Dark Running (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 4)

by S J MacDonald

  ‘Once we have done that, then, that is the time for us to demonstrate that we didn’t have to run away, with a non-threatening display of our military capability. And I am thinking, there, display, rolling broadsides along with fighter displays, with all fire very definitely, emphatically, directed away from Samart. If – and that’s a big If, already – we have been able to keep them watching us from their side of the border, that should communicate that we have no hostile intentions whilst at the same time showing them our own level of military capacity. Either that will impress them or it won’t. If it doesn’t, or if they react to it with renewed hostility, then we have to accept that as a definite rejection of contact, and leave. Our best hope is that they are sufficiently impressed and reassured to become curious.

  ‘My intention, if they do show continued and non-hostile interest in us, is to maintain comms silence. However tempting it might be, however long it goes on, if they are remaining in non-hostile company with us we have to give them time to have a good look and decide in their own time whether they want to know more about us. That first call, if there is a call, has to come from them.

  ‘There is, it has to be said, a very low probability that they will make that call. The most probable outcome is that they will chase us to the border and then peel away immediately we are out of their territory. The only way to get back on their scopes would be to go back over the border. Ships which set out from Prisos with the intention of keeping on doing that till the Samartians would talk to them just did not come back, so we will not be doing that; once over their border, that’s it, we respect it. If we’re to stand any chance of them even seeing our display, we will have to go into it immediately we see them starting to turn off pursuit. Chances are they won’t stay to watch. Current estimates of our chances give us about a one per cent chance of engaging their attention, and even less of that developing into contact.

  ‘I am, therefore, hoping to improve those odds as much as we can by working up the most impressive combat display we can come up with. I am open to suggestions as to how we can go about that – there will be an ops forum open on the notice board from today onwards, which any member of the ship’s company can contribute ideas to. A reminder, please, that all suggestions must be within the given safety parameters specified on the forum. I should also mention that I’ll be more inclined to approve manoeuvres which demonstrate skill, rather than stunts which rely on special effects. In the best case outcome where they do make contact, we will then follow established First Effective Contact procedures. So – any concerns about that?’

  That was the point at which any officer was entitled to log their opinion if they believed that the orders they were being given were unsound, but there was no such protest, here, just the customary chorus of ‘No, sir,’ which became their logged consent to the plan as proposed.

  ‘Thank you,’ Alex said, and pointedly not looking at Davie North, ‘So, any suggestions at this stage?’

  He heard several of them out, with increasing amusement round the table, and around the ship, as Davie just sat there, arms folded, staring at Alex like an offended cat. It was obvious to all of them that the skipper was winding him up. And that, though entertaining, was reassuring, too, showing that Alex himself was so relaxed and confident that he was having a laugh. Everyone knew that Davie was bursting with things that he wanted to say, impatient to get decisions made. He held his peace, though, waiting it out till Alex finally acknowledged him with a blandly innocent, ‘Mr North?’

  Davie chuckled, though with a long-suffering roll of his eyes, as if to say, The things I have to put up with.

  ‘Well, there are just one or two things,’ he said. ‘For a start, I want the brig. I want to convert it into an exo-suite and I want a free hand with it – I’ll want to bring things over from the Stepeasy, and to have it refitted and decorated how I want.’

  He spoke as if that was a perfectly reasonable request, though all the officers were staring at him in astonishment.

  ‘Nice try,’ said Alex, with an appreciative grin, and told him, ‘Give me a project proposal in writing, and I’ll see.’

  Davie sighed. A pen flicked into his fingers and he began working on screens, compiling specs and datacoding from six screens simultaneously.

  ‘You know that ‘I’ll see’ is the most infuriating, patronising answer you can give to a teenager, right?’ he observed, and tossed a fully worked up project proposal onto the screen in front of Alex. ‘There you go, boss.’

