Not to mention how difficult freefall made work. Anyone could move any mass with ease, but people forgot that gravity helps as much as it hinders. Freefall might allow one to set a large mass in motion with a small push, but it was much harder to establish the leverage necessary for that push, and at the end of the movement, gravity would not bring the mass to a halt via friction. The same effort expended to put a mass in motion had to be expended to stop it, lest it crash into a bulkhead or crush an unsuspecting shipmate. After three-plus days of weightlessness, they all very much needed the respite spin gravity would give them.
The officers and the crew of the Puller would have no relaxation this night, however.
* * *
The digital clock on the bridge ticked over to 0300 ship-time, just as the XO closed her eyes and fell into a forbidden doze in her seat. Amanda Ashton had been awake and on the move for nearly 36 hours. Getting the ship sealed and aired, bringing the systems online, and configuring for spin were ultimately too much. The bridge was one of the spaces that remained centerline rather than sliding into the ring configuration, but the spin nonetheless pulled her into the cushions of her seat, even if no one could call it “gravity.” The pull was just enough to settle her in one place with no effort exerted on her part. Thus, her fatigue finally caught up with her.
The other watch standers on the bridge had witnessed the work she put in, so they said nothing. The XO was far too often on the receiving end of the CO’s wrath, and too many times she had taken the heat for their errors. Therefore, they felt she more than deserved a quick cat nap, counter to proper standards or not.
Her rest was short-lived.
LCDR Craig Johnson entered the bridge and shut the hatch behind him. His eyes darted to take in each of the watch standers, his expression agitated, but he said nothing. OPS saw the XO in her seat, and he went to her, using the long, loping jump one had to in the not-quite microgravity of a spinning, centerline compartment. With a slight wince at the impropriety of it, Johnson tapped her on the shoulder.
Ashton’s eyes snapped open and focused on him instantly, as if she had just been resting them instead of snoozing. “What, Craig?”
OPS hesitated. “I’m sorry to bother you so late, but, uh, I didn’t want to take this to the CO until I was sure.”
“It’s so late, it’s early, and I should have gone to my stateroom. Skip the apologies and the preface. What is it?”
“Something is going on with Sanchez and the crew.”
The XO shook her head. “Ugh. Get on with it already.”
Johnson gave her an exasperated look. “They’re planning something, maybe something to interfere with the Mast or his punishment.”
“Okay. What exactly? What gives you the impression something’s up?”
“I saw them plotting!” OPS whispered in a harsh tone. “I hadn’t heard from Chief Dufresne all day, so I went down to the brig to look for her. When I went in, though, there were a bunch of enlisted down there, talking with Sanchez and Ortiz. There were nine or ten people, and not just Weapons Department folks they worked with regularly. Every department had someone down there, engineers, boatswains, comms techs, gunners! Why would they all be meeting in the brig like that?”
Ashton shrugged and rubbed a hand over her face. “I have no idea, but it’s a big leap from meeting to armed rebellion. Did this just happen?”
“It was earlier this evening, before Taps. I know a single meeting isn’t enough to get upset about. I’m not paranoid. But after I saw that, I went and reviewed the visitation logs. This wasn’t the only meeting! People have been in and out of the brig all day. Ortiz is an asshole to everyone he meets. How many visitors could he possibly expect? And Sanchez may be marginally more well-liked and respected, but he was never a driving force in the Chief’s Mess or the wardroom. No big crowd is going to rally around him unless there’s something else going on!”
The XO frowned, considering his charges. It was hard to separate Johnson’s prejudices and his tendency to kiss the CO’s ass from his competency as an officer. How much of this was his and the captain’s disdain for a pleb infiltrating their privileged officer ranks, and how much was genuinely of concern? She knew Johnson and Captain Palmer would see eye to eye, their suspicions validated by their biases. But did that make him wrong? “Have you spoken to anyone else? Has anyone else had similar concerns?”
