Land of the Dead ittotss-3

by Thomas Harlan

  Six minutes before the v-cast started, she was finished tweaking herself and the door cycled open to admit one of the midshipmen.

  “ Kyo?”

  “Everything is over there, Jushin- tzin.” She watched him for a moment, toying with a pair of reassignment packets from the bigger pile, as he bustled around, gathering up uniform tunics. A thought occurred to her while she was waiting. “ Ko-hosei -do you know if our fitting officer is still aboard?”

  “Chac- tzin?” Jushin’s expression was carefully neutral. “I believe so, Chu-sa.”

  “Excellent.” Kosho considered the packets sitting on her desk, then shook her head. I will just have to make do with the resources at hand.

  ***

  Two hours later, Susan had an excellent view of the construction frame enclosing the six-hundred-meter length of the Naniwa. Beyond the spindly web of metal and the hundreds of canisters queuing to be unloaded into the cargo bays, the striated orb of Jupiter blotted out most of the visible sky. The constellation of orbital habitats holding station between Europa and the gas giant were off to her left, though invisible save for the tiny moving flares of shuttles or cargo lighters trolling between the wide-spread components of the Akbal complex.

  Kosho stepped carefully, wending her way along the hexacomb pattern of the shipskin tiles. Her combat armor boots were magnetized, as were the narrow walkways installed for the final fit-out of the ship. Primary hull construction had been completed early the previous year-the last sixteen months had been spent by the Zosen installing crew compartments, weapon systems, fuel bladders, and so on.

  With the loading bays and internal atmosphere operational, the shipskin had been laid down-a quarter-million tiles according to one of the binders now filling up the tiny office in her quarters-and punched down to the shipnet. Each tile was composed of a multi-phase composite which could deform-within limits, of course-upon command. Reflective or refractive surfaces could deploy within milliseconds, absorptive ones as well. They were tough, too. A diamond-bit saw could barely scuff their surface, much less cut the material.

  But the Chu-sa knew there were gangs of yard specialists running hundreds of tests against the skin, looking for defective linkages, bad command interfaces, or skunky tiles which had-for unknown reasons-lost their ability to deform with acceptable speed. Her boots trampling on the quiescent surface would trigger alarms and lead to unnecessary work.

  We have enough to do, she thought pensively. Naniwa was still at least thirteen days from being spaceworthy.

  The marine walking point in front of her raised a warning hand. They had entered a region of the shipskin where long radiating fins ran out from the hull, making a queer sort of forest-all black limbs and leaf-like extrusions frilled with thousands of tiny heat-exchanging surfaces.

  “Priest dead ahead, kyo,” Socho Juarez muttered across the local comm. Susan could tell the sergeant major was unhappy, but who wanted their commander skylarking around outside the ship’s armor-even here, deep in Anahuac space-when they could be safely parked in Command, out of harm’s way? “ Chu-sa, do you want some privacy?”

  Susan shook her head.

  You’re sure? he signed. There are Mice everywhere.

  Kosho almost laughed aloud. The Mice are always watching, she replied with a deft movement of her gloved fingers. “Feel free to listen in. But if you are worried-I will be polite.”

  The officers complement on the Naniwa -including junior officers-stood at almost a hundred men and women. After her discussion with the Mayan hafuri, their attitude towards her had cooled noticeably. When she’d first come aboard, most of the five-hundred-plus crew were already hard at work, so Susan had found herself out of synch with her subordinates. There had been so much to do, however, they had started to gel into something like the team she expected.

  But nothing like we had on the Cornuelle. Kosho knew that had been rare-Fleet crews usually had a high rate of turnover as specialists rotated out and the officers were promoted. A ship’s complement which remained substantially intact for three years-particularly under combat conditions-was almost unheard of save in the Clan-supplied squadrons. She missed the comfort long familiarity provided.

  Proper respect for the Chu-sa was absolutely necessary for the proper functioning of the ship, but there was an uneasy tension Susan could not ignore, particularly when the fitting officer was not in her chain of command. The Fleet was dependent on the Zosen -Construction and Supply Service-but did not control the logistics arm of the Imperial military. Like the Army, they were held separate from one another by the Emperor’s decree. Each Kaigun Kyo reported directly to the Military Council. Her rudeness, therefore, had exacerbated a natural division between Zosen and Fleet.