  ‘No,’ Alex opened the file, glancing it over, ‘it isn’t. It isn’t even in the same league as ‘I’ll treat you like a grown up when you act like a grown up.’, or, ‘You’ll thank me for it one day.’ Yes, very funny.’ He struck out a section of the proposal which suggested uses for the venue while they were waiting to see if it might get any use as an encounter zone. It might, Davie had suggested, be used till then as a shipboard casino. ‘Tsk!’ Alex gave him a mock-reproving look and Davie grinned.

  ‘Often useful to see if people really are reading the documents you send them,’ he said.

  At the thought of what kind of thing he might have included in documents sent out to the executive directors of intersystem corporations, Alex gave a snurge of merriment.

  ‘All right.’ He finished scanning through the proposal and put it on the table for the other officers to see, inviting their questions and comments. With a general murmur of admiration and Buzz’s ‘Looks good,’ though, Alex gave a nod. Amongst all the technical specs, work schedule and costings, Davie had already secured an official agreement from Mako Ireson, confirming on behalf of the League Prisons Authority that he agreed to the change of usage of the brig.

  ‘Project approved,’ Alex said, and with a hard look at Davie, ‘Do not go beyond it.’

  ‘Okey dokey, bossky,’ Davie said. ‘So, second thing, I want to bring a chef aboard.’

  That got even more astounded looks, not least from Alex himself.

  ‘Not for me,’ Davie said, seeing that surprise and question in Alex’s face, and giving him a look of some reproof. ‘Come on, please. This is the land of pizza and doughnuts, soppo and dogs, the food of the gods. Nobody in their right mind would give that up for haute cuisine eight times a day. But there is a place for haute cuisine in diplomatic hospitality. If we are able to get to that point, the Envoy should not feel he has to apologise for the food.’

  Alex took the point – the Fleet always did apologise to guests for the food that they served, on the basis that it was ‘only prepacks’.

  ‘But...’ Alex looked dubious. ‘Facilities? Supplies?’

  ‘Readily accommodated,’ Davie said. ‘There’s the micro-galley anyway, it only needs a different kind of oven and a work unit which we can bring over from the Stepeasy. Supplies, no problem, the Stepeasy is stuffed with them – we can use the vault.’

  Alex looked even more reluctant. The vault – more formally known as the High Security Quarantine Hold – was one of the Heron’s upgrade features, installed when the frigate was refitted for their use. It was a Customs and Excise approved facility, a clean-room hold with a compact forensics station and high security storage bays. Like the brig, it had not been in use since the Karadon operation. Using it for anything other than the storage of seized drugs, however, would be problematical. Customs would protest, seeing that as an erosion of the facility’s purpose, which they had some right to a say in since they contributed to the funding. The Sub Committee at the Senate would then almost certainly feel the need to institute a review of the use of the facility, involving rafts of paperwork and months of discussion.

  ‘On a disclaimer, of course,’ said Davie, before Alex could give the ‘sorry, no’ that was already on his face, ‘that if it is needed for primary function, the supplies will be cleared out and any there aren’t room for in the regular hold destroyed at no cost to the Fourth - sale or return, okay?’

  It was apparent that this had not allayed Alex’s concerns.

 
‘But a chef?’ he queried, with much the same intonation as if Davie proposed to bring a wild monkey onto the ship. Davie laughed.

  ‘No Marto!’ he declared, hand on heart. ‘They’re not all like that, you know. No tears, no tantrums. And he will not, I promise, hug you and call you his angel.’

  Alex gave him a Look, and a ripple of laughter went through the ship. Marto’s embraces and impassioned declarations – in public, on camera – had been hugely entertaining to everyone but Alex.

  ‘His name’s Simon,’ Davie informed him. ‘He’s very good – I’d say ‘you won’t even know he’s aboard’, but you will, because you’ll be loving his food. He loves to bake, so you can buy treat stuff from him at ISiS rates, yes?’

  Alex looked cautiously pleased at that. Being able to treat the crew in reward for exceptional effort was important, motivating as people felt their efforts were being recognised and valued, and breaking up the humdrum round of Fleet catering. They weren’t going to meet any liners out here, or call anywhere Alex could buy treat supplies. He’d brought treats crated up in the hold, of course, but the contents were on the manifest so there were no surprises, nothing unexpected.

