The Little Ships (Alexis Carew Book 3)

by J. A. Sutherland

  “You’re a bloody menace!”

  “I did warn you,” Alexis said, resuming her seat.

  Nesbit limped back to the table. “It’s dance, Carew, not bloody wrestling!”

  Alexis poured him a fresh glass of wine and slid it across the table to him. “I’m not at all certain why I have such trouble with it.”

  Nesbit drained his glass. “If a simple dance is such a struggle, I shudder at the thought of what an effort bedding you would be …”

  He froze, glass halfway to the table, and blanched. Hollingshed was equally silent, staring from Nesbit to Alexis.

  “Oh, hell, Carew, I’m sorry for that.” He set his glass down and spread his hands. “I wasn’t thinking —”

  Alexis cut him off hurriedly. “I’m not one to take offense at what’s clearly a jest, Nesbit,” she said, “even a crude one.” She laid her hand on his arm. “I know the sorts of jests young men make amongst themselves, at least those of an age.”

  She nodded at Hollingshed who was only a year older than she and Nesbit. She didn’t include Lieutenants Barr and Slawson, the first and second lieutenants in that. They were both much older more properly restrained. But Nesbit and Hollingshed, even Brookhouse to a certain extent, were only a little ways from midshipmen themselves, and no matter their upbringing they had little more couth than the village youths when their elders weren’t around.

  “And I’d rather you made them,” she continued, “rather than being forever on your guard to avoid offending me.” She squeezed his arm. “I’ll draw my own lines, if you please, and that was nowhere near one. In fact, I think that may be the first time you’ve given up playing the gallant and simply spoken as yourself and, dare I say, a friend?”

  “In my tongue-tied colleague’s defense,” Hollingshed said, holding the wine bottle to the light before pouring, “we’ve only seen a little of you off-watch. Difficult to know someone that way.”

  Alexis nodded.

  Damn Eades for that as well, she thought. She’d been aboard Shrewsbury for nearly two months, but he’d taken so much of her time that she’d truly not had the chance to know the other officers, and that was good for neither herself nor the ship. They’ve seen me on watch and may trust my skills, but they don’t truly know me.

  “Well now you know, and I’m quite able to tell you if you cross a line, without it becoming some sort of dire event.”

  “That’s good to hear,” Hollingshed said. “We were a bit unsure what to think when you came aboard. Shrewsbury’d just come from the Core, you know, and we’d had several women aboard there, but we’d heard the Fringe was, well, different, I suppose.”

  “The Fringe or Fringe women?” Alexis asked with a smile.

  “Both, to be honest,” Nesbit said, finally speaking again. “I’d expected all the girls out here to be locked away in cloisters.”

  “Skirts never above the ankle,” Hollingshed added.

  Nesbit nodded. “Veils.”

  “Virtue guarded every moment.”

  “And none too bright, truth to tell.”

  “Vaporish,” Hollingshed said with a gleam in his eye.

  “Prone to hysteria.”

  “Not to be bothered with such things as voting or finance or property matters, of course.”

  “Horrid dancers.”

  Alexis had been looking from one to the other as they’d laid out their expectations, sad that, much as they were teasing her, there were plenty, if not most, of the Fringe Worlds that were exactly like they described. Perhaps not all of them, nor all the same, but of all the prejudices on the Fringe Worlds, women tended to be the most universal target.

  Part of that was due to the natural divisions of work in a developing colony, she knew, and part to a certain over-protectiveness when a new colony’s limited medical care made childbirth a surprisingly dangerous proposition for those raised in the Core, but there was also something else to it that bewildered her.

  She’d encountered it in her former captain, Neals, aboard Hermione, and couldn’t entirely dismiss the man’s attitudes as coming solely from what she was certain was insanity. Still, she’d seen not a bit of that in the officers or crew of Shrewsbury.

  Nesbit’s final comment registered and she shoved his shoulder, laughing. “Beast!”

  “So did you enjoy your evening with Mister Eades otherwise?” Hollingshed asked.

