Battlecruiser Alamo: Aces High

by Richard Tongue

   “Apparently there is a little passenger traffic. It’s two jumps from UN space…”

   “And Ragnarok is so hungry for anyone with advanced technical and scientific training, they aren’t asking too many questions of would-be immigrants. Better get a report off to Intelligence, Maggie.”

   “Already done. I just sent it to the Don Lind. Headquarters will have it in less than a week.”

   “Good work. I presume there are no other documents, nothing that would give any idea of where this man actually came from?”

   “He didn’t have anything on him, just the clothes he was wearing. I found the man who sold them to him, but he doesn’t know anything. The man paid in cash, United Nations credits, and bought a single worksuit. As for the weapon, it was a Republic low-recoil pistol, nothing special about it.”

   “Republic? That rings a few alarm bells,” Cunningham said.

   “Not really,” Marshall said. “They sent a hell of a lot of small arms down to Ragnarok during the last stages of their civil war. Not surprising that the local dealers are trading in them. Have we found who sold it to him?”

   “Not yet,” Orlova said. “Frankly, I expect we won’t get any more from that lead either. Our Mr. Doe was excellent at covering his tracks.”

   Caine walked in, smiled at Marshall, and said, “Started the staff meeting without me?”

   “Sorry,” he replied. “Quinn says the ship’s ready. What about the crew?”

   “Maybe half a dozen over on the station on the investigation team. Aside from that, everyone else is ready. I’ve already integrated the midshipmen, and by the way, why do we have four of them?”

   “I was going to ask about that,” Cunningham said. “One of them came on the shuttle with me, a last-minute transfer.”

   “Given the circumstances, I think a careful check of their bona fides is in order. Run through their personnel records and look for anomalies, Maggie, and a careful interview with each of them. Make it seem routine, this could easily just be a personnel screw-up.”

   “Will do,” she said.

   “I want the crew recalled from the station immediately, and once they are on board, proceed to the AD Leonis system. I want to get to Yeager Station as fast as we can.”

   “What’s the urgency?” Caine asked.

   “That’s where my assassin came from, and that’s where the trail leads. We aren’t going to find out anything here. Besides, there’s something else. Why try to kill me?”

   “To weaken the task force,” Cunningham said.

   “Would it, though? There are a half-dozen people of the same rank with similar experience back at Sol. Hell, you could take Alamo out yourself, John. I’m not that special, so why target me?”

   “You have accumulated plenty of enemies over the last few years,” Caine noted.

   Shaking his head, he said, “There’s only one good reason I can think of, and that is to delay the fleet. What would have happened if I had died?”

   “We’d have contacted Admiralty for instructions, and torn Hunter Station and Ragnarok apart looking for the murderers,” Caine said, matter-of-factly.

   “Critically, you’d have stayed here. Our sailing orders give plenty of latitude about our time of departure, and you’d have taken advantage of that. Hell, just wounding me has slowed us up. We were meant to break orbit three hours ago.”

   “You think it could make that much difference?”

   “I think it might. If something is about to happen at Yeager Station, we need to be there to stop it. For all we know, this could be a Cabal trick.”

   “Or the United Nations,” Cunningham said. “AD Leonis is only two jumps from UN territory.”

   “In any event, I want this ship ready for battle. At least four surprise battle drills while we’re in hendecaspace. This crew has been in dock or on leave for the last three months, and we don’t want to find out they’ve lost their edge when it’s too late.”

   “This isn’t going to be the most popular move,” Caine said. “I’ll organize it. I presume you don’t want to know in advance either?”

   “You presume correctly,” he replied. “In addition, we will jump into AD Leonis at battle stations. I’d rather scare the hell out of a traffic control officer than be the victim of a surprise attack.”

   “Right, I’ll get to work,” Caine said, standing up.

   “Wait a moment,” he replied. “Maggie, you go up to the bridge and get things moving, will you? I need to talk to John and Deadeye for a minute.”

   Rising to her feet, she said, “Yes, sir. I’ll let you know when we break orbit.”

   As she left the room, Marshall said, “John’s come here to take over as Executive Officer.”

   “Thank God for that,” she replied. “I never wanted the damn job in the first place.”

   “I was hoping you’d feel that way about it,” Cunningham said. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

   “Positive. I presume I drop back to full-time Tactical Officer?”

   “Correct. Nelyubov doesn’t have to moonlight at your station now.”

   “Then I still have a lot of work to do,” she said. “When are you taking over, John?”

   “Start of the next watch seems sensible enough, give me a chance to settle in.”

   “I’d like a favor,” Caine said.

   “Anything,” Marshall replied.

   “Leave Maggie as third-in-command. I’m happy at fourth.”

   “You’ve got a lot of seniority over her,” Marshall said.

   “She wants the job,” Caine interrupted. “I don’t. In the unlikely event that something happens to the two of you, I’ll serve under Acting Captain Orlova with no arguments or complaints. I’m happy to put that in writing.”

   “If you insist.”

   “Right,” Duquesne said, “That’s it. Meeting adjourned. My patient needs to rest, and certainly needs to think about something other than work. And no, he isn’t getting any reports, status updates, or anything else until tomorrow morning.”

