“No, if this is anything like the other thefts, they’ll have disappeared by morning. If we don’t catch them now, they’ll get away again. This is the closest we’ve come to nabbing them. Come on; let’s go.”
The light went out, and the men moved off in the direction the raiders had taken. After a couple of minutes, Mio turned around, but the men had vanished into the night. She took a deep breath and let it all out. She was safe.
As she started climbing down the tree, she realized she had a problem—the men were between her and the camp. She jumped the last couple of feet to the forest floor and shrugged. She would circle around to the north and come in from a different direction. That way, she wouldn’t have to worry about running into the Terran soldiers.
She smiled as she started walking to the north. At least she was quieter in the forest than the Terrans. If there were more of them, she ought to hear them coming.
She had only taken a few steps when the realization hit her—the Terran soldiers were following Dan and Harry back to the camp. Her friends would lead the enemy right to it! Worse, with Harry hurt, the Terrans were able to make better time than Dan and Harry; they would probably catch her friends before they made it back! She had to…she needed to…Crap! She wasn’t sure what she either could, or should, do.
Mio wasn’t even supposed to be on the raid, and she was only armed with a knife and her memory cube. Although the knife was sharp, it wasn’t very big, and the memory cube was even less useful; even at its highest setting, she wouldn’t be able to blind the soldiers with it.
She had to do something to keep the Terrans from finding Dan and Harry, though. They wouldn’t be able to defend themselves. Harry couldn’t walk on his own, and Dan had to carry him. As much as they were crashing through the forest, even the Terran soldiers might be able to sneak up on them. She had to help them, but how?
Mio knew she didn’t have Dan’s training, nor the size and muscle required to knock someone out with the butt of a rifle. She could pull a trigger, but she didn’t have a weapon. There might be some on the troops near the armory, but she couldn’t go back and get them. Not only didn’t she have the time, but more troops could show up at any time and catch her. That was out.
What could she do?
She stopped, torn by conflicting desires. It was dangerous to go after the Terran troops, especially since she didn’t have any tools or training. Still, her friends were in danger, and she needed to help them. She could hear her father’s voice, “We always help our friends when they’re in need.” Well, Dan and Harry were in need; there was no doubt about that. She had to help them.
With that settled, she turned to the west and headed in the direction Dan and Harry had taken. Maybe the Terrans would get turned around in the forest and lose their way. Then she could catch up with Dan and help him get Harry back to the camp. She was less sure what she would do if she ended up having to fight the Terrans, but she’d had fewer things going for her the first time she’d fought Terran troopers than she did now, and that had turned out all right; she would have to figure it out when it happened.
That settled, she broke into a quiet jog to chase down the adults. Light on her feet, she hoped she would see the Terrans before they saw her…but either way, Dan and Harry were her friends, and you didn’t let down your friends. She never had before, and she had no intention of doing it this time.
* * * * *
Chapter Nine: Benno
“Okay, okay! Everybody pipe the hell down!” Benno shook his head and looked at the mob assembled in the crew’s mess before him. A comfortable half-g of spin gravity held his feet to the deck, but there was no hint of relaxation about him. They might have won the ship in the mutiny, but they were nowhere close to safety or the achievement of their goals. The Puller lay in enemy territory twice over: as part of a fleet deep in hostile TU space, and now as a rebellious member of that fleet, only safe because no one knew they had gone rogue.
Then there were the threats within the skin of the ship. There were, of course, the loyalists, locked up and carefully watched in the brig and one of the six spin sections, waiting for any break to retake the destroyer or inform the fleet. And now Benno realized there was a whole other issue to deal with: his fellow mutineers.
“Why don’t you pipe down, Warrant!?” shouted Senior Chief Fusion Tech Gerald Ludovic. Ludovic was a huge man with an impressive girth, and though he was no longer the strapping wrench-turner he’d been as a youth, he still was more hulking muscle than fat. He had proven to be an imposing ally when they had taken the ship, with his roar, stature, and chiefly his air of infallibility doing more to convert techs to their cause than any number of impassioned speeches by Benno. “You had your chance to make your case to the whole goddamn ship over the 1MC. How about you let somebody else talk for a minute?”