“No! Not that I know. I figured I’d go to the CO directly, but…”
“You didn’t want to look like an alarmist aristo asshole, so you decided to use me as a sounding board. Fine. It’s of concern, but I’m not quite prepared to go to General Quarters over it. Normally I’d tell you to have Chief Dufresne look into it, but since she seems to be a part of the issue, that’s out. Gimme a minute.”
Ashton pulled her chair’s touchscreen in front of her. She looked around to see if anyone else was watching, then used her access to bring up the Puller’s internal security feed. The computer lagged, still at the mercy of a compromised data trunk, but it did finally scroll through dozens of video windows. The scenes were ones of relative tranquility, though—exactly what one would expect from an overworked ship’s crew at 0300 when gravity finally returned. The only ones on the move were a couple of roving watch standers taking readings on operational equipment, using their feet and their five senses to augment the hundreds of electronic sensors monitoring the ship.
“I don’t see anything here, OPS. These meetings may well be a bad sign for things to come—politicking and the trading of conspiracy theories among the lower ranks are never good things to leave unchecked—but I’m not prepared to wake everyone and lock the ship down for an investigation. Until there’s something more concrete, I say we leave things be. We can take it to the CO in the morning, then talk directly with the CMC and Chief Dufresne. See what they have to say for themselves. Chances are, this is just the crew rallying around a couple of ne’er-do-wells and rebels, bitching about aristos and the Turds. These people have lives and careers invested in the ALS Navy. They’re not going to throw all of that away on the words of two jailed hot-heads who won’t be around much longer, justified or not.”
Her last comment caused Johnson to raise an eyebrow, but he appeared to agree, mostly. He nodded.
The security displays cut out on her screen, replaced by a terse “Loss of Signal” in each window. Almost simultaneously, low-level alarms sounded from every console on the Bridge. The watch standers at those stations raised their hands and looked around at one another, then at the XO.
Ashton stood, arresting her inadvertent flight across the bridge with a grip on her screen. “Report!” she demanded from the Officer of the Deck.
The young ensign standing OOD shrugged as she tried to ascertain what was going on. She checked with her watch standers and turned to the XO. “Umm, ma’am? We appear to have lost the whole network. We have no space monitoring, system statuses, controls, or comms. The adjunct CSMC in the Combat Information Center did say they would begin work on full restoration of the network this shift, but we weren’t supposed to lose anything. Shall I—”
“Don’t ask me, Ensign Csubak!” Ashton upbraided automatically. “It’s your watch. Take charge and tell me what you’re going to do. If I don’t agree, believe me, I’ll set you straight.”
“Yes, ma’am! XO, comms are down, so I’ll send a runner down to CIC/CSMC. We’ll find out what’s wrong and what the ETR is for the network.”
Ashton nodded. “Very well.” She gave OPS a meaningful look. “But send a second runner to wake up the CO and have him escorted to the bridge immediately. And seal the door. No one comes or goes without my specific authorization!”
“Aye aye, ma’am!” The OOD looked at the XO oddly, but she acted immediately. She ordered the astrogation watch and the bosun’s mate of the watch to carry out both tasks, then she disabled the hatch keypad and manually shut it behind them.
OPS and the XO waited awkwardly among the blank screens and idle watch st
anders, both wondering what would happen next. The XO could not imagine anything as dire as OPS’ suspicions actually coming to pass, but she could not disregard her sense of unease. A mutiny was unthinkable. At best, some of the crew might register a grievance with higher authority, perhaps attempt to have the CO removed, or write their representatives about the injustice of the fleet response to the Lost Six. More likely, they would carry on as she had—accepting the situation and the reality of life in the ALS fleet—as unfair as that might seem to those directly affected by the unchallenged takeovers of their most vulnerable systems.
She empathized with Sanchez. Were it up to her, she would have sent back a task force to free those worlds and prevent any further incursions, or better yet, maintained the system patrols and gone with a single thrust to their operation, via the two prongs of Executive Amber. But it was not up to her, and though she might not feel the loss of those worlds as sharply as he had, she felt it nonetheless. Still, it was not enough to justify what the warrant had done, nor would it remotely be enough to justify what OPS suspected.
