XD:317 (Fourth Fleet Irregulars)

by S J MacDonald

  ‘Beautiful,’ Alex said, watching as the fighters swung around the system with Hali and Jace criss-crossing around Shion while she held her fighter in a long, graceful spin. His opinion was evidently shared by the spacers, as many ships began flashing their lights in applause. By the time the show was over, practically all of them were doing so, flashing their lights like mad and signalling cheers. As the Fleet Alpha rose from orbit and departed, indeed, it would have been difficult to say how much of the storm of ship-salutes was in honour of the president and how much just cheering the display. At any rate, it gave the president a fine send off, as the First Lord acknowledged in one final message signalled just before the Eagle went out of range.

  ‘Nice one, Alex.’

  Alex grinned at that, conveying the First Lord’s compliments to the pilots in rather more formal terms, when they came back aboard. He added his own thanks along with a packet of cookies, and the three of them went off delightedly to celebrate.

  Things relaxed noticeably, after that. Alex was sufficiently caught up with things to go to bed not long after midnight, and had a solid five hours sleep, too, the longest he’d slept at a stretch for more than a week.

  Perhaps it was that, or just a sense of pressures being lifted, but when he woke next morning it was with a plan in mind for Novamas. It was far from fully formed. It would need a great deal of thinking about and discussion, too, once he could bring Buzz and the others in on it. But he had the outline of a multi-pronged approach, coming at the problem from as many different angles as possible in the hope that one, at least, would be successful. He laid in his bunk, arms tucked comfortably behind his head, thinking it through. It felt right, and he knew it would be workable, too, though he’d need some additional resources. A few more minutes thought about that and he was out of bed, heading for the shower. Five minutes after that he was at his desk, writing a memo to the First Lord with a request for everything he could think of that he might need. Dix might be out of comms range but he was far from being unreachable. As was normal when the president travelled, a stream of couriers was in pursuit, keeping him as connected with governmental matters as possible. Couriers would be leaving Karadon every day, chasing the Fleet Alpha, and Alex knew that Dix would have his memo before the following morning. He would be able to send orders on to Chartsey, Canelon and Novamas, too, if he approved what Alex had asked for. Some of the items were, admittedly, rather esoteric. Not many Fleet resource-requests included such items as a million movies, ten thousand white roses and a cooperative historian. He could rely on Dix, though, to understand that he really wasn’t joking.

  Having encrypted the request and added it to the mail that would go aboard the chase-courier, he spent a few minutes catching up with overnight files, then went to the command deck. It was just gone six, by then, and the ship was starting to wake up, early risers heading for workouts or rousing slowly over mugs of coffee. Sam Barlow was on the command deck, too. He’d held his final watch aboard the Heron the previous afternoon, excused all duties since so that he could prepare for going over to the Minnow. He seemed at something of a loss, though, just hanging around.

  Lt Bulingo, Alex discovered, had not yet sent him the handover files. This was Fleet etiquette rather than regulation, an unofficial courtesy on the part of a departing officer when their replacement was at hand. It meant no more than sending them copies of all relevant and current files, in good time for them to get up to speed on them before they came aboard. A really helpful officer would make notes for their replacement, too.

  ‘I did call, yesterday, and said I’d be glad of the opportunity for a meeting with him, to go over things together,’ Sam confided. ‘But he said he’d be too busy. It’s understandable, of course, but I had hoped we could put the needs of the ship over personal feelings.’

  Alex smiled. He was going to miss Sam. He was not, perhaps, the most sparkling of personalities, not even particularly brilliant in any particular field, but his steadfast professionalism, thoroughly efficient, thoroughly dependable, made him the kind of officer regarded as the backbone of the Fleet. Alex had also found a particular quirk of Sam’s to be very helpful in the past. Sam Barlow was a natural conspiracy theorist, seeing potential for skulduggery even in the most innocent-seeming circumstances. He had far too much common sense about that for it to be any kind of problem. On the contrary, it made him a very good intel analyst, spotting dodgy situations that other officers might well pass as unremarkable.

