‘And for right now,’ Dix said, breaking into a grin, himself, ‘I want to hear everything about Samart, Alex.’ He already had Alex’s reports – from the precis briefing which had enabled them to respond so quickly to the arrival of the Samartian delegation, to the enormously full report compiled by all the officers and quite a number of the crew. Alex understood, though, that what he was asking for, here, was not an official report, but a personal account, satisfying the First Lord’s own burning and slightly envious curiosity. ‘Come on!’ Dix commanded. ‘Give!’
So Alex sat forward, collected his thoughts, and started to talk.
* * *
While Alex was still aboard the Affinity station, the Heron was receiving an unexpected visitor. Third Lord Admiral Cerdan Jennar was exercising his right to visit any Fleet ship. He had not gone so far as to make it an official visit of inspection, because the terms of the Fourth’s constitution meant that he would have had to have the First Lord’s consent to carry out an Internal Affairs inspection, but he was making the most of what he could get away with under the guise of a ‘social’ visit.
Buzz had no choice, professionally, other than to welcome the Third Lord at the airlock with all due ceremony, offer him refreshment in the wardroom and invite him to tour the ship. The tour was just as much a routine courtesy as the offer of wardroom hospitality, but it was obvious to all of them that Cerdan Jennar was looking at everything and everyone with searching, critical eyes.
He found nothing on which he could make adverse comment. The ship had been sparkled in expectation that the President or First Lord might come aboard and everyone was faultlessly professional, knowing that the Evil Eye was upon them. It wasn’t until they got to Mess Deck Four that he found anything to criticise. And there, his eye fixed upon Ali Jezno.
Ali was seated at one of the mess deck tables along with several other off-duty crew. None of them got to their feet, as Fleet protocol was for them to remain quietly seated during VIP tours. Cerdan Jennar, however, homed in on Ali.
‘Why is that man wearing probationer’s pips along with petty officer insignia?’
It was a valid question, in itself – bizarre to Fleet eyes, the two insignia were contradictory. Alex had approved it, though, as there was no established Fleet insignia for a member of crew who was aboard ship whilst on long term medical rehab. It was meant to indicate that while he retained his rank of petty officer, he was not expected to be working with that degree of responsibility.
Before Buzz could explain that, though, Ali Jezno got to his feet, saluting smartly.
‘Special insignia for the Living Dead, sir,’ he said.
Cerdan Jennar swelled visibly, his chest inflating with outrage.
‘Mr Jezno.’ Buzz’s reproof was firm, though it would not have taken any great percipience to see the twinkle in his eyes. ‘Inappropriate, dear boy,’ he said, and turned to the Third Lord, explaining, ‘Petty Officer Jezno is under medical care, sir, having suffered serious brain injuries during our operations.’
‘Then he should be off the ship!’ Cerdan Jennar said, and, again, he had a point, since Fleet policy would indeed normally have been for Ali Jezno to be discharged from the ship as soon as it came into port.
Before Buzz could begin to explain that Ali would be taking medical leave, soon, but that his rehab actually required him to be aboard the ship, re-engaging with his life there, Simon Penarth came flitting down a nearby companionway and strode across to join them.
‘Hey!’ he said, ‘leave that man alone!’
Cerdan Jennar’s attention was successfully diverted. He stared incredulously at the man with the unkempt hair and scruffy jeans.
‘Who do you think you are, to …’
‘Me?’ Simon cut in, with an unholy gleam in his eyes. ‘I’ll tell you who I am. Simon Penarth, Professor Emeritus, Neurosurgery, Chartsey SU. PhD Neurosurgery, PhD General Medicine, PhD Exobiology, PhD Microbiology, PhD Psychology, PhD Genetics, Visiting Professor at nine universities and with Consultant rights in hospitals across fourteen worlds. I am without doubt the most highly qualified doctor you will ever be in a room with and I am also, by the way, a stone cold stonking genius. So you, Mr Jennar…’ a finger stabbed at the admiral’s chest and only just held back from giving him a poke, ‘will leave my patient alone.’
Cerdan Jennar, however, was not so easily intimidated. His colour was rising, but his chest stuck out even more prominently as he sucked in air.
‘I am Third Lord,’ he reminded the other man, with awful rebuke.
‘Third?’ Simon gave a derisory little snort. ‘Internal Affairs! You’re just a petty bureaucrat, a pompous little jobsworth squatting in that office like a poison toad. And no, you can’t have me sacked because I don’t work for you and never would. But I am that man’s doctor, and if you say one more word that upsets him or sets him back in his recovery, I will have you charged with assault.’
Cerdan Jennar did the only thing he could; he walked away, holding on to what dignity remained to him.
‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ Buzz said, escorting the admiral as he stalked back to the airlock, clearly intending to leave at once. ‘Professor Penarth is…’ he gestured helplessly, but broke off as Cerdan Jennar gave him a fulminating glare. Buzz had not even attempted to stop Simon Penarth’s outrageous insults, and the Third Lord would never forgive him for that. Cerdan Jennar also had to be aware, acutely aware, of the rigid silence on the frigate, the desperately frozen faces, the handful of people who just couldn’t hold it in clapping a hand over their mouths and diving into the nearest lavatory. His glower made it clear; You haven’t heard the end of this.
