from the ship. Once away from the field generated by Hermione’s gallenium-laced hull, the bag would stop moving. Never mind that they were in space, in vacuum, with no force to act on it — this was darkspace, and things behaved … differently. Away from the ship’s field, things just stopped. The bag would stick in the morass of darkspace, an effect of the dark matter that made up most of the universe, and be left behind, all the while trailing meter after meter of line as Hermione continued on her way.
The quarterdeck hatch slid open and a spacer, vacsuit helmet in hand, stepped through.
“Six knots, sir,” he said. “Drift’s four points t’leeward an’ three down.”
“Thank you, Cager,” Alexis said. The force of the storm, the drift and how much Hermione was being driven from her preferred course, was not too great. She slid her fingers over the surface of the navigation plot to enter the information. The computer would calculate the ship’s position, but Alexis began the task manually, as all of the officers did. There were even paper plots to the side of the quarterdeck, so that they would be able to navigate even if the computer and plot were damaged — or if they took an enemy ship as a prize and were unable to unlock its plot.
Six knots in the archaic usage of the Navy — ‘traditional’ as Lieutenant Caruthers, back on her first ship, Merlin, had been fond of calling it — gave her the ship’s speed over the last half hour, or one bell as they measured the watches. Given that speed, their course, and the reported drift of four points to leeward, forty-five degrees directly away from the darkspace winds, and a touch over thirty-three degrees down …
She entered her calculations for the ship’s position and allowed the computer to update the plot with its own.
“Damn!” she said aloud as she saw the computer’s calculated position diverge from her own. Flushing, she glanced around the quarterdeck, but the spacers kept their heads studiously trained on their consoles. She flushed more, but for a different reason. On Merlin, there’d have been some laughter at her outburst, perhaps even a good-natured quip or word of encouragement from the hands. Midshipman, and a very junior one at that, was not so exalted a rank … at least, not on a happy ship. Such is not the case on Hermione, though.
No, on Hermione the hands would never joke or josh with an officer, not even a midshipman. Not even a midshipman who allowed it and treated them with courtesy, for if one of the other midshipmen heard it … well, then that hand would likely find himself at the gratings next Captain’s Mast, reported for insolence and his back laid bloody by the bosun’s cat.
Alexis returned to studying the plot, seeing her error immediately. Hermione had passed close enough to a star system during the last watch to alter her speed. Or how far she traveled at a given speed. Or something, she thought.
None of the texts she’d read on darkspace adequately explained the effect — not because she couldn’t understand it, but because no one did. The best scientists could only describe the effect, not the reason for it. But for those who sailed the Dark, it was the effect that mattered. An hour at six knots near a star system resulted in less normal-space distance traveled than an hour at six knots far from any system, resulting in the odd circumstance that it might take a day or more to sail between two planets in the same system, yet only a fortnight to reach a star system light years away.
She sighed and corrected her plot, but still noting her error in the log. She’d likely receive some sort of punishment from Captain Neals for her oversight, but less than if she tried to hide it. She was actually rather pleased to note that once she took the nearby system into account, her plot was not too far off that of the computer. Navigation was her weakest point, no doubt, but she thought she was improving somewhat — despite the sick feeling she got in her stomach every time she realized that ships flung themselves through darkspace by dead reckoning … something little better than a guess, in her opinion.
Well, and Captain Neals would say that my weakest point is being a girl … not something I can exactly improve upon.
What Neals’ exact issues with women were, she didn’t know, but he had certainly made it clear they had no place in his Navy. So very different from her first captain, Captain Grantham, who’d given her a place aboard his ship and a chance to leave her home planet of Dalthus. There were no regulations against women in the Navy, much to Neals’ frequently voiced disgust — in fact, there were many female officers and crew, including some admirals. But Coreward, in the Core Worlds that made up the longest settled worlds of humanities expansion into the stars.
No, the official Naval regulations cared not one whit that she was a girl — ignored it all-entire, in fact, for those regulations said that she was to be referred to as “sir” and “Mister Carew” by the hands, like any other officer.
Out here on the Fringe, though, where so many worlds were just being colonized or had only been so for a few generations … well, colonies tended to breed odd ideas. One of the most prevalent, for some reason, was that certain jobs were for men and others were for women.
Even if a colony didn’t start out that way — and some did, for the colonies were generally free to set their own laws from the start — it wasn’t uncommon for their customs to drift in that direction. And so the Navy’s Fringe Fleet had drifted as well. It was no formal policy, but ships in the Fringe simply didn’t enlist women.
