Conventions of War def-3

by Walter Jon Williams

  He looked over Command. The murals Fletcher had installed were antique military scenes, horsebacked officers who looked like bolsters in odd, overstuffed clothes, all leading bodies of men who carried firearms that featured nasty long knives on the ends. Below the officers’ bland gaze Martinez saw only the backs of the helmets of the crew sitting at their stations. IfIllustrious had been his own command, he would have known their names by now: as it was, he knew only the three lieutenants and a handful of the others.

  He wondered how much they knew about why he was here. It was a certainty that whatever they knew or didn’t, they were probably boiling with questions.

  Martinez shifted to the channel that allowed him to address everyone in Command, then paused to collect his thoughts. It was difficult to pass on information that he did not himself possess. He decided to keep it as simple as possible.

  “This is Captain Martinez,” he said. “I wished to inform you that the lady squadcom instructed me to take command ofIllustrious, as Captain Fletcher has been reported ill. I don’t know any details, but I’m sure that Captain Fletcher will return to command as soon as circumstances permit.”

  Well, he thought,that was as bland an announcement as he could possibly imagine. He doubted it went very far toward softening the curiosity of the watch.

  Martinez then called Michi to let her know that he’d arrived in Command. The call was taken by Michi’s aide, Lady Ida Li, who presumably passed it on.

  He called up the tactical display and familiarized himself with the situation: Chenforce on its way to pass by Termaine, the two pinnaces and their squadrons of missiles ahead, Termaine surrounded by a cloud of ships that had been cast off and abandoned. If Fleet Commander Jakseth was preparing any act of defiance, he had yet to launch it.

  “Lord Captain?” The voice was familiar, and a glance at his display showed that it belonged to Husayn, the weapons officer.

  “Yes, Lieutenant?” Martinez answered.

  “I was wondering if I’m likely to have to light the weapons board.”

  Which was very tactful of Husayn, and Martinez mentally awarded him a few points. At the moment neither he, Husayn, or anyone else aboardIllustrious could fire its population-crushing array of weaponry. No single officer could do that, not until certain conditions were met.

  Three officers-either the captain and two lieutenants or three lieutenants on their own-would have to turn their keys to unlock the weapons board, and at least two of those keys would have to be turned in different parts of the ship.

  Martinez’s key was useless for the task-it wasn’t configured for a line officer in the correct chain of command. He would have to organize three of the lieutenants.

  “Very good, Lord Lieutenant,” he said. He called the first lieutenant, Fulvia Kazakov, who was stationed in Auxiliary Command, ready to take charge ofIllustrious if Command and all senior officers were blown to bits, and had her insert her key along with Husayn and Chandra Prasad.

  “Turn on my mark,” Martinez said. “This is not a drill. Three, two, one, mark.”

  Husayn’s display brightened as all weapons went live.

  “Thank you,” Martinez said. “Stand by.”

  Lighting the weapons board was the most dramatic thing that happened until it was time to darken the weapons board again. The day crawled by like an arthritic animal looking for a hole to die in. Every so often one of the icons on the tactical display would move very slightly in one direction or another, and then everything would be still once more.

  The pinnaces flashed past Termaine, cameras and sensors sweeping the planet’s ring for hidden weapons or warships and feeding the data to the sensor operators in Command and Auxiliary Command. Lieutenant Kazakov correlated the data and informed Termaine that Fleet Commander Jakseth was to all appearances obeying Lady Michi’s commands. The Naxids had been building no less than six warships on Termaine’s ring, but none were completed and all had been cast adrift.

  Martinez wasn’t asked to kill a few billion people. Instead, in a voice that breathed relief with every syllable, he targeted each of the abandoned ships cast off from the ring, warships and civilian craft both, and sent missiles on their way to destroy them. He divided the missiles equally among the ships of Chenforce so that no one ship’s magazines would be depleted too quickly.

  He watched the missile bursts blossom in the display, as the expanding, overlapping spheres of superheated plasma momentarily obscured Termaine and its ring. When the plasma cooled and dissipated, the ring was still there, presumably much to the relief of Fleet Commander Jakseth.

  Martinez watched the tactical situation crawl along for another half hour, then called Michi to ask for permission to secure from general quarters. This time he spoke to her personally.

