XD:317 (Fourth Fleet Irregulars)

by S J MacDonald

  ‘You don’t think she was part of this?’ Alex queried.

  ‘I would bet you anything you like that she isn’t,’ Buzz said. ‘In fact, I would bet you anything you like that she was so embarrassed by having filed this report in the first place that she’d have told Liberty League herself that it was a mistake and tried to take it back. They wouldn’t have accepted that, though, obviously. And you can see why, from their point of view – one of their members comes aboard our ship fully on-message with the ‘officers are abusing crew’ belief, files this report, then turns up a couple of months later saying we’re lovely and wonderful and everything is fine. What are they going to think but that we’ve got to her, somehow, either by bribery or intimidation?

  ‘I have no doubt that Candra Pattello would have gravitated to Liberty League, too – unlikely bedfellows, you might think, and so they would be, too, in normal circumstances. But Candra Pattello is desperate for support, allies, and Liberty League would have offered her that, in return for anything that they might use to support their campaign against us. You will note that there is nothing in this document that says that Tass Curlow is willing to give evidence to an enquiry or court martial, no signature of hers on anything but the statement that she wrote at Karadon. My guess is that they sent this off without her knowledge. That’s certainly what I would have advised Candra Pattello to do, if I was Cerdan Jennar – he wouldn’t want the whole thing being scuppered, after all, by Tass going to the Admiralty herself and filing another statement taking this one back before it could be mailed to Admiral Vickers. She should have done that anyway, of course, if she’d had the sense to realise that her statement could still be used even though she’d told them that she wanted to take it back. There’s no mention of Liberty League on this document, of course. They know very well, as does Cerdan Jennar, that anything rated as a protest from activist groups has to be passed to special ops process. I’d be willing to bet that at least one of their activists was involved, though, supporting Candra Pattello in this. But I don’t believe you were mistaken in your judgement of Tass Curlow, Alex – she may be a little immature and impulsive, but she is, fundamentally, a decent, caring person with a high sense of social responsibility. I don’t believe that she’d have done the dirty on us like this.’

  Alex nodded. He might wish that Tass had told them about this report, but even as he thought that, he understood why she hadn’t. She’d wanted so much to impress them, by then, trying to pretend that all the embarrassing stuff she’d believed and said when she’d first come aboard had never even happened. That was before, she’d say, if people teased her about it, as if that had been an entirely different Tass Curlow and nothing to do with her now.

  ‘Still,’ he said, and there was a world of meaning in that one word. He was thinking of other decisions he’d made, dismissing other people’s concerns. It had started right back on Therik, he recognised now, with his cool dismissal of Admiral Jen Mackada’s warning about how difficult he would find working with Admiral Vickers. Stupid, arrogant, he thought, and could see it all, now, with the clarity of hindsight – his tolerant chuckle when Davie North had given him the doom-laden ‘I have a bad feeling about this’, his naive conviction that the First Lord was over-reacting with his own anxieties over how bad that situation might get, and his breezy over-confidence here at Novamas. He’d sat right here just a few days before, spreading his hands and laughing. ‘What’s he going to do, shoot me?’

  ‘Yes, okay,’ said Buzz. ‘You’ve been reluctant to accept any warnings about how vicious and malevolent Admiral Vickers might be, but that is more to your credit than otherwise, dear boy, clinging to your belief that senior officers embody the highest principles of honour and professionalism, and as such, must be worthy of your respect however much you may dislike them personally. That is, perhaps, a little naive, but admirable, really, in the faith it shows in the Fleet. And there is, sadly, no way to learn, really learn, that even flag officers can be mean-spirited unscrupulous self-serving gits, other than by personal experience. You are, I think, a little wiser now, a little less idealistic. But I’d be sorry, I really would, if that hardened you into cynicism or disillusionment with the Fleet as a whole. Ninety nine out of a hundred flag officers are, indeed, the epitome of public service, honour and professionalism. Don’t let the disgusting behaviour of the one exception tarnish the respect that you have for the others, all right?’