Merchant ships did, both as crew and officers — in fact, shipping aboard a merchant vessel was one of the few, sure ways a woman could get herself off one of those planets. But merchantmen were free to pick and choose their ports of call, and merchant crews had the option of staying aboard in the more provincial systems. Navy ships didn’t have that luxury. They went where they were ordered.
As Hermione had, traveling far from Alexis’ home on Dalthus to the border between New London space and Hanover. Alexis wasn’t even sure what the war between the two star kingdoms was about.
One would think, with
so many habitable systems being discovered, that war would be rather pointless. Of course, what she thought of it mattered very little in the scheme of things — not when those on New London and Hanover had decided the two kingdoms would go to war. How was it Captain Grantham announced it to us? “Gentlemen, some damn fool somewhere has gone and gotten us a war.”
The muted sound of a bell interrupted her reverie and made her realize just how long she’d been lost in her own thoughts.
“Another throw of the log, please,” she ordered.
“Aye sir.”
Alexis bit her lip to keep from crying out in relief as the ship’s bell began to strike its distinctive ding-ding pattern and marked the end of the watch. Hermione’s second lieutenant, Williard, entered the quarterdeck and Alexis turned to face him, the time before the next bell seeming to stretch out unbearably. Finally the eighth bell rang out, eight bells of the Middle Watch, its end and four a.m., start of the Morning Watch.
“I have the deck, Mister Carew,” Williard said, his look carrying more than a bit of sympathy it seemed to Alexis.
“Aye sir. The deck is yours.” She slumped with relief and started for the hatchway, feet shuffling in fatigue. Just the thought of soon being able to fall into her cot and sleep was a comfort.
“The captain wishes to see you in his cabin, Mister Carew,” Williard whispered.
Alexis clenched her eyes shut. No, he wouldn’t be done with me yet, now would he?
“Aye sir.” She slid the hatch open and made her way down the companionway to the captain’s cabin.
The marine standing guard pounded on the hatch. “Midshipman Carew, sir!” he called out, nodding to her to enter at a call from within.
Alexis entered and made her way to stand before the captain’s large dining table, which doubled as a desk. Captain Neals was well-awake and at his breakfast. He ignored Alexis, concentrating on his plate of eggs and bacon. Proper, real eggs, she saw, not from a powder rehydrated with ship’s water and tasting of the recyclers. The captain and other officers all brought their own stores aboard. Anything to supplement the poor ship’s rations of bread and beef. Beef grown in the purser’s nutrient vats and resembling nothing so much as a gelatinous pudding. Even the midshipmen could, but Alexis had stopped doing so — and it had been quite a long time since she’d had food that wasn’t the simple ship’s rations fed to the crew.
Alexis felt her mouth fill as the scent hit her and she had to swallow. How long had it been since she’d had a real egg? How long since she’d tasted bacon, or any meat, for that matter, that hadn’t been grown in the ship’s vats? Two, no, three port calls ago … been that long since I was off this ship.
Neals crumbled a bit of ship’s biscuit, the dry, hard bread the purser stocked for when the ship’s cook couldn’t take the time to bake fresh, over his plate and spread it around to soak into the runny yolks. He looked up at her and his lip curled in distaste.
“Still in a vacsuit, Carew?”
“Yes, sir,” Alexis said, fixing her eyes forward and not meeting his. Neals’ eyes were pale and hooded. Like a lizard, she thought. Cold and heartless as one, too. The bags under them, and the fleshiness of his face, did nothing to make him look kinder.
“So unsure of your abilities that you’re afraid you’ll hole the ship while you’re on watch?”
“I came on watch directly from the masthead, sir.”
“Well you look disgusting, Carew. I expect you to be presentable when you’re on my quarterdeck, do you understand?”
“Aye sir,” she said. There was nothing else to say. How she’d manage that if she came to the watch directly from the masthead again, which she was sure Neals would arrange, she didn’t know. Which is much the point, I’m sure.
Neals returned his attention to his breakfast, scooping up a forkful of eggs and biscuit. The archaic aiguillette, a loop of gilt, braided rope, he wore at his shoulder, instead of the more modern gilt epaulet, swayed back and forth. Alexis found herself swaying in time with it, catching herself, she hoped, before Neals noticed.
“Are you prepared to give me what I want, Carew?”
Alexis ground her teeth together. She felt her nostrils flare despite trying to keep her face impassive. She took a deep breath to calm herself.
“No, sir,” she said. This was something she didn’t have to acquiesce to, something he couldn’t order her to do. She could tell him no and there was nothing he could do about it. No, not nothing … he can make my life a hell until I give in to him.
“Come now,” Neals said. He wiped his mouth with a napkin and smiled at her.