  “Permission granted,” she said.

  “How is Captain Fletcher?”

  “He’s dead. I’ll need you and Lieutenant Kazakov to meet in my office as soon as we secure from quarters.”

  “Yes, my lady.” He paused in hopes that Lady Michi would volunteer more information, but once again she remained silent.

  “May I ask how the captain died?” he said finally. He was prepared to wager that Fletcher had hanged himself.

  Michi’s tone turned resentful. “Fell and hit his head on a corner of his desk, apparently. We don’t know any more than that because we went to quarters soon after the body was discovered. Dr. Xi had the body moved to sick bay and then had to go to quarters himself, so there hasn’t been an examination.”

  “Would you like me to make an announcement to the ship’s crew?”

  “No. I’ll do that myself. For now, I want to see you in my office.”

  “Very good, my lady.”

  Michi ended the communication, and Martinez shifted to the channel that enabled him to speak with others in Command.

  “Secure from general quarters,” he ordered. “Well done, everyone.”

  He took off his helmet and took a breath of air free off the smell of suit seals. As the tone to secure from quarters buzzed through the ship, he unwebbed and stood.

  “Who’s normally standing watch at this hour?” he asked.

  Chandra pulled the helmet off her head and wiped a bit of sweat off her forehead with a gloved hand. “The premiere, Lord Captain,” she said.

  “Lieutenant Kazakov is called elsewhere. If you’re not too tired, Lieutenant Prasad, I’d be obliged if you’d take the premiere’s watch.”

  Chandra nodded. “Very good, my lord.”

  “Lieutenant Prasad has the watch!” Martinez said, loud enough for anyone to hear.

  “I have the watch!” Chandra agreed loudly.

  Martinez stalked out of the room. The horsebacked officers on the walls watched with unfriendly, calculating eyes.

  “I’m appointing you to commandIllustrious, ” Michi said. “You’re the only captain we’ve got.”

  Martinez wished she had phrased it so he didn’t sound so much like a desperate last resort, but the warm, exuberant pleasure of having a command again soon erased any discomfort.

  “Yes, my lady,” he said, glowing.

  “Give me your captain’s key,” she said. He took his key from the elastic around his neck and handed it to her, and she slipped it into the slot on her desk and tapped codes into the desk.

  “Your thumbprint, please?”

  Martinez provided it. Michi returned the key to him, and he reattached it to the elastic and tucked it again into his uniform tunic.

  “Congratulations, my lord,” said Fulvia Kazakov. She sat next to Martinez, across the desk from the squadcom. Her dark hair was knotted as usual behind her head, but she’d changed hurriedly afterIllustrious secured from quarters, and hadn’t had time to stick the usual pair of inlaid chopsticks through the knot.

  “Thank you,” Martinez said, then realized he should try not to beam quite so much. “A shame it had to happen after such a tragedy,” he added.

  “Quite,” Michi said. She touched h
er comm panel. “Is Garcia there yet?”

  “Yes, my lady.” The voice of her orderly Vandervalk.

  “Send him in.”

  Rigger First Class Garcia entered and braced. Under the loose supervision of the military constable officer, Garcia was the head of the ship’s Constabulary, all three of them, and was a youngish man, a little plump, wearing a mustache. He had never been in the flag officer’s office before, at least to judge by the way his eyes kept turning to the ornamental fluted bronzed pillars, the bronze statues of naked Terran women holding baskets of fruit, and the murals filled with poised human figures sharing a landscape with fantastic beasts.

  “You’ve finished your investigation?” Michi said.

  “I’ve interviewed Captain Fletcher’s staff,” Garcia said. “I wasn’t able to see them all personally, but I was able to speak to them through comm when we were at quarters.”

  “Report then.”

  Garcia looked at his sleeve display, where he’d obviously stored the particulars. “The captain worked with Warrant Officer Marsden on ship’s business till about 2501 yesterday,” he said. “His orderly, Narbonne, was the last person to see him. He helped the captain undress, took his uniform to be brushed and his shoes to be polished. That was about 2526.”

  Garcia gave a polite cough that indicated his willingness to be interrupted by a question, and when there was none, continued.