“Yeah! Who made you boss, Benno?” someone shouted from the back.
Benno gritted his teeth. Every minute they argued was another minute for the fleet to query them, or for the Turds to arrive, or for the loyalists to get a message out, or… But there was no way to do this without them. And, freed from the oath they had all taken to the Navy, there was nothing to keep them in check except their good will. Finally, he nodded. “No one made me boss. All I did was get angry enough to get us started. Where we go from here is whatever we decide as a group. You all know my case. We finish repairs, rearm and resupply, transit out, and get to work freeing the Lost Six. Senior Chief Ludovic, I take it you don’t agree?”
All eyes turned toward the senior chief. He started and paled somewhat under the expectant weight of their gazes. The command master chief had sided with the loyalists and was locked up with the XO in the brig. And even if the military hierarchy was obsolete aboard a lawless vessel, his experience and demeanor still carried authority. He was the de facto senior enlisted man of the mutiny, and that fact only then seemed to become apparent to him. “I don’t totally disagree. We’re all on board with helping the Lost Six, but waiting around here to complete repairs and resupply is goddamn suicide. That fleet out there figures out we aren’t part of it anymore, and we are frickin’ vaporized! From a hundred different directions. I say we button up and get outta this system right the hell now! Stop jackin’ our jaws and work on the plan to help our home worlds after we aren’t surrounded.”
Several in the crowd murmured assent. Ludovic spoke to the fears each of them felt, now that the fighting was over, and their self-doubt and guilt had begun to gnaw at their resolve. But they did not see the bigger picture.
Benno nodded. “You’re right. We’re a lot more precarious right here than we would be anywhere else. All it’ll take is a single visit or inspection, or even some admiral wanting to speak to the CO, to give our status away to the fleet. Then there are the loyalists. They don’t have access to comms or weapons, but I wouldn’t put it past any of them to try and rig a spark-gap transmitter to get a signal out, even as unlikely as that would be for the fleet to receive. Hell, it’s what I would do. The safe bet is for us to go and go now. But we can’t, not and still achieve our goals.
“Here’s how it is. We won’t be able to keep our mutiny a secret forever. The time will come when our people will hunt us, but for right now, we’re all right. Right now, we’re just another fleet unit in need of repairs and support. If we leave here unscheduled, we instantly become a target to be tracked down. We might not even make two transits before they catch up to us, or those patrol units they left behind for the aristos come after us. That’s the first flaw with your plan, Senior.”
“First flaw?”
“There’s also our objectives. We agree. We all want to help the Lost Six—and soon! We can’t give them the help they need if we’re not in fighting trim, though. At the moment, all we can do is hold in our own air. We’ve only repaired about 60% of the damage we took from that missile hit, and the 40% remaining is time and resource intensive. Plus, we need food, fuel, and ammo now, while it’s being offered, or we wo
n’t be able to take down a single TU force, much less six of them.”
There was murmuring from the assembled mutineers, not all of it in assent or disagreement. Discussions cropped up between friends and shipmates until the sidebars threatened to overwhelm anything those at the head of the mess were saying.
“Shut up!” Senior Chief Ludovic shouted. “Unless one o’ y’all thinks they got something more important than what me and the warrant are already considering, stow it!” The massive man turned back to Benno after the crowd settled. “Fine, say I agree that we can’t run now without shooting ourselves in the foot. It’s been six days since we struck this system, five since we took it and word began to spread. The plan was to give the Turds enough time to assemble their fleet to respond, then kick ‘em again with the other half of Executive Amber to keep ‘em off kilter. That means, if our other fleet hasn’t struck yet, they probably will soon. Either way, if the plan holds, we should be getting movement orders in less than 48 hours. How do you figure to keep us on the side of the friendlies for 2–3 more days, and receive re-supply, and skip out without making ourselves a target?”