   “I see we have our orders,” Cunningham said, standing up. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Danny.”

   The door slid open, and Lieutenant Carpenter, Alamo’s Science Officer, burst in.

   “Not you as well,” Duquesne said. “Visiting hours are over.”

   “No, no, I want to see you, Doc!”

   “Sick people,” she said, “disgust me. What’s the problem?”

   “It isn’t me, it’s the corpse. I was running a genetic test, and I need a second opinion.” She thrust a datapad towards her, and said, “If I’m not seeing things, he wasn’t human!”

   Her eyes widening, Duquesne snatched the datapad, scanned through it, and said, “If you’re imagining things, I am too.” Looking back at Marshall, she said, “One of you keep him company for a bit. I have work to do. Come on, Lieutenant.”

   As she walked out of the room, Marshall said, “I think I’m going to have to insist on at least one report today, Doctor.”

   “Once I know whether this is real or a systems glitch, you’ll be the first to know.”

  Chapter 5

   “I think that’ll be all, Midshipman,” Orlova said to Vivendi, sitting opposite her. “Everything seems to be in order with your record. I’m sorry it went on so long.” Glancing up at the clock, she said, “You still have half an hour before your watch starts, so you should have time to snatch something to eat.”

   “Thank you, ma’am,” he said, making to rise, before returning to his seat. “There is something I’d like to talk to you about.”

   “I don’t know much more about our mission profile than you at the moment, Midshipman.”

   “No, no, I understand that there are things I don’t need to know about. I’d like to talk to you about Midshipman Salazar.”

   Her face darkened, and she said, “I have no intention of c
hanging the current bridge rotation, Midshipman, and frankly…”

   “No,” he said, frantically shaking his head, “That wasn’t it, ma’am. I wanted to, well, speak on his behalf. He won’t do it himself.”

   “That’s a little different,” Orlova said. “Foster was quite vehement on the subject of Pavel Salazar when it came up in the briefing.”

   “I’m not surprised,” he said. “How much do you know about what happened?”

   “There was an accident during the practice exams, near the end of fighter training. Mr. Salazar was acting as flight leader, and he made a mistake with a close-ground approach. The other two pilots died.”

   “That’s basically it, ma’am. Except that I don’t think it was entirely his fault.”

   “Are you suggesting that the court-martial was conducted improperly? Mr. Salazar accepted full responsibility for what happened over Phobos.”

   With a sigh, Vivendi said, “I don’t think he should have been placed in that position in the first place, ma’am. Being a flight leader is something that takes years of training and experience, and they gave him months. It’s not surprising he made a mistake, and I think it more surprising that it’s taken this long for someone to die as a result of this practice. I looked at the old records, and instructors used to fly as flight leaders in maneuvers. That stopped a couple of years ago when they re-opened the training pipeline, though I understand the policy was quietly reinstated for this year’s class.”

   “And you think Mr. Salazar was a scapegoat.”

   “I wouldn’t put it that harshly, ma’am. Only that while I admit that he was responsible for what happened, others were as well, and I don’t think they were punished for it. Then when he was transferred to the Academy...it was hell for him, ma’am, and he didn’t deserve it. The whole class shunned him, and most of the professors too. It’s left him rather combative, and I can understand why.”

   “Two of their friends were dead.”

   “One of them was still alive. At least, he used to be their friend.” Taking a deep breath, he said, “Salazar should either have been dismissed from the Academy or treated as any other cadet, ma’am. He was punished, dropped from fighter training and given enough demerits that one more would have resulted in expulsion.” He shook his head, and said, “People would stop talking when he came into a room, move away from him in class, and the lecturers just let it happen.”

   “Such things are hard to legislate against. What’s your interest in all of this? Are the two of you close?”

   “Not especially,” he replied. “I don’t think Pavel’s close with anyone, not any more. He doesn’t even have any family to talk to about this, his parents were killed in a shuttle accident three years ago. I just think that he needed, well, someone to look out for him, and I thought that in this Fleet, we were meant to look after our own.”

   Nodding, Orlova said, “I won’t, can’t give him any special privileges or treatment, Midshipman, especially given the circumstances, and I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t looking over his shoulder a little at the helm.”

   “I’m not asking for anything special, ma’am, just that you understand where he is coming from. Why he acts the way he does. The Fleet broke him, ma’am, and surely we have a responsibility to help fix him, as well.”

   “The deaths of two of his friends broke him, Midshipman, and there isn’t anything we can do about that.” She paused, then said, “One day, you’re going to be in a command situation, and unless you have a very boring career, people under your command are going to die. It’s happened to me on more than one occasion.” With a sigh, she continued, “You never get over it, not really. You always think that there was something you could have done different, that you could have moved more quickly, sent five men instead of three, anything. You can’t get past that. Mr. Salazar is getting it ahead of schedule, and it is the greatest test any officer – or potential officer – has to face.”

   “I understand, ma’am.”

   “No, you don’t,” she said. “I’m very much afraid that one day, though, you will.”

   “Ma’am?”