  ‘Well, you’ll have it all in hand, for sure, within half an hour of going aboard,’ he said, for which Sam smiled gratefully. Shion was coming through the command deck to join them at that point, though, so he said no more than ‘Thanks, skipper,’ before adding his own ‘Good morning’.

  Shion replied cheerfully and sat down with them, looking over watch screens. A liner was just arriving, swinging into parking orbit, no doubt with passengers packing out the promenade decks cheering and waving. They would be streaming off the ship as fast as shuttles could take them, eager to make the most of their stay at the station.

  ‘Oh, how lovely,’ Shion said, watching the liner. It was nothing remarkable, just the same class of liner as she’d already seen several of at Karadon, and as they looked at her in mild surprise, she explained, ‘The name. The Queen of Cartasay. I didn’t realise you still used Cartasay, I thought it was always called Chartsey, now.’

  ‘We still use Cartasay for some things, like ship names – it’s considered romantic,’ Alex told her. Cartasay was, indeed, the ancient name for the world now known as Chartsey, knowledge that had survived through the Dark Ages along with many myths and legends. ‘I suppose you know quite a bit about the Cartasayans.’

  ‘Cartash,’ Shion amended, with a smile. ‘The world was called Cartasay, the people were the Cartash. And yes, I know something of them – they were always leaders, even back then. It was the Cartash who first engineered a survival genome, and the Cartash who first asked for the Firewall, too, recognising that that was the only way to stop the plague from spreading any further. It was a long time before other worlds accepted that and agreed to it, but that came from the Cartash, and when the time came, they were the first world to destroy their own ships and ship-building capability, too, leading the others. It comes as no surprise to me, to any of us, really, that Cartasay was the first of all your worlds to rise, and is in that leading role again, today.’

  Sam Barlow, a Chartseyan born and bred, beamed at her with proud delight.

  ‘I used to love legends of Cartasay, when I was a kid,’ he told her. ‘The Lost Library was always my favourite – just something so thrilling about the idea of a lost world out there, waiting to be discovered again, even though I know, obviously, it’s just a story.’

  Shion chuckled, giving him such a roguish look that Sam’s eyes stretched wide.

  ‘You’re not telling me that’s true?’

  Shion nodded. ‘It’s amazing how your people half-remember things,’ she said. ‘I must admit, I was under the impression that your people had lost all their knowledge of the old times, in the Dark Ages, but you pass things on as myths and legends and fairy tales, not believed but never quite forgotten. The Library of the Cartash is well known to my people – it was one of the things they did, in preparation, as they saw the plague heading their way. They sent what I suppose you’d call a lifeboat colony away, far away, to a world where they’d be in total quarantine, taking with them the essence of the Cartash culture, everything that made them the people they were. Their people came back, though – that’s an important part of the story, as we remember it, because the people who’d gone away came back when the plague reached Cartasay, preferring to die with them than to live on by themselves, so far from home. It is said that they left the Library there, though, as a memorial to their people and so that something of them would be preserved. As far as I know it’s still out there, somewhere, though sorry, no, I don’t know where – if the Cartash told us at the time, that knowl
edge has been lost to us, too.

  ‘Your legends of Defrica are founded in reality, too, though that’s a world we know as Point Zero, the planet of origin, source of the plague that devastated so many worlds. I don’t know exactly where that is, either, though I do know it is deep within the Carotis Nebula. That knowledge was deliberately erased on Pirrell, many thousands of years ago. Legend has it, though, that the people of that time went to extreme lengths to isolate Point Zero, even, it’s said, moving stars to block all points of access to it.’

  ‘Moving stars?’ Alex queried, incredulously.

  ‘That’s what they say,’ Shion told him. ‘It’s said that they wanted to be sure that nobody would ever be able to go there again – it was the first attempt at quarantine, I suppose, though it was already too late by the time they realised the plague had spread from there. It’s said that they pulled stars to block the way. I don’t know any more about it than that, but that is, for sure, the basis of your Lost World mythology.’

  Alex grinned, looking at Sam’s shining eyes, hearing the excited buzz around the ship as the crew picked up on what Shion had said.