A knock sounded at the hatch. All eyes turned to it as the OOD verified who was on the other side and undogged it. CDR Palmer entered, along with the nav watch. The OOD secured the door behind them.
The CO loped up to Ashton and Johnson. “Report, XO.”
“We’ve suffered the loss of the ship-wide network, or at least connectivity on the bridge. A runner’s been sent to CIC to investigate, but we wanted to inform you.”
Palmer frowned. “That’s it?”
OPS could barely contain himself. “No, sir, that’s not it!”
Ashton held up a hand, staying Johnson. “Captain, LCDR Johnson is concerned this may be tied to a potential mutiny masterminded by Chief Warrant Officer Sanchez. His information is very tenuous, very circumstantial, and—frankly, sir—somewhat paranoid, but Sanchez has had some suspicious meetings with various members of the crew down in the brig. I was going to investi—”
Ashton stopped speaking as she saw Palmer reach into his uniform pocket and pull out a small, black pistol. Using their backs to hide his actions from the rest of the bridge crew, he pulled back the slide and chambered a round. The XO’s train of thought derailed at the sight of the weapon. She looked up at him. “Where the hell did you get a pistol, sir?”
“I’ve kept one in my safe for years, my one little violation of regs. I’m no fool, XO. While we may all see the ALS as a meritocracy, one that quite rightly elevates those whose families have invested the most in its forms and structures, I know most plebs think the system is unfair. Our culture has been far too permissive of their pettiness and their lack of gratitude for freeing them from the Terrans. Such indulgence merely emboldens them. It was only a matter of time before one of them decided revolution was the way to go. And I’ve always known that fate would put me into a place to do something about it when it happened.”
He looked at OPS and nodded in appreciation. “Think of it. Under cover of night, with the ship damaged and comms unreliable, the crew fatigued from trying to save it and worried about their homes and the whole Alliance? And now with the main hull split up into six sections for spin gravity, making it easier for a small force of radicals to hold the chokepoints and prevent the loyal members of the crew from rallying? Sanchez may be an uneducated pleb, but he knew this would be the right time to strike. I knew something like this was eventually coming, Johnson. I felt it. And now it’s up to us to save this ship.”
Ashton felt her small measure of control over the situation slipping away. “Captain, we still have nothing more to go on than some suspicious meetings and a network under repair. Are you certain you want to react overtly to something that may not even be happening?”
He frowned at her indecision, disappointed. Before he could respond to her, however, the comms panel briefly lit up, and the speakers crackled to life. They could hear muffled shouting in the background, as well as the crack of gunfire. The panicked voice of LCDR Forrestal, cried out, “Bridge, CIC, Security Alert! The crew is—”
The circuit cut out as the network went dead again. Palmer glared at the XO, and her gaze fell, unable to meet his eyes. The CO turned, and several crew members jumped when they saw his gun. He looked at each of them in turn, as if daring them to step out of line.
With the bridge crew cowed, Palmer turned to the OOD, Ensign Grace Csubak. “Officer of the Deck, the ship is under attack by traitors to the Alliance from our own crew. Sound General Quarters! Not all the crew can be involved. Let’s wake the faithful and get them on station to face down these cowards!”
She hesitated. “But Captain, the network—”
“Is of no concern for this!” he interrupted. “The general alarms are hard-wired. Sound General Quarters!”
The OOD leaped to obey. The strident electronic bong of the General Quarters alarm sounded on the bridge speakers and all over the Puller. But without the comms networks, they could not make a follow-up announcement to tell anyone why they were going to GQ. That was enough to set off a Security Alert, requiring the Masters at Arms and the Defense Reaction Force members to arm themselves at the armory and ready service lockers around the ship. Were this an external incursion or a boarding, the teams would then go space by space, corridor by corridor, deck by deck, sweeping for hostiles until the ship was certified safe and under control. Crew members they came across would either hug the deck in submission or risk getting shot. No centralized command was necessary. When all was verified secure, the Chief Master at Arms would fetch the CO or XO, who would then be escorted to each team-member to order them to stand down in person.