   “Never mind. You’d better hurry if you are going to swing by the mess on your way up. And see that you do. There’s nothing worse than a duty shift on an empty stomach for distracting you, and we’re all in your hands when you sit at the helm.”

   Glancing up at the clock, he said, “Yes, ma’am. By your leave?”

   “Dismissed.” As he sped from the room, she tapped a control on her desk, and said, “Mr. Kelso, are you up on the bridge yet?”

   After a slight pause, the reply came, “Yes, ma’am. Just arrived. I haven’t taken the watch yet, though. Should I put…”

   “No, not necessary. Mr. Vivendi is liable to be a few minutes late for his watch rotation, and will probably have sticky fingers when he gets there. Our interview over-ran, and I told him to get something to eat before coming up. My fault, not his. Got it?”

   “No problem, ma’am.”

   “Good. Orlova out.”

   She looked around her office, down at the terminal on her desk with dozens of reports still unread, most of them marked urgent for no good reason that she could see, and stood up, reaching for her uniform jacket. Two more days before they emerged from hendecaspace, plenty of time for her to clear the backlog, and she needed a breath of fresh air to clear her head. A change of scene, in any case. She’d spent far too much time in her office over the last three months.

   Stepping down the corridor, she almost tripped over a portly technician working at one of the wall communication panels, his equipment scattered around the floor. He looked up, red-faced, when he saw who she was.

   “Sorry, ma’am. Bit of a mess here.”

   “Don’t worry, Spaceman, but try and tidy up a little. How much longer?”

   “Not long. I’ve traced the fault, just running a few tests before I put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. Twenty minutes, maybe.”

   “Fine.” She walked off, mentally noting to wait for half an hour before trying to return to her office, and stepped into the elevator, frowning at the destination list. She wasn’t particularly hungry, so no point going to the mess, and going to the bridge would probably just worry the duty crew. In hendecaspace there wasn’t that much to do anyway. Finally she tapped for the science lab, Carpenter’s domain.

   The doors opened, and she stepped out onto the deck, almost walking into a white-suited technician heading into the opposite direction, his attention fixed on the datapad on his hand. Stepping around him, she walked into the lab, Carpenter sat at a desk at the rear, the body lying on a slab in the middle of the room, covered by a protected dome, decorated with cuts and incisions.

   “Evening, Maggie,” she said, gesturing for her to take a seat. “Welcome to my lair.”

   “I love your decor,” she replied, nodding at the corpse. “Looks like a jigsaw puzzle with some of the pieces missing.”

   “We took out the heart, Duquesne’s got it down in sickbay right now to do a fuller analysis. I’ve never seen anything like this before.”

   “Non-human? He looks human enough to me.”

   “Only superficially.” She tapped on a console, and a hologram of a DNA strand appeared in the air. “See?”

   “Pretend for a moment I don’t have any training in genetics.”

   “Ah. Well, he’s as different from us as we are from the Neander, though there are common elements with both species.”

   “Some sort of cross-breed?”

   “That’s only part of the story, and not the most interesting part.” Leaning back in her chair, she said, “Our best guess right now is that we’re looking at two interbreeding populations, stranded on some sort of barely-habitable planet, a primitive one, who had to claw themselves back from the brink.”

   “How can you tell that?”

   Looking at the corpse, sh
e said, “I’m calling it homo sapiens novus, at least for the moment. Better eyesight than you or I, a much broader spectrum. He can see chords of colors, Maggie. Imagine that. More efficient heart, double our lung capacity, better muscle tone. All the trump cards. Look at the pale skin, as well.”

   “Meaning?”

   “He sees a lot further into the reds than we do. My guess is he comes from a world where the light levels are lower, less protection needed from solar radiation. A red dwarf, maybe.”

   “So natural selection could have done all this?”

   “Think about it. So far we’ve only encountered two colonies abandoned by those long-dead aliens, Haven and Driftwind. Both places where technology was maintained, at least for a while. On Driftwind, losing a technological culture was relatively recent.”

   “So?”

   “They didn’t have to adapt to their environments. They could adapt their environments to suit them. That slows evolution right down.” Gesturing at the corpse, he said, “He didn’t have those advantages, and natural selection would do its work.”

   “Faster than Earth?”

   “We spent millions of years evolving to suit our environment, and for the last fifteen thousand years things have been pretty tame. Imagine a world where survival was barely possible, a daily life-or-death struggle. His ancestors won.”

   “The implication being that we’re going to find abandoned colonies out there. Any idea where he might have come from?”

   “Take a look at the starmap. There are a thousand possible sites out there. I can’t narrow it down too far, and the best I can do is guesswork. Ultimately we’re going to have to ask them.”

   “He killed himself rather than face interrogation,” Orlova said. “And in such a way as to try and destroy the evidence. If he’d been successful, we’d have written this off as a UN or Cabal plot, and been looking in the wrong place. How much more are you going to get out of him?”

   Shrugging, she said, “A few years of research papers at a guess, maybe a book or two. Morales is doing the heavy lifting on the genetic survey work, his specialty. Strange to have a team under me for this. I’m used to working alone.”