  ‘Mr Barlow,’ he said, ‘Do something for me, would you? Send a memo to the Exploration Corps, informing them that the Lost Library of Cartasay is real and out there somewhere. And you can tell them, too, that Van Damek was right, Defrica exists and it is somewhere in the Carotis.’

  Sam cracked up laughing. ‘They’ll think I’ve gone nuts!’ he said, then, obviously thinking about some of the stories the Exploration Corps told, themselves, laughed again and nodded. ‘Okay, skipper – you’re on!’

  It would, Alex knew, be the last bit of fun he’d enjoy for quite a while. He had a tough job ahead of him, becoming Harry Alington’s exec. Though Alex was going to help him as much as he could, in that, by leaving almost as soon as he’d transferred Sam to the Minnow.

  Harry Alington couldn’t believe it when Alex notified him that the Heron would be departing later that afternoon.

  ‘But I thought you’d be here till the thirty fourth!’ he protested, calling Alex on a secure line.

  ‘I’ve got other orders, now,’ Alex told him, which was true, in fact. The Heron had only been ordered to be here at Karadon between those dates to facilitate the meeting with the president. Now that was over they were free to depart.

  ‘But ...’ Harry said, and there was a world of desperation in that one syllable. But... I’m not ready. But... I’ve allowed my previous exec to leave the ship without passing on files to his replacement and now I’ve got a new exec coming in who’ll have to play catch-up. But... I was counting on several days of you being in charge before I have to start coping with things again. There was even a hint of But... if you go, the media will turn their attention back to me.

  Alex just looked at him, though, and the words died unspoken.

  ‘You can,’ said Alex, ‘rely entirely on Lt Commander Barlow.’

  Harry demonstrated that he really wasn’t stupid by understanding at once what Alex was doing, here. By leaving like this, he was clearing the ground for Harry and Sam Barlow to forge a working relationship. If he stayed, both Harry and Sam would be looking to him, in different ways, Harry leaving him to bear the brunt of responsibilities while Sam would seek his guidance and advice.

  A less intelligent man than Harry might have thought that Alex was throwing him into the deep end, hoping he’d fail. Harry, though, understood that there was nothing more important to Alex, in this, than that the Minnow got it together and was able to get the information the Fleet needed to prevent lethal drugs reaching their worlds. Lives were at stake, and Alex would not play any kind of petty politics with that.

  ‘All right,’ Harry said, and gave Alex a nod, recognising that this was not something open to negotiation. Alex had other orders, other tasks to get to, so the Karadon operation would be back in his hands, now. ‘Well, it could be worse, I suppose,’ he remarked, fatalistically. ‘For a while there I was afraid I was going to have that dreadful Fishe foisted on me.’ He gave a theatrical shudder. ‘Common as muck. And dirty fingernails, too.’

  Alex had no idea what he was talking about, there, since he hadn’t noticed, himself, that Martine’s hands had been grubby when he’d taken Harry on his tour of the ship. He did remember that she’d been doing some open-hatch training with some of the crew, meaning a deck plate removed to give access to between-decks machinery. Regardless of what Harry was on about, though, Alex was not going to stand for one of his officers being spoken about like that. He had been trying, again, hoping at least to leave Harry on a pleasant and positive note, but remarks like that just reminded him all over again why he detested snobs like Alington.

  ‘Lt Commander Fishe is one of the finest officers in the Fleet,’ he said, freezingly, ‘and you would have been very lucky to have her.’

  It could not be said, after that, that they parted on any friendly terms. The Herons cheered Sam Barlow off the ship, of course, that was only manners, but they saw him go with as much sympathy as regret. Sam himself, however, squared his shoulders and set off with a purposeful air. If he ever wanted to make skipper himself, some day, this was the step he had to take, and to make a success of it, too.

  If he didn’t, Alex felt, it certainly would not be from any lack of effort or commitment. But with Sam’s departure, they were making ready to leave, themselves, taking on last minute supplies and sending final mail call. There was also the need to take the time to formally welcome Lt Vergan as the new third lieutenant, and Sub-lt Shionolethe as pilot instructor. It was only a matter of some paperwork and handshakes, but important for them, meriting a little ceremony and a cheer from the crew.