Short, gray hair barely visible under his beret with the gold band of ship’s command. Neals was far older than she’d expect of a frigate captain — they were usually younger, more daring men. Frigates were the eyes and ears of the Fleet, sailing mostly independent commands, and the stepping stone to command of larger ships and eventual Flag rank. That Neals, at his age, was still in a Fifth Rate and not a ship of the line said something about his competence, she thought. But that he still held his command when frigates were so sought after for their independence and the opportunities for prize money spoke to some political connection.
“Such a small thing to end all this unpleasantness, don’t you think?” Neals asked.
“I will not, sir.”
Neals stood and came around the desk. He stood close to her, almost touching but not quite. So close that she couldn’t see his face without looking up, which she wouldn’t do. She kept her eyes forward, struggling to keep her face from betraying her disgust with the captain.
“But you will, you know,” Neals said. “I’ll have it from you eventually. You’ll even thank me in the end.”
That wasn’t a question, so she wasn’t required to answer.
Neals bent over and put his lips next to her ear.
“Resign, Carew,” he whispered.
“No, sir.”
Neals stepped back from her, his face flushed and angry.
“You have no place in my Navy, girl,” he said. “None!” He turned from her and began pacing the cabin. “I cannot imagine what that fool Grantham was thinking to sign you aboard.”
Alexis caught her breath and held it, willing herself not to speak out. Captain Grantham, who’d taken her aboard his ship as a midshipman when she’d determined to leave Dalthus and seek some option other than marriage to make her way in the world, was the kindest, most honorable man she’d ever met. Certainly more so than Neals. But to say so, to say anything in contradiction to what Neals believed, would only garner more punishment.
“What did you give him, I wonder?” Neals asked, turning to look at her. He ran his gaze up and down. “I can’t imagine him to be so desperate as to have a prurient motive, but one never knows.”
Ah … it’s to be that one, then? Neals’ rants had become, if not predictable, at least identifiable. There was the women are too stupid and weak to serve rant, the woman’s place is on her back not in the Navy rant, the women are bad for discipline rant …
“Was he, Carew? Desperate, I mean? Forge too much of a reputation on the planet with your wantonness and seize upon a lonely captain to make your way elsewhere, did you?”
“No, sir.” And today would be the all women are slatterns rant, it seemed. When she’d first come aboard Hermione, she’d thought that Neals hated her specifically for some reason and wondered what she could possibly do to gain his good opinion. As the days went by, though, she’d come to realize that the man hated all women — why, she didn’t know, but he did. And most men, as well, if his treatment of the crew was any gauge. Hated, at least, those men who were not officers and willing to toady to him.
“I know your kind,” Neals went on. “Spread your legs and lure good, honest men to do your bidding — well I’ll not have it aboard my ship, do you hear me?”
“Aye sir.”
“I find you’ve worked your disgusting ways with a decent officer aboard my ship and I’ll have you
before a Court!”
“Yes, sir.” First have to find a decent officer aboard this ship. Likelier there’ll be golden eggs on your plate come morning than that.
“Oh, just resign, Carew,” Neals said, sounding almost kindly now. “I’ll turn the ship around and make for the nearest port. You could be back home and underneath some idiot village boy in two months’ time.”
The truth was she almost would — resign, that was. Life aboard Hermione was so much different than aboard Merlin. But if she did, if she resigned, she’d be giving in to Neals. She’d be letting him beat her, giving him what he wanted. She had to follow his orders in virtually everything, but not this, at least.
“No, sir.”
Curiously, he could dismiss her without cause but didn’t. As a midshipman, she held no commission from Admiralty, she served at the pleasure, laughable though the thought was, of her captain. They were locked into a struggle, Neals wanting to force her to resign and her refusing.
Neals stared at her for a time.
“You’ll stand watch-and-watch until we make Penduli Station again, Carew,” Neals said. “Perhaps that will change your mind.”
Two
Alexis staggered into her berth, sliding the hatch gently shut behind her. Her heavy boots clunked loudly on the deck as she braced herself with one hand on the top bunk. Thankfully she had the berth to herself. Timpson, the midshipman she shared it with, being up and about with the hands and she’d be able to get at least a little sleep. She stripped off her vacsuit and stored it neatly in her chest that sat under the lower bunk next to Timpson’s. She considered taking the time to go to the head and shower, but her exhaustion was too great. Instead, she stuffed her soiled jumpsuit and underthings into a bag for later washing and pulled on a fresh set of the loose undershorts and baggy shirt, then crawled into the upper bunk.
She almost cried as the meager softness of the thin mattress cradled her body and she pulled the blanket over herself. She’d skip breakfast to have a few hours’ sleep, at least. She rolled over and buried her face in her pillow. She did cry then.
Alexis Carew: Books 1, 2, and 3 Page 30