  “I’ll allow I did learn some things, but enjoyment isn’t in it,” she answered. “You gentlemen are awake quite late.”

  “I have the middle,” Hollingshed said with a grimace, referring to the middle watch which ran from midnight to four a.m. “Not much point in trying to sleep until then.”

  Nesbit raised his glass with a smile. “And I couldn’t leave the poor man to drink alone.”

  Alexis smiled in return.

  “And worse than the middle alone,” Hollingshed went on, “I’ve to share it with our young Artley.”

  Nesbit shook his head sadly. “That one’ll never make an officer.”

  “Is he truly that bad?” Alexis asked. She’d had little contact with Artley. Not surprising since there were more than a dozen midshipmen aboard Shrewsbury, along with the ship’s crew of over seven hundred men.

  Hollingshed grimaced. “You’ll see for yourself soon enough,” he said. “He’s not a bad lad, truly, but he’s timid as a mouse and clumsy.” He shrugged. “The hands are starting to lose respect for him, I think.”

  “I see,” Alexis said. That would, indeed, be bad. The men aboard were willing enough to take orders from midshipmen, even the youngest of them. They’d even take a likely youngster in hand and help him along if they thought he’d make a good officer one day.

  Lord knows what I’d have done myself, she thought, without the good opinion of Merlin’s crew.

  But if the crew lost respect for him, even the little bit they might have for a very young midshipman, then Hollingshed was likely right and the lad would never make an officer.

  And I’m to rely on him for my gundeck in action.

  Alexis took another sip of wine and grimaced. Perhaps it would be best to take the lad’s measure earlier, rather than later, and the quiet of the middle watch might make a fine time to do so.

  “Would you be at all interested in trading watches, Hollingshed?” she asked. “I have the first dog tomorrow, if you like.”

  “A full night’s sleep and a shortened watch tomorrow?” He nodded. “Aye, I’ll take that trade and thank you for it. Wish to get a better look at the bad bargain our captain’s given you?”

  Alexis shrugged. “I’ll not call it a bad bargain until I’ve worked with the lad, but I’d rather have the boy’s measure before next gun drill … or, worse, an action.”

  “He’s not seen an action from the gundecks,” Hollingshed warned her. “Captain’s kept him on the quarterdeck.”

  Alexis winced. The quarterdeck was one of the safest places to be in action, with the thicker hull that protected it. That hull could be breached by enemy shot, but Shrewsbury hadn’t encountered such an action since either Alexis or Artley came aboard. If the lad hadn’t been to the gundecks, even during drill, how would he react to the chaos and danger?

  Chapter 5

  The muted tone of the ship’s bell began sounding as Alexis slid the hatch to the quarterdeck open. Lieutenant Barr looked up from the circular table of the navigation plot that comprised the center of the compartment and raised an eyebrow.

  “Hollingshed and I have exchanged watches,” Alexis said, crossing to his side.

  Barr nodded.

  Alexis studied the plot to familiarize herself with Shrewsbury’s course and speed, as well as the positions of the merchant ships in the convoy. Those positions were plotted based on images of the other ships brought inboard from Shrewsbury’s hull by a complex series of optics that kept the radiations of darkspace at bay. None of the ship’s other sensors were functional in the odd realm filled with dark energy and dark matter — they’d hav
e to wait until they transitioned back to normal-space at a Lagrangian point in some star system before those could tell them anything.

  The spacers who’d be standing the middle watch with her were already present, waiting beside the consoles they’d be manning, some whispering with those going off watch to pass along anything important. Not that there would be much of that since they’d taken the frigate that had been dogging the convoy’s heels.

  All of the spacers for the next watch were present, Alexis noted, save Artley, but just as the final note of the bell sounded, the hatchway slid open and he rushed onto the quarterdeck smoothing his uniform and trying to control his gasps for breath.

  Barr gave Alexis a small grimace and Alexis fought down a surge of irritation. She was torn between sympathy for the lad having to make his way in a strange environment and irritation that he couldn’t manage to find his way to his watch station until the very last moment.