  Shortly after that, they said goodbye to Davie North. He would be remaining at Karadon for a couple of days after their departure, with ‘things to do there’, unspecified, before heading off to Flancer, also for reasons unspecified.

  Alex suspected that Davie would much prefer it if the Heron departed with nothing more than a friendly signal of a triplink move, to be understood between them as ‘see you again’. Shion, however, wanted to show Davie her official posting to be in charge of the fighters, and to say goodbye to him properly. She made that call from the command deck.

  ‘Will we see you at Novamas?’ she asked, hopefully.

  ‘Possibly,’ Davie said. He started to say that he had other matters to attend to, but then broke off and grinned ruefully. ‘I have,’ he told her, and by default, everyone on the Heron, ‘got to have The Talk with Papa. You know the one.’ He assumed an air of stern, adult dignity. ‘I’m a grown up now and entitled to make my own decisions.’ As Shion smiled understanding, Davie added, ‘It may take a while. But I’ll see you again, Shion, love, for sure. The Captain will look after you. And tell him from me, okay – A62-K14, trip.’

  Alex smiled, but did not respond to the move – the time would come for that when they met again. And as much as he would miss Davie’s company in the months ahead, he was a spacer, accepting such partings from friends as a normal part of Fleet service. He’d miss Quill, too, though they’d continue to exchange letters.

  ‘Permission to break orbit, sir?’ Buzz requested, with a broad grin.

  ‘Granted, Mr Burroughs,’ said Alex, and with a sense of happy relief, all round, they rose from orbit, returned the Minnow’s and Karadon’s salute, and curved away.

  Chapter Twelve

  It was wonderful to be back out in deep space. All the pressures, demands and insanity of dealing with everything they’d had to at the station just fell away as they got back into normal routines. It wasn’t even going to be a busy patrol. The shipping lane they were on, and would be spending the first week on, ran from Karadon to Jehala. That was a quiet route, anyway. Most of the shipping, as Alex had told Shion, would be freighters hauling food nutrients from Jehala, an agricultural world, and hauling tech there in return. Liners did ply the route, but only one a fortnight, and there wouldn’t be many yachts, either. There
wasn’t a strong yacht-culture at Jehala and few yachts would be heading there from other worlds. It was certainly far too long a journey for starseekers, so it was highly unlikely they’d even see one.

  As it happened, though, a Jehalanian customs ship had left Karadon a couple of days before, sweeping the route ahead of them and dealing with even the few minor requests there might have been. By the following afternoon it was clear that, short of a real emergency, they were going to have nothing to do but routine courtesy greetings.

  Alex sat on the command deck, reading his mail. This was his personal mail, just glanced at and then set aside during the frantic time at Karadon. Now he had time to read it properly. First was a long letter from Mako Ireson. Alex had glanced through it very rapidly while at Karadon, in case an answer was needed, and had fired off a quick reply, too, promising to write more fully when he had the time. Now he did have the time, and read Mako’s letter unhurriedly.

  Mako was moving to Therik, along with his wife and daughter. That had been on the cards for months, as it had become clear that Mako’s position in the League Prisons Authority was virtually untenable. Two prisons had objected to his inspecting them because of his media notoriety, and the LPA had been obliged to give him backroom duties. Everyone had been hoping that, with time, things could get back to normal. Media attention had certainly eased off, though it was inevitable that it would surge back up again if Mako was involved in anything the slightest bit controversial, or for that matter at any times when the Fourth had any newsworthy dealings with the LPA. That was the case now, as the media followed the story of the first civilian recruits, parolees from League prisons, joining the Fourth.

  What had finally made up Mako and his family’s minds, though, had been an incident in which security picked up on people following him home from work. They had turned out to be members of an activist group known for making paint-attacks on the homes of people they were targeting. The police had been called and arrested them before Mako knew anything about it, himself, but the very fact that he’d been followed home from the office had frightened him and his wife, and had given their teenage daughter nightmares.