  “Narbonne returned at 0526 this morning to wake the captain, bring him his uniform, and help him dress, but when he entered the captain’s room he saw that the captain wasn’t in his bed. He assumed Captain Fletcher was working in his office, so he hung the uniform by the bed and returned to the orderly room and waited to be called.

  “A few minutes later the captain’s cook, Baca, brought Captain Fletcher’s breakfast into the dining room. The captain wasn’t there, but that wasn’t unusual, and Baca also withdrew.”

  “Neither of them looked in the office?” Michi asked.

  “No. The captain doesn’t-didn’t-like to be disturbed when working.”

  “Continue.”

  “About 0601 Baca returned and saw the captain’s breakfast hadn’t been touched. He knew we’d be going to quarters shortly, so he paged Captain Fletcher to see if he’d be wanting anything at all to eat, and when there was no answer, he went into the office and found the captain dead.”

  Again Garcia coughed politely to provide a convenient break in his narrative, and this time Michi obliged him.

  “What did Baca do then?”

  “He paged Narbonne. Then he and Narbonne put their heads together and paged me.”

  “You?” Martinez was startled. “Why did they page the Constabulary? Did they suspect foul play?”

  Garcia seemed embarrassed. “I think they were afraid they might be blamed for the captain’s death. They wanted me there so I could…assure them they wouldn’t be held responsible.”

  Martinez supposed that was plausible.

  “I arrived on the scene at 0614,” Garcia continued. “The captain was cold and had clearly been dead for some time. I paged the doctor and a stretcher party, and then called Lady Michi.” His eyes turned to the squadcom. “You ordered me to conduct an investigation. I told Narbonne and Baca to return to the orderly room, and then waited for the doctor. Once the doctor and stretcher party arrived, Dr. Xi pronounced the captain dead and took the body to sick bay. I looked over the office and…well, it was obvious what happened.”

  “And what happened was?” Michi prompted.

  “Captain Fletcher got out of bed sometime during the night, went into his office, fell and hit his head. There was an obvious wound on his right temple, and the corner of his desk had some blood, hair, and a bit of skin adhering.” For some reason, Garcia had trouble pronouncing the word “adhering,” but he managed it on the third try.

  “My suspicion is that the captain got caught off-balance during the course change early this morning. There was one at 0346. There was a moment of weightlessness, and then when acceleration resumed he was caught wrong-footed. Or maybe he was floating weightless in the room and resumption of gravity caught him by surprise. Dr. Xi might be able to confirm the timing.”

  Michi saw his surprised look out of the corner of her eye. “Captain Martinez?” she said. “Did you have a question?”

  Martinez was startled. “No, my lady,” he said quickly. “I just remembered that I woke during that course change. I wonder…if I heard something.”

  He groped through his memory, but failed to grasp whatever it was that had brought him awake.

  “It was most likely the zero-gravity alarm that woke you up,” Kazakov said.

  “Very possible, my lady.”

  Michi returned her attention to Garcia. “Was the captain dressed?” she asked.

  “No, my lady. He wore pajamas, a dressing gown, and slippers.”

  “I have no more questions,” Michi said. She glanced at Martinez and Kazakov. “Is there anything else?”

  “I have a question,” Martinez said. “Did you take any notice of what the captain was working on?”

  “Working?”

  “If he was in his office, I’d suppose he’d be working.”

  “He wasn’t working at anything. The display wasn’t turned on, and there were no papers on the desk.”

  “Where was his captain’s key?”

  Garcia opened his mouth, closed it, and opened it again. “I don’t know, my lord.”

  “Was it slotted into the desk?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Martinez looked at Michi. “That’s all,” he said. “I think.”

  Michi turned to the petty officer. “Thank you, Garcia,” she said.

  He braced and made his way out. Michi gave Martinez a look. “That was good thinking, about the captain’s key. It’s got access to practically everything.” She turned to her desk and began entering codes. “I’ll cancel the key’s privileges.”

  This proved to be unnecessary, as the next to report was Dr. Xi, who put Captain Fletcher’s key on the desk in front of the squadron commander. The strip of plastic was on an elastic band.

  “I found this around his wrist,” Xi said.