Benno fought down an urge to shrug. Show anything other than firm resolve to this bunch, and he would find himself either in the brig or dead, even if he still had a lot of details to work out. “This mutiny will be borne by boldness or not at all. It won’t be easy, but it’s not as hard as you make out. Fleets stay spread out. It’s safer and more efficient that way. We connect with comms and regular status reports 90% of the time. Even personal communiques from the captain are mostly via email and CO’s comments on our daily SITREP. We can maintain the illusion that Palmer is still in charge and everything is going well for quite some time.”
Senior Chief Ludovic nodded to concede the point, not to express uncertainty about their course. “Okay. Granted. But what about when we resupply? What about when the commodore’s ship swings by for an inspection or a conference?”
Benno smiled. On this, he was even more uncertain. He knew that someone would call him out, but he had no choice but to bull on. “Same difference on resupply. We don’t connect face-to-face. It’s all via umbilicals and drone ferries. Now, the CO usually does exchange pleasantries with the supply ship’s master, but we can bull our way through that. Come up with any plausible excuse you like. If we act like everything is routine and all the crypto, codes, and accounting data work out, everyone is worried enough about the future to accept what’s happening and keep going.”
While senior chief and the crew mulled that over, another, more hated voice piped up. “And the whole commodore conference thing? What about that, Benno?” Ortiz asked.
Benno grimaced and turned to face Raoul, at the front of the crowd. Circumstances had made them allies in the mutiny, but it had not made them any friendlier or more trusting of one another. Benno had no idea what Ortiz’s endgame might be. They were both undoubtedly traitors, but Ortiz had given up his sacred honor for his own skin, not the threat to family and home that had sent Benno over the edge. What he wanted now and where he stood with Benno were a mystery to all.
“Petty Officer Ortiz, that situation is a bit trickier. We cannot keep up pretenses if the commodore or his staff come over physically from the cruiser New London. But if they request a teleconference, there may be some tricks we can play. We can claim unresolved damage to our teleconferencing capability; we can claim the CO is in the infirmary—”
Ortiz scoffed. “And put that bitch Ashton on a live feed? Yeah, I’m sure we can count on her not to rat us out.”
A voice called out from the assembled crew. “I got an app that can ape anybody’s voice.” Benno looked and saw he was one of the junior information techs. “All you need is enough clips of them talking, and you can make ‘em say anything!”
Someone else chuffed in derision. “People can tell those are fake!”
“Regardless,” Benno said, loudly, retaking control of the room, “we have options.” He gestured to Ludovic. “And should it look like we’re no longer able to keep suspicions off us, we transit out and make a run for it. Until then, though, staying here and getting fixed up is our best bet. Personally, I think it’s unlikely anyone will have time for conferences with us. We’re a little fish. We receive and carry out orders. As long as we make the appropriate noises and reports, no one is going to look too closely. When transition day comes, we transit out too…but to a different system, then work our way back to the Lost Six. They’ll think we either failed to translate or mistranslated. Even if they have the resources to spare to look for us, they probably won’t. They’ll wait for us to fix ourselves and join back up. After enough time, and after the next battle, they’ll either give us up as lost or send a unit to look for us. By the time some transit counter records us passing through headed to the Lost Six, and they mark us as rogue, we’ll be well into taking back our worlds. To catch and punish us, they’ll be forced to send resources to the Lost Six, which accomplishes our objective, even if we can’t finish the fight ourselves.”
The crew began murmuring again, but this time they seemed to be won over. Benno smiled for real.
Then Ortiz began to clap, slowly, sarcastically. “My, my, Benno, you’ve got this all thought out.”
Benno narrowed his eyes at him. “Not really. There’s a lot more we need to do, and we can’t anticipate everything, but it’s a good starting point. Do you have something to add?”