Given the CMAA might well be involved, not to mention an unknown number of her armed enforcers, it was likely to come down to close quarters battle, space to space, crew person to crew person, with no way to tell who was on each side until someone shot at you. They would be forced to stay on the bridge, cut off from any information about what was happening below until someone showed up at the door and demanded entry.
Palmer glared at the enlisted watch standers sitting at their consoles, then turned to his two known-loyal senior officers. “We have no idea which side will show up on the other side of the hatch, but I’ll be damned if I’ll allow possible traitors to remain unchallenged on this side of our only defense. We need to ascertain the loyalty of these plebs while we have the chance.”
The XO looked at him, then at each of the enlisted crew on the bridge. “Sir, one, we have no way of knowing for certain. And two, you are currently in control of the situation in here. We should avoid publicizing this further if we don’t have to.”
OPS stared. “But don’t we have to? I don’t have access to any of those visitation logs, so I can’t be sure if any of these…people were down there today. And we can’t know how they spread the word after that. The entire crew could be disloyal!”
“And it’s possible only a handful are!” Ashton countered. “The only reason you’re suspicious of them and not the OOD or me is that they’re plebs! Don’t fall into that trap! This situation weighs on every one of us; the choices the Alliance made and keep making cause us all to question events. Give these people the respect they earned by taking the oath, born to a high station or not. Until they demonstrate disloyalty, don’t assume it!”
Palmer raised his pistol toward the crew, to one side of Ashton, but the sweep of his aim looked as if it might very well include her, too. “You’ve grown up in a very sheltered, benign reality, Amanda. I know you think your heart is in the right place, but a mutiny is not the time for platitudes of patriotism. Now, either help me…or make me question whether this corrosive disloyalty extends into my own wardroom.”
She said nothing. Instead, her gaze fell toward the deck.
The captain gestured with his pistol at the watch standers. “All of you, up out of your seats and move over here, away from the door.”
They did as he asked, some immediately, others with more uncertainty. The helmsman, Ops Speci
alist Third Class Malik Kassem, the young technician who carried out the navigation orders and actually maneuvered the Puller, hesitated and stuck to his watch station. When it was apparent he would not move, the CO’s aim firmed upon him.
Ashton saw the helmsman’s face frozen, terrified with indecision. She warned in a low tone. “Petty Officer Kassem…Malik…it’s okay. Leave your post. Do as the CO directs. We can’t maneuver the ship right now, anyway. Step away.”
Kassem began to step away, but he stopped again, panicked and uncertain. Palmer’s eyes grew hard, but it was OPS who took action. “Move, you ignorant dog!” Johnson crossed the space in a single loping step and shoved the helmsman over to the others. They caught him and held onto the sobbing man. Palmer tracked him the whole way and only then let his aim slip down to point at their feet.
He addressed them with contempt. “From a loyal crew, I expect immediate compliance! I don’t care about the station to which you were born. I don’t care if you blame the Alliance or the Terrans for the Lost Six. But I do care, and I do demand, that you follow my orders and my orders alone! You must stand with me and defend this ship and our Alliance Navy with your lives, if necessary. It’s the price I swore to pay, and I expect no less from each of you!”
He pointed the pistol at the enlisted crew again. “So, what is it to be? Your oath and your Alliance? Or do you stand with the coward Sanchez?”
Behind him, Amanda Ashton’s eyes narrowed. Without real thought or volition, she began moving slowly toward the CO.
The destroyer’s announcing circuit came to life then, and a man’s voice filled the bridge. “Attention ACV Puller, this is Warrant Benno Sanchez. To those fighting in my name, I ask that you pause. For those of you fighting against us, whether you know why or not, please listen for a moment. We will make no move upon you while I speak. And for those uncertain, those who are standing by at their GQ station with no idea about what is going on, please listen to me.”
The Mutineer's Daughter Page 11