  ‘And he’ll make himself handy around the ship, too – he’s a good all-rounder,’ Davie said. ‘He’s also a qualified artificer tech. He’s a medic, too, so Rangi can make use of him if he wants.’

  Rangi snapped to alertness at that. He was one of the officers provided with a seat at the table, though he rarely made a contribution in such meetings. He was sitting there, then, placidly working a string of meditation beads through his fingers, a look of dreamy abstraction on his face. That was the kind of thing that had driven his previous skipper crazy, but Alex knew that Rangi was, in fact, paying attention, actually used his stilling technique to increase his focus and perception. At Davie’s words, though, he snapped straight out of it, stunned.

  ‘No!’ he exclaimed, and seeing Davie’s mischievous look, gasped audibly. ‘No way! Sir!’ he turned to Alex with his amazement turning to urgency. ‘Skipper! He means Professor Penarth!’

  ‘I believe he is professor of something, somewhere,’ Davie agreed, teasingly vague.

  ‘You remember Professor Penarth, skipper?’ Rangi prompted, with a thrilled look, ‘He consulted on the Hale Arden case.’

  Alex did remember. He hadn’t met the professor himself – he’d been overwhelmingly busy at the time, with more than eighty prisoners to process aboard and major operations still going on. They’d had a serious casualty aboard – one of the drug gang, shot by one of the others in what had looked very much like a cold blooded murder. Most medics, indeed, given the nature and extent of the injuries, would have opened the stasis bag only to sign the death certificate. Rangi, however, had been impressively confident that he had a good chance of saving him, particularly if he could ask for the help of a top-class surgeon who he knew to be aboard the Stepeasy. The professor had been aboard for several hours, taking lead in the surgery that had saved Arden’s life.

  ‘He’s Professor Emeritus in Neurosurgery at Chartsey SUSM,’ Rangi told the skipper, excitedly. He meant, Alex recognised, Chartsey System University’s School of Medicine, the most prestigious med school in the League. ‘But he’s got doctorates in virology, genetics and psychology, too! He’s like the guy in holistic medicine, a pioneer, just brilliant.’

  ‘He also,’ said Davie, ‘bakes.’ Then, as Rangi turned to him with an immediate and reproachful protest, Davie held up a hand. ‘Do not,’ he requested, ‘tell me that I should not use a professor of medicine as a pastry chef. The reason he works for me is that I let him do what he wants. And what he wants is to follow all his interests, including working as an artificer tech and baking cakes. The reason he quit his professorship was because the Dean objected to him having a weekend job in a hotel kitchen. So let him be, please, without restricting by defining him, just let him be.’

  ‘Oh.’ Rangi was thunderstruck by that, but it obviously struck a chord. He was, himself, a keen exponent of developing ‘whole person’ life balance. ‘Yes, of course – just...’ he floundered and abandoned the sentence, turning back to Alex, ‘Pleeease, skipper?’ he implored, in exactly the same tone he had once asked to be allowed to keep Lucky.

  ‘I’ll see,’ said Alex, and held up a hand, himself, to forestall a torrent of persuasion, ‘I’ll see. I’ll meet him, and I will decide. You may, if you wish, give me a case of need – in writing – listing the benefits of having a second medic aboard, but let’s keep it professional, Dr Tekawa.’

  ‘Skipper.’ Rangi acknowledged, with a look of shining delight, then blurted a delighted, ‘Thanks!’ at Davie.

  Alex and Davie exchanged looks – neither of them showed much expression. In those few seconds, though, an entire silent conversation happened. Then Davie wrote and flicked the official proposal over to Alex’s screens, and grinned.

  Alex could see with one glance that it was a full and formal request for Professor Penarth to be brought into the mission team, with every aspect of the assistance he could provide referenced to his CV. It was an official Diplomatic Corps request, too, Davie exercising his right as exodiplomacy consultant to use their letterhead.

  ‘I will have to meet with him before I can give you a response to this,’ Alex said, and Davie acknowledged that with a smile.