  Lord Yuntai Xi was a small man with a well-tended white beard, salt-and-pepper hair that hung over his collar, and a little potbelly. The Xi clan were clients of the Gombergs, and he had known the captain from boyhood. He spoke in a steady tenor voice, but there was sadness in his brown eyes.

  “Because we’ve spent most of the last several hours at general quarters, I’ve been able to conduct only a superficial investigation. There is a substantial depression on the right side of the skull, and the skin is torn, and skull fracture is the obvious cause of death. There are no other wounds. I made a small incision under the ribs on the right side and inserted a thermometer into the liver, and from that I calculate that the time of death was 0401, plus or minus half an hour.”

  Martinez noted that 0401 was only seven minutes after the change of course that might have caused the captain’s stumble and death.

  “Thank you, Lord Doctor,” Michi said. “I think in view of the questions that will inevitably be raised, an autopsy will be required.”

  Xi closed his eyes and sighed. “Very well, my lady.”

  After Xi left, Michi took up Fletcher’s key and held the thin plastic strip thoughtfully in her hand.

  “Do you wish me to make an announcement to the ship’s company?” Martinez asked.

  “No. I’ll do it.” She tossed the key into the rubbish. “That’s a bad coincidence,” she said.

  “Yes, my lady,” said Kazakov. Her expression was thoughtful.

  “Coincidence?” Martinez repeated.

  “First Kosinic,” Kazakov explained, “and then Captain Fletcher.”

  Kosinic had been Lady Michi’s first tactical officer. He had died early in Chenforce’s journey from Harzapid to Zanshaa, and his death provided an opening on the staff that Martinez-a recent addition to th
e Chen family-had jumped to fill.

  “Coincidence?” Martinez said again. “I don’t understand what you mean. I thought Lieutenant Kosinic died from wounds received at Harzapid.”

  “No.” Michi’s glare was savage. “He fell and hit his head.”

  Martinez returned to his cabin to find that Alikhan, assisted by his other orderlies, Espinosa and Ayutano, were packing his belongings.

  Alikhan turned to him as he paused in the doorway. “I presume we will be moving to the captain’s cabin, my lord,” he said.

  “I suppose we will.” Martinez hadn’t actually gotten that far in his thinking.

  Nor was there any point in wondering how Alikhan knew of the vacancy in the captain’s quarters. Even though no announcement had been made, everyone on the ship must know by now that Fletcher was dead.

  “We’ve removed the staff tabs from all your tunics except for what you’re wearing now,” Alikhan said. “If you’d care to give me your jacket, my lord?”

  Martinez unbuttoned his collar and stepped into his sleeping cabin. Alikhan and his mates had nearly finished the job, remarkably efficient considering the amount of gear an officer was supposed to carry with him from one posting to the next.

  “Are the captain’s belongings also being packed?” he asked.

  “Everything but what was in his office,” said Alikhan. “There’s a constable on guard there.”

  “Right,” Martinez said. He turned, left his cabin, buttoned his collar again, and marched down the corridor to Fletcher’s office. The Constable there braced as he entered.

  “Come with me, Constable,” he told her, and walked through the office, deliberately averting his eyes from the desk with the blood and the scrapings of Fletcher’s scalp. He entered Fletcher’s sleeping cabin, stopped in the doorway and gaped.

  Something Chandra said had led him to conclude that he’d find erotica on Fletcher’s walls, but Fletcher hadn’t adorned his private room with anything so ordinary. In place of the bright tile work or classically balanced frescoes Fletcher had placed elsewhere on hisIllustrious, the walls in the sleeping cabin were paneled in ancient dark wood. The wood was rough-hewn and scarred and had never been painted or polished. Presumably it had been fireproofed as Fleet regulations required, but otherwise it looked to have been acquired from some timeworn ruin of a house, a timbered hulk from a desolate dark age. The ceiling panels were perhaps equally old but were in a different style, dark wood again and roughly hewn, but polished to a mellow glow. On the floor were mud-colored tiles with geometrical patterns in faded yellow. Lights were recessed into crude hand-beaten copper sconces. Small dark old pictures sat on the walls in metal frames that winked dully of gold or silver.