  ‘Thanks, Buzz,’ Alex said. It would be some time before he really got over this, but he felt better, comforted, by Buzz’s advice.

  ‘You are very welcome, dear boy,’ said Buzz, and grinned at him, then. ‘And do, please, remember that you are not superhuman, not perfect, not infallible. I know you don’t think you are, but you strive to be, setting yourself these impossible standards and judging yourself against them. I know that’s part of what makes you the skipper you are, and I’m not criticising it, only saying, you know, at times when you feel yourself to have fallen short of your own expectations of superhuman perfection, take a moment to acknowledge that you are in fact a normal human being, you don’t always get everything right, and that is okay, it really is. And it will be all right, you know, all this,’ he gestured at the documents. ‘Have some faith in Call Alladyce. He’s a good man. He knows the score; trust him, he will make it right.’

  Alex couldn’t quite see how. His worst fears about Admiral Vickers seizing the opportunity to make this public had been realised, and then some. Admiral Vickers had made the announcement, properly enough, in a terse official Fleet statement using the recommended form of words for just this situation. It had said no more than that Skipper von Strada had been removed from command of the Heron pending investigation of alleged misconduct, with no details given as to the nature of the allegations. He had then, however, taken a call from one of Novamas’ leading journalists, being interviewed live on their biggest news channel. He had refused to give details of the charges against Alex – referred to as ‘von Strada’ throughout the interview – but his tone of ‘no comment’ to a question about rumours that the allegations related to an assault on a member of the crew had been an answer in itself. He had also expressed the view that ‘many in the Fleet’ considered that the Fourth Fleet Irregulars was a blot on the Fleet as a whole, their special forces status dubious and their wild antics bringing the Fleet into disrepute. Nobody who knew the inside workings of the Irregulars, he’d concluded, darkly, would be tremendously surprised by the nature of the allegations made.

  That would go out, League wide. There was no way of stopping it. Even on worlds so distant that the news that the Fourth’s CO had been removed from command would get a resounding ‘the fourth what?’ from the vast majority of the population, the news would go out, and would be picked up by all those groups like Liberty League and Justice Now that were already campaigning against them. More importantly, far more importantly, the news would rip through the Fleet itself, dividing opinion between those who recognised at once that this was malice on the part of the port admiral and those who felt that the Fourth might indeed have become so irregular that there might just be some basis to it.

  As news went out, too, that Port Admiral Vickers had been removed from his post on medical grounds, there would inevitably be a good deal of belief that Alex von Strada had done that to him. It wouldn’t be the first time fingers had been pointed at him as responsible for driving a man to a breakdown, after all. The former director of ISiS Karadon had spent weeks at a private clinic, being treated for the stress-induced breakdown he’d suffered at the height of the crisis.

  Nobody who knew the full picture there could really blame Alex for that – discovering himself being held hostage at gunpoint by a desperate drug dealer had certainly been a major contributing factor to Chokran Dayfield’s traumatised collapse, and Alex had been trying to prevent just that kind of scenario. All most people understood, though, was that Alex had wound things up and wound things up and wound things up to the point where Ch
okky Dayfield just couldn’t take it any more. And now, here he was on operations at Novamas and a senior officer known to be critical and hostile had ended up suffering the same fate, hospitalised for psych evaluation.

  Alex did not want people in the Fleet thinking that he had set out with any intention of driving a superior officer to a mental breakdown. He didn’t want people whose opinions mattered to him to think that he was that kind of ruthless. And he just couldn’t see, at all, what Call Alladyce or anyone else would be able to do to prevent that.

  In fact, Call Alladyce was already doing it, being ably assisted in that by Martine Fishe. By the time Alex was being released, in fact, both Arie McKenna and Hali Burdon were already on their way to the station, summoned there by Captain Alladyce to make statements.

  Tonno Trevaga, however, was still in their own sickbay. Admiral Vickers had sent a security detail to bring A/S Trevaga off the ship shortly after Alex was arrested.