  ‘No problem,’ he said. ‘So, third thing. No issue with the idea of working up a combat display – we’re of the same mind in that. I do, though, feel that it would be beneficial to work up your actual combat skills, too. To that end, I suggest that we use the Stepeasy’s tender for surprise attack and combat drills. It’s as close as we can get to a Marfikian Thorn and no, that is not a coincidence.’

  He answered, with that, some startled looks around the table. The Stepeasy’s tender was one of the more remarkable features of the dart-class design, an intersystem yacht in its own right, carried within a hangar bay on the ship’s belly. It was extremely fast and very agile, able to compete even with their fighters. With Davie himself at the helm, in fact, it could even keep up with Shion piloting Firefly. ‘My brief to the Dart design team was to base the tender on a Thorn. The prototype, civilian version doesn’t have serious weaponry but the version being built for the Fleet certainly does.’

  He had been nine years old when he had founded Vetrix Shipbuilding and commissioned the Dart class of starship. It was his contribution, his first contribution, to the service and protection of the League his family had been dedicated to for over two thousand years.

  ‘I do not, surely, have to spell out the benefit of combat exercise training with a Marfikian-style attack ship, in preparation for the possibility of being caught in their space by a real Marfikian patrol?’ Davie glanced around, and saw that he did not need to labour the point further. He looked back at Alex. ‘Blank fire, of course. But full immersion drills. And to give it some edge, a prize for the winner – losing ship gives the winner a case of ice cream?’

  Alex looked at Buzz, who smiled and nodded at once, and then at Commander Martine Fishe. She had the unenviable duty of being their designated Internal Affairs officer, a role she would be passing on to Jonas Sartin once his month of transfer training was complete. If there was anything in regulations which forbade either the combat drills or the prize, Martine would have to register an objection. She looked up from a quick check of files, though, adding her own nod.

  ‘Precedent, for both,’ she said. That was always important in the Fleet when considering unorthodox decisions. The fact that something was not specifically forbidden by regulations did not necessarily mean that it was allowed, so being able to assert that something similar had already been approved in Fleet records was what IA considered a sound basis for decision.

  ‘Thank you,’ Alex said, and nodded to Davie, too. ‘Yes. Subject to individual exercise approval, of course, but thank you, Mr North, that’s an excellent suggestion.’

  Davie grinned.

  ‘Okay – finally,�
�� he said, ‘A technical point. Analysis of what pathetic information the Diplomatic Corps provided indicates that the Samartians are believed to transmit comms using a base-four coding system using spectrum shift and analogue transmission. Our arrays use binary, white light and digital, of course. So, just to confirm, you won’t have a problem upgrading and reprogramming your array, no?’

  Alex looked at Martine Fishe again – the comms department also fell within her remit.

  ‘I should think we’ll manage,’ she said, and glancing over the technical specifications Davie had just put on the table, looked thoughtful at the high speed required. ‘We may need to be a bit nippy with changing the light bulbs.’

  Davie gave her an affronted look but then as everyone else laughed, so did he. His manner had indeed been rather patronising, and merited the teasing retort. Martine grinned at him, too, putting a tick on the specs and giving a nod to confirm that they would, indeed, be achievable, though it would take considerable effort and some innovation.

  ‘Thank you.’ Davie said, then looked back at Alex and tossed him a playful little salute which conveyed that he’d said all he wanted to, for now. Alex gave him an appreciative look, fully aware that Davie was exercising remarkable self-discipline, there. He was learning to be a team player, even when the other members of the team were agonisingly slow by his standards.

  He demonstrated that again, too, later in the day. Alex saw him at work in the brig. That had to be frustrating for him in so many ways – Alex would still not allow him to get hands on with tech work, holding firmly to his rule that he could not do tech work till he was sixteen. He wasn’t allowed to be in a supervisory role over crew, either, with no authority to give them orders. So he just had to step aside, while far less qualified and able officers took charge of his project, directing techs who were stripping things out in about a tenth of the time Davie could have done it himself. Alex could have understood it, really, if Davie had been hovering, fretful, urging them on.