Ortiz stepped forward and turned slightly to face the assembled crew as well as Benno and Ludovic. “I just wanted to point out that aside from a couple of small issues, you and Senior Chief seem to be on the same page. That’s very reassuring! I’d like to think the two of you had some grand plan when…you know, you committed capital crimes like mutiny, assault, several counts of murder, and imprisoning all the officers and a fifth of the crew.”
“I know what I’ve done—what we’ve all done,” Benno responded, his fists clenching at his side. “And when it comes time to do so, I’ll face the consequences for that, but this needed doing. Our families, our worlds…they needed someone to stand for them.”
Ortiz held up his hands, placating. “No doubt! But I think as a group we need to consider all the alternatives, especially given our resources and the stakes involved.”
Ludovic spoke up, his voice rumbling. “What other alternatives?”
“The choice between hitting the Lost Six before resupply or hitting them after resupply. How about we don’t hit those worlds at all? We just take the Puller and get gone.”
Both Benno and Ludovic bristled at that, along with a majority of the crew…but not everyone.
Ludovic gave voice to their mutual contempt. “You goddamn coward! Why am I not surprised you want to turn tail and run? All you’ve ever been interested in is your own neck!”
Ortiz shrugged. “I won’t apologize for having an oversized sense of self-preservation, but hear me out. You guys got together in your righteous anger and took this destroyer, with the intention to liberate your families from the Terrans. Great. Awesome accomplishment. But what about the fact that your plan is batshit crazy and has absolutely no chance of success?”
Someone new called out from the crowd. “Whatchoo mean, Raoul?”
He turned and addressed the crew, making his case. “The Puller is a single, light combatant, designed to screen capital ships from attack by missiles, drones, mines, and smaller warships. As far as independent ops, maybe you can do some flag-waving, piracy-screening, and limited head-to-head combat, but she only shines as part of a squadron. This is the ship you plan on using in head-to-head combat with six different, dug-in Terran Union forces of unknown size and make-up? With all our trained tactical officers locked up or dead? Maybe I’ll be generous and say the Turds only have a single destroyer-sized ship at each system and a junior, untested crew on each. How many times do you figure you’ll come out on top? Even with 50/50 odds each time, we’d only have a 1.5% chance of surviving and freeing all six worlds. And I’ll
guarantee our odds are gonna go down as we take damage, lose crew, and go without resupply. That’s not to mention the certainty that the Turds will redeploy to face us in force, and our own Alliance ships will come for us.
“No,” Ortiz said, shaking his head over-dramatically. “I’m sorry. Your hearts are in the right place, but the mission you’ve planned is suicide. I, for one, don’t feel like offering my life for a bunch of Alliance worlds I can’t free. Not when the payoff is death. I either fail and die or succeed against all the odds and die anyway when the Alliance catches up with me.”
For the first time since they gathered, there was no murmuring. The crew merely stood by, looking at one another or at the floor uncomfortably. No one would meet Benno’s eyes, not even Ludovic or his first co-mutineer, Master at Arms Chief Dufresne.
Benno had no idea how he would win them back from this injection of cold, hard reality. Especially when, twisted purpose or no, Ortiz wasn’t wrong. No words came to mind, and he felt his own despair and doubt rise within him.
Then Ortiz glanced at him and offered him a subtle half smile.
Benno felt his collar grow hot, and it was fortunate he didn’t have his pistol drawn. Instead of murdering Ortiz, however, he channeled the anger into resolve. Benno looked at his suddenly unsure shipmates and spoke from the heart. “It might not make sense to many of you, but I consider myself a patriot. I think many of you probably think of yourselves the same way, despite what circumstances forced upon us. I joined because I believe in the Alliance and I wanted to make my daughter proud of me. And now she’s under threat and the only way I could save her—and save the soul of the Alliance—was to commit this heinous act of mutiny and treason. Now that I’m committed to that path, though, I mean to see it through.”
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