  Again, grandmother would have illuminated this error with a boken or perhaps a kettle.

  The marine signed an all-clear and Kosho stepped past him, around one of the towering fins, and onto an open area among the heat radiators much like a meadow in a forest of black battle-steel. Oc Chac was waiting, hands clasped behind his engineer’s construction suit, helmet turned towards the vast eye of Jupiter burning down upon them. His mirrored faceplate glowed amber and red, as though filled with fire.

  “Chac- tzin.” Susan waved off the marine, who faded back into the “forest,” his combat armor dappling to match shadow to shadow. Most Fleet officers seeking a private conversation-particularly of ship-command rank-would have ordered the sergeant-major to stay aboard ship and out of their hair, but Kosho had spent far too long beyond the Frontier to go anywhere without proper security precautions. Indeed, she hadn’t even thought of not having Juarez accompany her. “I understand we’ve finished final inspections on all systems save the shipskin and the main drive coil?”

  Chac nodded, but said nothing. In response, she gave him an abbreviated bow and turned to look upon the face of Jove as well.

  “I would like to apologize for my behavior the other morning. It was rude.”

  The Mayan shifted a little, and Kosho could feel his attention focus upon her.

  “I understand,” she continued, “that you have been most diligent in your efforts to see construction completed and all systems readied for our trials. Engineering, in fact, sings your praises and promises to spill a thousand cups of octli beer in your honor. Which, from my experience with engineers, is heady tribute indeed.”

  There was a short, abrupt snorting sound. He laughs. Well, now I have him.

  “These same engineers pressed me, in a most unseemly way, to let you finish your work. I must admit, as I’ve never served on a new ship before, that I do not fully understand your role.”

  “Truth, kyo,” the Mayan barked, almost against his will. “Your service jacket bears such a statement out…” Now he was facing her, and Susan could make out his eyes as shadows within shadows. “The Cornuelle was far past her time.”

  He paused. Kosho could hear him click his teeth together. Thinking, is he?

  “This Chu-sa Hadeishi of yours was competent-this I have heard from Painal the Runner, and having read the Book, would believe. But he was reckless! Ah, by the Gods, Chu – sa, he was a madman!”

  For a moment Susan struggled, trying to frame a proper response. How can he say this! Mitsuharu was spinning gold from straw for six months! How… Her shoulders sagged for an instant, before she straightened up again. How could he have risked all our lives? He did. He dared Hachiman over and over again… even at Jagan he was still maneuvering for a way to stay out on patrol. Even at the end, when he and the ship and the crew were past exhaustion…

  “He was.” The words were harsh, brittle, metallic in her mouth. But true. “And so he paid, in the end, in blood-as we all pay.”

  “Huh!” Chac wrinkled up his prominent nose and clicked his teeth sharply. “Do you see why the crew fear you, Chu-sa? Why they are on edge? Why my work here is crucial for your success at trials?”

  “So all say.” Kosho spread her hands, accepting fate. “And are we ready? Could
I take Naniwa into transit tomorrow? Could I take her into battle in a month?”

  “Battle, kyo? In a month!” The Mayan laughed out loud. “Oh, Chu-sa, you know she is not ready, the crew is not ready! Six or seven months of working up, running the engines through a full maintenance cycle… then you can go hunting! A month.” He chuckled.

  Susan removed a folded orders packet from the document pouch on her suit gunrig. She held it up, letting the light of Jupiter gleam ruddy red and gold from the Fleet seal.

  “We have received deployment orders,” she said quietly. “To join a battle-group forming up off Europa right now. Chu-sho Xocoyotl is already aboard the Tokiwa, and the other ships are arriving in short order. Naniwa is expected to join them within five days, fully supplied and ready for action.”

  “Hsst! Impossible!”

  “Tell that to the admiral. Will your work be done in time? Will everyone cease giving me such foreboding looks and turn their minds to proper work?”