  This had not gone well. As he’d realised that this meant that the allegations the skipper had been arrested on were indeed about his having said that the skipper had hit him, Tonno Trevaga had had something of a flip-out, himself. Fury and distress had overwhelmed Fleet discipline. At first he’d declared that he would not go, that they’d have to drag him off the ship in handcuffs, but then he’d changed his mind and demanded to be taken straight to Admiral Knickers so that he could tell him to his face exactly what he thought of him. The Lt in charge of the security detail had seemed very much inclined to arrest Trevaga himself at that point, apparently forgetting that he was supposed to be the victim here. Martine had intervened, though, suggesting that it would be best for all concerned if the crewman had some time to calm down in sickbay, their time-out space, with the Lt and security detail remaining to ensure that there was no interference with him as a witness, nobody attempting to pressure him or speak to him about the case at all.

  The Lt and the security detail had gone, now, recalled at speed as Captain Alladyce took control. Tonno, however, greatly distressed, was still having counselling from Rangi. When Captain Alladyce called to ask if someone could please bring him over to the station to make a statement, as a matter of urgency, Martine said, at first, that she would prefer to wait until Dr Tekawa indicated that he’d finished the calming and counselling session.

  Call Alladyce, though, was insistent – politely, even apologetically, but making it clear that this really was urgent, he needed a statement from A/S Trevaga and he needed it right now.

  Martine didn’t really see why, given that it would be three days before Admiral Vickers completed psych evals and weeks, at least, before any official process could reach a conclusion. She did as she was asked, though, going to see Tonno Trevaga and asking if he felt up to going over to make a statement.

  As soon as he understood that this was something that would help to clear the skipper’s name, Trevaga dried his eyes and declared that he was fine, yes, of course he would go, straight away.

  They saw the results of that, and of the other statements made alongside the log recordings, just about half an hour later. Captain Alladyce, too, had merely issued an official press release announcing that Port Admiral Vickers had been obliged to step down from his duties for medical reasons and that he would be acting port-admiral in the interim.

  Now, he too allowed a journalist to call and interview him live on planet-wide holovision.

  ‘I can confirm that Skipper von Strada has been restored to his command, yes,’ he said, with his calm, prosaic manner making that seem perfectly ordinary, as if skippers were ripped out of their commands and then popped back into them quite routinely in the Fleet. ‘My staff and I have conducted all necessary investigations to be fully satisfied that the allegations being made against him were entirely unfounded. They were, indeed, I can tell you, no more than malicious hate-mail of a kind the Fourth is sadly all too familiar with.’

  ‘But this is related, obviously, to Admiral Vickers standing down,’ the journalist observed, alertly. ‘He obviously took the allegations seriously. Rumour has it, even, that he had Alex von Strada arrested and locked in a cell. And then, bam, Vickers is relieved of his post and sent off to your base on these ‘medical grounds’, von Supernova gets sent straight back to his ship, and we get told there was nothing to it. Come off it, bob. People have been talking about how erratic and moody Vickers has been in the last few weeks, even before the Fourth arrived. Now there’s this. So don’t give us ‘medical grounds’, bob, we’re not stupid. Vickers is well known for liking his tipple – he’s a brandy man, they say, even keeps brandy in his office. When he gave an interview after the arrest his face was red, his eyes staring and his hands unsteady. So what are we saying, here? Either that the guy has gone totally dongo or that he was gonzered on too much liquid lunch?’

  Captain Alladyce looked straight at him, coolly composed.

  ‘No comment.’

  That was, however, clearly considered to have explained things, at least to the satisfaction of the Novamasian media and public.

  It was a wholly unfair suspicion to throw on Alford Vickers, of course. Call Alladyce knew very well that the admiral hadn’t been drunk, other than on pure malice. And he did not, to be fair, have a drinking problem. He liked his brandy of an evening, yes, but a modest glass of brandy as a nightcap was hardly raging alcoholism. And while he did, yes, have brandy in his office, and very fine brandy, too, that was in the hospitality cabinet offered to sufficiently important guests, not something he was in the habit of helping himself to while at work.