  Was I ever in such a state? she asked herself, struggling not to smile at the thought.

  “I have the deck, Lieutenant Barr,” she said.

  “The deck is yours,” he agreed. “There are no changes to the standing orders.” He nodded to her, and glanced at Artley who was murmuring to Thedford at the signals console. Everyone else from the previous watch had already left the quarterdeck. He gave a little sigh and shrugged to her before leaving.

  Alexis reviewed the state of the navigation plot, noting the positions of the ships in the convoy. She settled into her place to enjoy the quiet for a time. She’d always liked standing the middle watch best, running from the ship’s midnight to four a.m. when the hands would wake and Shrewsbury would begin to bustle and echo with the sounds of the day’s activity.

  In the quiet of the night, with the other officers and Captain Euell all asleep, Shrewsbury was truly hers. Barring a storm or significant change in the winds, she could order sail and course changes, even issue orders to the entire convoy, without anyone questioning her. She caught her lower lip between her teeth to keep from grinning.

  Until morning when the captain reviews the log and asks why I’ve sent his convoy zig-zagging about to my whims.

  “Mister Artley, a throw of the log, if you please,” she said. “I’d admire an update to our course.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  She made a point of watching surreptitiously as he worked the signals console to send her order out to the spacers minding the sails. Darkspace was a featureless void, with not even stars to navigate by — only a constantly roiling mass of shadowy storms were visible in the distance. Once a ship was out of sight of a system’s pilot boat, assuming there was one, the only way to navigate was through dead reckoning.

  One of spacers would have to take the log to the ship’s keel and launch the weighted bag outside of Shrewsbury’s field, where it would stick in the morass of dark matter that permeated darkspace. The bag was attached to a line and timed. How much line was pulled out in that time would tell Alexis how fast Shrewsbury was traveling and the angles to the bag at the end would give her an idea of the ship’s speed, course, and drift.

  What made the whole system work was the odd effect darkspace had on distances. The farther a ship traveled from a star system, from any normal-space mass, really, the faster or farther it traveled in darkspace, but to the ship itself, the speed appeared constant and quite slow. So though the thrown log might only strip a few hundred meters of line off the log’s reel, Shrewsbury herself might have made light years of normal-space distance.

  Or not … I never have been sure if we’re traveling faster or farther or what.

  Since a ship could only transition back to normal-space — and that only in star systems and at particular places called Lagrangian points — there was no way to tell how the distances between matched up.

  Of course, none of that would happen if Artley didn’t relay her order to the crew outside.

  Alexis frowned as the time dragged on and Artley pecked at the signals console. It was a simple, common order, given four or more times each watch, and this was not Artley’s first time at the console. In fact he’d spent all his watches there, as it was often the assignment given to the most junior midshipman on watch.

  Artley finally reported that the order had been relayed to the spacers outside via the ship’s fiber optics, no electronics being functional outside the hull in the darkspace radiations.

  Once the log had been thrown and the information relayed back inside, Alexis bent over the navigation plot to update the ship’s course. She ran her own calculations, then allowed the plot’s computer to do so. She grinned as she saw that hers was not too far off the computer’s — it had been a long time since she’d once plotted her ship’s position all outside of known space, but the mental hoops required for darkspace navigation still tripped her up from time to time. That she and the rest of Shrewsbury’s crew relied on what were essentially guesses of the ship’s speed and direction for their safe arrival did still make her a bit queasy.

  When she was done, she displayed Artley’s records on the navigation plot to review them. The time he’d taken to relay a simple, expected order, and the uncertainty he’d shown, troubled her. She’d have to rely on him to command or even help man half her guns in the next action, and what she’d seen of him so far made her far from confident.

  Artley was new to Shrewsbury, she saw, with not very much more time aboard than she herself had. He’d come aboard just as the ship left the Core Worlds for the Fringe. That in itself wasn’t unusual. Shrewsbury had transferred to the Fringe from Core Fleet just before she’d come aboard and fully half the crew and officers were new to the ship.