  The Mayan’s chiseled old face twisted into a grimace. “ Chu-sa, you don’t believe they have cause to fear? Even with all that has happened to you, even with the engineer’s mighty tribute?” For an instant, it seemed as if he would spit in disgust, but then held back. “You called me the superstitions officer, as though such a thing had no weight in this world!”

  Susan almost took a step back, hearing the fury in the old man’s voice. “Instruct me, then, Zosen, for I have little time left to waste, not with the admiral-”

  “Waste, kyo?” Chac cut her off with a harsh bark. “Waste is the root of my business, and the fullness of your ignorance. Listen!” He stopped abruptly, his anger having passed as quickly as it had come. “Listen, kyo.”

  Kosho said nothing, waiting patiently. Grandmother had spent a long time teaching her to grow still, to pause in the instant of action, waiting for balance to emerge from chaos.

  “The mind of a warrior must be clear, kyo,” Chac began, “undiluted by fear, unrestricted by disorderly thoughts. If he hurries the throw, his aim ever goes awry. You know this, you are samurai. Your family is noble with a long tradition, a great lineage… Your blindness in this matter is of great concern-both to me, and to your men.

  “So listen. There is no mechanism yet devised by man which exceeds the complexity of a ship of war. Our Naniwa is small, as the great ships go, yet she holds within her every kind of system, every kind of compnet, sensor, power plant, engine of destruction we can devise. Her armor may be lighter than a dreadnaught, she may lack so many launch-racks as a carrier-but everything is present in her. A capsulation of all we can build… and she is fragile. A delicate bubble.”

  Chac lifted his face to the vast, molten orb hanging over their heads. “Despite all her shielding and armor and bronzed hull, if Naniwa were plunged into the heart of Jupiter-tidal pressures would crush her shell, incinerate her inhabitants, and leave nothing but dust.”

  His hand moved, indicating the radiating fins surrounding them, almost invisible against the ebon backdrop of open space. “If the thermocouples fail, we roast inside, broiled by our own waste heat. If Engineering does not balance containment properly, a fusion rupture obliterates us. In battle, the slings, arrows, and stones of the enemy will seek us-and one penetrator through the point-defense leaves us an expanding cloud of superheated plasma. Everywhere, failure is waiting to consume us.

  “All this, beside the unforgiving environment of open space… a hideous broil of hard radiation, micrometeoroid swarms, gravitational eddies-you have seen what happens to a ship which loses transit shielding in the run-up to gradient! There is no soft margin upon which to fall, not for us.

  “Thus the Zosen crawling through every compartment, access way, and control space on this ship. All of them seeking to find and eliminate as many sources of failure in this machine as they can. Your crew, too, is deep in the work. Preparing to take her out-then the real learning begins! And I am here, Chu-sa, trying to keep you alive with my… superstitions.”

  The Mayan leaned close, the faceplate of his helmet almost touching Susan’s.

  “What kills more ships, Captain, than pitiless space? More than microscopic black holes, the teeming ships of the Megair or Khaid or Kroomakh? More than solar storms lancing out from the heart of some unseen sun to overwhelm shielding and armor?

  “What is my enemy, Chu-sa Kosho?”

  Susan tilted her head; her face a quiet, still mask. “Tell me.”

  “Your crew, kyo.” His left hand stabbed at the hull beneath their feet. “These men and women toiling inside, all effort concentrated to our safety. They are my enemy, and a cunning, devious one they are, too! More than a match for all fail-safes and interlocks, able to overcome every restraint we put upon them.

  Kosho attempted to keep her expression still, but Oc Chac snarled at something in her countenance. “Still, Chu-sa, you do not understand. Listen!

  “The Agarwal was a Fleet battleship in the Vishnu -class. A planetary commission financed by the colonies around Maghada Prime. Two thousand, five hundred crew. Lost with all hands off Tau Ceti during her second trials. The wreck was recovered and the Zosen tore the remains of the ship apart, seeking to understand her death.

  “This much they found-” he held his thumb and forefinger apart by the smallest fraction. “One of the waste recirculators failed behind a bulkhead, seeping biochemical sludge into the between-hull. Line-sensors reported the initial leak, but the engineering tech investigating the alert did not enter the between-hull. Instead he checked the flow meters on either end of the line, saw they were within variance of each other, and then suppressed the alert.