The moment the airlock closed behind him, though, the Heron’s crew just exploded with glee, whooping and cheering, laughing their heads off. And Simon, grinning, gave a salute to the open comms.
‘You’re welcome,’ he said, knowing very well that what he’d said, there, would be passed throughout the Fleet and the spacer community.
By the time Alex returned, a couple of hours later, the hilarity had settled down to mere giggles every now and again as someone remembered what had been said. Alex was careful not to laugh, himself, when Buzz told him what had happened. There would certainly be an official enquiry into this, and part of that would involve review of the recording when the captain was informed about the incident. So Buzz told him about it as an incident in which a civilian passenger had been extremely rude to the Third Lord, and Alex listened with suitable formality.
‘Dear me,’ he said, when Buzz had finished his report, and kept a straight face even though many of those even on the command deck were disintegrating into giggles again. ‘I trust you told Professor Penarth that such conduct is not appropriate aboard a Fleet ship?’
‘Yes, sir,’ Buzz said. He was not nearly so good at maintaining poker-face, and the best he could achieve was a rather owlish solemnity. ‘Professor Penarth has, in fact, already left the ship.’
‘Ah.’ Alex knew that he was intending to leave the ship at Chartsey, of course, but it was with genuine regret that he heard that Simon had already gone. ‘I should have liked to see him off,’ he said, ‘to thank him … for everything he’s done for us.’
But he gave a nod, then, activating his desk screen and obviously intending to settle to work, so Buzz just grinned and left him to it.
There was a lot of mail in Alex’s in-tray flashing urgent, top priority. There was a lot in his personal mail box, too, much of it from friends at Chartsey and nearly all flagging a reference to Marto’s trying to give him the J-2-8 yacht and describing him as noble and heroic. Alex knew he would have to deal with all the inevitable leg-pulling over that, and all the usual efforts to set him up with a date, too. But that would have to wait, as the official mail came first.
There was a memo from the Third Lord, informing him that there would be an official enquiry into the disgraceful behaviour he had experienced whilst on a courtesy visit to the frigate, and that he expected di
sciplinary proceedings to be taken against everyone involved, including all the personnel who’d laughed. There was a memo from Fleet Medical, informing him that there would be an official enquiry into the highly unorthodox surgery he had authorised aboard his ship. There was a memo from the Audit Division, enquiring plaintively whether it had been absolutely necessary to carry out seventeen refits on the brig-deck, during the course of operations.
Then there was a personnel transfer notification – Sub lt Lucas, he was told, was to report aboard the carrier Zeus without delay, where Captain Bufford would give her orders for a tagged and flagged assignment there.
The League Prisons Authority had sent a memo, too, enquiring on what basis the Fourth had seen fit not only to dismantle the brig but to employ their Liaison Inspector as a steward in the new leisure facility.
Customs and Excise wanted to know why their high security vault had been used to carry catering supplies. The Second Irregulars wanted to know where Lt Commander Misha Tregennis was and on what basis Alex had transferred her back into regular Fleet service. The First Irregulars, aka Fleet Intelligence, wanted to know what Alex had done with Murgat Atwood, whom they persisted in regarding as rightfully one of theirs even though she was now a serving member of the Fourth. Even the Third Irregulars had sent a rather wistful memo, asking if they might have details of any Van Damek navigation the frigate might have undertaken – the Third had the unenviable job of maintaining shipping routes and ports, regarded as the street cleaners of Fleet service.
As Alex was writing an apologetic response to this, reminding them that such information was need-to-know and could only be passed to them by the First Lord, Martine Fishe drew his attention to a media screen. She was monitoring media output, and he knew she wouldn’t interrupt him without good reason.
The reason was a media conference being given right then by one Senator Murbles. He had become one of the most vocal critics of the Fourth at Senate level, and it was no coincidence in that, for sure, that he belonged to the same country club as Cerdan Jennar.
‘… six and a half months, at a cost of eighteen and a half million dollars!’ the Senator was in full rant mode as Martine called Alex’s attention to the screen. ‘And for what? They’ve been swanning around the Dortmell sector for the best part of a year, on these so-called covert operations, and what is there to show for it? Two ship arrests, and those brought in by Customs and Excise. The Fourth costs a fortune, and they do absolutely nothing for the League. And now, now, adding insult to injury, they’re being allowed to run riot on Affinity Station, on security grounds, we are told, because their crew isn’t safe to go about in public!’
There had been no way to hide the shuttles flitting between the Fourth’s ship and the Affinity station, so Dix Harangay had announced that he was making facilities there available for them for leave-passes, on the grounds of security risk. The media might suspect that there was more to it than that, but Senator Murbles was quite definitely not in the loop. It was evident that he genuinely believed the official reports of where the Fourth had been – Dortmell – and what they had achieved – nothing very much.
‘It is,’ the Senator raged, ‘absolutely disgusting that these criminals and Fleet rejects are being paid at great expense to swan around enjoying five-star chef cuisine when decent, hard-working…’
Alex watched for a couple of minutes, turned off the screen with a wry smile, and quietly went back to work.
Table of Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty One
Twenty Two
Twenty Three
Twenty Four
Twenty Five
Twenty Six
Twenty Seven
Twenty Eight
Twenty Nine
Dark Running (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 4) Page 68