  True, Shrewsbury was Artley’s first ship and he’d been in the Navy no longer than he’d been aboard, but midshipman recruits in the Core Worlds were most often from families with a Naval tradition. Artley’s lack of confidence and knowledge didn’t speak of someone from a Naval family and his records confirmed it. It seemed he’d had no prior contact with the Navy at all.

  Alexis’ frown deepened. From most Fringe Worlds the Navy was a step up for a young lad who didn’t want to follow in whatever work his father performed, especially if one could become a midshipman, an officer in training, rather than as common crew. But Artley had come from the Core, where there were far more opportunities and options available. Why, the lad hadn’t even finished the basic schooling available in the Core. True, there were ample opportunities for him to study with Shrewsbury’s systems, but it was still odd. What could have made him sign aboard ship? And more so, what could have convinced his family to allow it?

  Whatever the reason, his records didn’t say. She closed them and crossed to stand next to him at the signals console.

  “Mister Artley?”

  Artley jumped, as though he’d been unaware that Alexis had approached, and turned to face her. “Sir?”

  “I’m given to understand that you’ll be joining my division on the upper gundeck, in place of Mister Blackmer.”

  Artley nodded. “Yes, sir.”

  He swallowed and Alexis thought she saw his eyes glisten.

  Were they close, then? And has anyone thought to comfort him after Blackmer’s death?

  It was hard to know. Shrewsbury had eighteen midshipmen aboard, ranging in age from Artley’s twelve to a practically ancient one of twenty-three — who’d failed to pass for lieutenant so often that he’d likely resigned himself to being a midshipman forever — and their berth was a chaotic one. Alexis had visited once, then left and thanked her fate that she’d been promoted lieutenant without having served aboard a ship so large as Shrewsbury.

  It was hard enough being the only girl of six aboard Hermione. She shuddered at the thought of what Shrewsbury’s midshipmen’s berth might be like for her, though none of the lads aboard were near so vile as Hermione’s had been.

  Still, the Navy did tend to forget that the midshipmen were little more than young lads, or, as in Artley’s case, barely more than children. Shrewsbury h
ad seen little action since leaving the Core Worlds and Blackmer had been the first death aboard, save by accidents Outside on the hull. Artley had likely never lost a friend at all, much less by so violent circumstances.

  Alexis laid a hand on Artley’s shoulder.

  “He was a good lad, Blackmer was.”

  Artley nodded, swallowing again.

  “You’ll have a time of it filling his shoes, but I’ve confidence you’ll do him proud.”

  There was little else she could say. Not on the quarterdeck with other hands about to hear. She made a mental note to speak to the boy more later, though, and to ask Slawson about the matter when he returned. As second lieutenant he was nominally in charge of the midshipmen’s berth. When she’d have time to do so she wasn’t sure, though.

  Alexis returned to the navigation plot and noted that one of the merchantmen in the convoy was drifting from the projected course.

  “Mister Artley,” Alexis said, “Imperial Rose has been sailing a point or two to leeward and is falling away from us. Make a signal to request she come up a bit and rejoin the convoy.”

  Artley spun around and looked at her with wide eyes. He gulped visibly. “Aye, sir.”

  Alexis watched him out of the corner of her eye while appearing to stare at the navigation plot. Artley pecked at his console for a long time before she saw the signal go out, lights on Shrewsbury’s masts and hull flashing and changing color to signal the other ship. Alexis sighed. Far too long, but the other ship did see the signal and firmed up her course to remain with the convoy.

  Chapter 6

  Shrewsbury said goodbye to the last of the merchant vessels as expected, but added a fast packet from New London that was waiting at their last stop before entering French space. They were within sight of the pilot boat for the Caillavet system, but still in darkspace. As the merchants were leaving them and Shrewsbury had adequate supplies, Captain Euell saw no need to transition. Instead he passed a message back via the pilot boat and waited while the packet joined them in darkspace.