  “The sludge-containing a robust strain of mycelium-seeped through the between-decks, multiplying vigorously. Now it infiltrated the air circulators for a series of sleeping compartments and poisoned the men occupying those quarters. A contamination alert was triggered, but the men didn’t realize they were suffering from mycotoxic infection when they went on shift. A sanitation crew arrived after they had left-and by then it was too late. Two of the uchu were gunnery crewmen and began suffering violent hallucinations at their duty station. Agarwal was destroyed by a sprint missile ignited in the launch-rack by mistake.”

  Susan said nothing, waiting for the Mayan to continue. After a long moment, Chac continued: “The technician refused to enter the between-hull because one of his coworkers had suffered a bad injury in the same area during construction. The man had lost his left arm when his z-suit was ruptured by a dislodged stanchion. His z-suit autosealed, of course, but the severed limb was too badly damaged by cyanosis by the time the rest of the work crew got him inside.”

  “And what,” Susan asked, now truly curious, “would you have done to prevent this?”

  “ Chu-sa, my purpose is to address kaach’al -the things which are broken. To mend them. One of the most curious things to repair is men’s apprehension-their fear of ill-luck. Had I been aboard the Agarwal, then my huitzitzilnahaualli and I would have attended to the compartments where the man was injured. And every crewman aboard would have known of what happened and how any ill-luck was taken away from that place.”

  “What?” Kosho could not help herself. “How is this not wild superstition?”

  Oc Chac shook his head in dismay.“How is a dwelling haunted, Chu-sa? There is nothing that can be measured, no true apparitions to behold-but you enter and feel a deadly chill, you walk night-drowned hallways and your heart races with quiet panic. What makes this dreadful place so different from your parents’ quiet peaceful garden where your heart finds ease?

  “Nothing! Do not delude yourself, kyo, every centimeter of Anahuac is drenched in blood. No meter of the earth has not seen murder, rape, betrayal, theft… if you knew the provenance of every stone in that garden, you would recoil, your mind’s eye filling with the blood of the innocent, your ears with the shrieks of those enslaved or betrayed. There is no difference between the cursed dwelling and the beautiful garden, save that you do not know what has occ
urred there.

  “This is the purpose of the huitzil -to go into these dreadful places, to show himself to all, for his feathered cloak to shine alabaster white, to take upon himself the burden of this ill-luck, these curses, this dreadful karma-before an entire crew, a nation, a planet. And by his sacrifice, to ease so many minds and lighten so many hearts that you can, once more, lift the tool, use the chamber, send the ship of war into the face of the enemy with an unburdened heart.”

  He fell silent, and Kosho did not speak. Instead, she stepped away, circling among the radiating fins, her head bowed in thought. When at last her steps led back to the old Mayan, she regarded him with a new appreciation and a faint smile.

  “Then you cannot leave the ship until all is done, can you?”

  Chac shook his head sharply. “ Chu-sa, you cannot have her for-at least!-another three weeks. Then you can catch up with your admiral! I will not authorize release from the yards until then.”

  “Very well.” Susan removed the second packet from her pouch. “ Sho-sa MacMillan will not be joining us from the Akashi. He has been brevetted to command in place of her late captain. And I must replace him with someone the men trust, particularly if they are wary of me and my inexperience.”

  “Very wise, kyo,” the Mayan nodded sharply. “You will not interfere with my duties?”

  “I will not. But I will guide them, as needed, and expect you to perform admirably.” With this she presented the packet and gave an abbreviated, but proper bow. “Welcome to the Naniwa, Sho-sa Oc Chac. I’ve had the orderlies move your gear to the XO’s cabin-a bit more spacious than your old bunk, I trust, but not palatial!”

  Chac stared at the orders packet, then at her in horror. “Impossible, kyo. Zosen are not Fleet line of battle officers! I’ve no-”

  “Due to his knowledge of the crew, the ship, and all on-board systems,” Susan recited from memory, “Oc Chac- tzin is the most expedient and effective replacement available for MacMillan.”