Martinez watched the seconds tick past, and then the engines fired and his mattress rose to meet him.
Two hours later Alikhan woke him with a breakfast of coffee, salt mayfish, and one of Perry’s fresh brioche. Afterward, Alikhan began assisting him into his vac suit in preparation for the walk to the Flag Officer Station.
Everyone on the ship knew the hour at which general quarters would be called, and most were now struggling into their vac suits, or would be shortly.
The suit checked its own systems and displayed the result on its sleeve display: all was well. Martinez took a last sip of coffee, then took his helmet from Alikhan and dismissed him to go to quarters, where he’d don his own suit with the aid of another weaponer.
Martinez clomped down the corridor, awkward in the suit, and dropped down two decks to the Flag Officer Station. Michi was already present, along with her aides Li and Coen. Michi stood with her back to him, her helmet off, her hair tucked into the cap that held her earphones and the projectors of the virtual array. The unfixed chin strap dangled on her shoulder. Her head was bent and one hand was pressed over an ear as if to hear better.
Even in the bulky suit Martinez could see the tension in her stance. “Stand by,” she said, and swung around to him, her face a mask of furious calculation. He braced.
“My lady.”
“I need you to take command of Illustrious immediately. Something’s happened to Captain Fletcher.”
“Has he—” Martinez began. Run amuck with a kitchen knife, perhaps? He couldn’t seem to find a way to phrase the question tactfully.
Michi’s words were clipped and curt, nearly savage. “There’s a report he’s dead,” she said. “Now get to Command and take charge before things go completely to hell.”
ELEVEN
Martinez marched into Command with his helmet under his arm and confusion warring with frustration in his heart.
“I am in command!” he said, loud enough for everyone to hear. “Per the squadcom’s orders!”
Heads turned, faces peering at him from over the collars of their vac suits. Chandra Prasad looked at him from the command cage. A lock of her auburn hair curled across her forehead from under her sensor cap.
“Captain Martinez is in command!” she agreed.
Martinez stepped toward her. “Lieutenant,” he said, “do you wish to confirm with the squadcom?”
Amusement touched the corners of her mouth. “I just got off the comm with her, Lord Captain. She told me you were coming.”
Martinez sensed the drama that had marched in with him begin to deflate.
“Very well,” he said.
Chandra tipped her couch forward and rose to her feet. “Course two-two-five by zero-zero-one absolute,” she reported. “Accelerating at one gravity, and are currently moving at .341c. Our closest approach to Termaine will occur in approximately a hundred and ten minutes. We are not yet at general quarters.”
“Sound general quarters then,” Martinez said.
“General quarters!” Chandra called.
The alarm began to chime. The command crew reached into the net bags attached to their couches, pulled out their helmets, and began to lock them onto the connecting rings of their collars.
Chandra paused with her helmet halfway over her head. “My position at quarters is normally at signals,” she said.
“Take your position then, Lady Chandra.”
“Yes, my lord.” As she walked by him she lowered her voice and said, “Your luck’s holding, Captain.”
Martinez shot her a murderous glance, but she’d already passed. He took his seat, the couch swinging with his weight as he webbed himself in. He reached above his head for the command display and locked it down in front of him.
He donned his helmet, and at once Illustrious turned more distant. All the noise in Command faded—the creak of the acceleration cages, the bleating of displays trying to call for attention, the distant rumble of the ship’s engines. More apparent was the hiss of the air inlet and the polyamide scent of the suit seals. Martinez turned on his suit microphone and tuned to the channel he shared with the signals station. “Comm,” he said. “Test, test.”
“I hear you, Lord Captain.”
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. If Illustrious 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 of Illustrious, 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 aboard Illustrious 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 of Illustrious 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 t
hat 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 command Illustrious,” 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 after Illustrious 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 her 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.
Conventions of War Page 12