  Even allowing such hints about a senior Fleet officer would normally be considered appalling character assassination in itself. The suspicion that he’d been drunk, though, was no more discreditable than the truth, less so, since most people would be at least a little understanding of ‘he was so drunk he didn’t know what he was doing’ whereas ‘he deliberately tried to ruin another officer’s reputation and career’ would be viewed as shameful even by civilians. If it did turn out that he had had some kind of mental breakdown, Call Alladyce would feel bad about having slandered him, then. But he was of one mind with Alex, in this, and indeed with everyone else who knew the admiral – he might well stand in crying need of anger management counselling, but this was no medical breakdown. The only reason they’d had to send him for psych evals was that that was part of the regulation procedure when an officer was removed from post by subordinates on grounds of incapacity to carry out their duties.

  And the news that went out, now, both in the media and tearing through Fleet goss, would be that Admiral Vickers had been hitting the bottle and had gone off at Alex in a drunken rage. No blame would attach to Alex in that, no feeling that he’d driven the man to a breakdown or set out to bring him down professionally. And as it was known, too, that the admiral had given orders for the homeworld squadron not to salute the Fourth when they came into port, people would make sense of that, too, with shaken heads, such a shame when a long and honourable career ended in the ruin of a bottle. If he had any sense, Alford Vickers would accept any offer that was made to him to retire on unspecified health grounds, saving his pension, at least, and some face.

  Call had certainly done everything possible, with that, to save Alex’s own reputation, which Alex acknowledged later, thanking him soberly.

  ‘And I do apologise, sir, for all the trouble this has caused. Though it was not of my making, I do realise now that my own handling of the situation may have contributed to it escalating as it did.’

  That was true enough. His bland, utterly unmoved courtesy in the face of Admiral Vickers’ increasingly furious rants might have been quite correct and professional, but that frustration had undoubtedly built up even more steam in the conflict. A more tactful approach, rather more skilful handling, might have defused things before they got to that explosive climax.

  ‘You did nothing wrong,’ Call Alladyce observed. The Fourth’s arrival, in fact, had acted as a catalyst, exposing a situation tha
t had already been festering long before it was even suggested that the Fourth might come out here. Call Alladyce himself had been shocked to realise how normal it had become, here, for him to be managing the port admiral’s foul moods. He had found himself, often, standing between him, local authorities and members of the Fleet on station, protecting the admiral himself from the consequences if derogatory comment about Novamas or unjustified anger against subordinates became known. He had slipped into the role of covering that up without even having realised it, when he should, he realised now, have been raising concerns, serious concerns, a long time before it got to this. ‘I’m the senior officer on station,’ Call reminded him. ‘The responsibility is mine.’ Then, after a momentary pause. ‘Sir.’

  Alex groaned. ‘Oh, please,’ he implored, jolted out of his formal manner just as Call had hoped. It had not been made public that Alex had letters of accreditation as a presidential envoy. It had been apparent to Ambassador Snowden that whatever else was going on here, that status was meant to be confidential, and she’d ensured that it remained so. President Tanaya had been told, in confidence, as he had a right to know, but he and his staff, and the few Fleet personnel who knew about it outside the Fourth, had all been sworn to secrecy. That meant that it would be at least a week before rumours started doing the rounds. Few people would give them any credibility, though. Alex hardly believed it, himself. ‘I’m not a presidential envoy, sir,’ he told the captain, ‘really not, not really, not to act in that role in any real way. I’ve already told Ambassador Snowden that I’m not using it. It was never more than an emergency card to play if I needed to and only for as long as I needed to.’

  ‘Do I detect,’ Captain Alladyce enquired, with an air of mild surprise, ‘a certain reluctance to embrace the honour of being ‘His Excellency, Presidential Envoy von Strada’?’