Vanguard

by Jack Campbell

  “No beer?” Mele asked.

  “Do you ever drink coffee?”

  “Do I ever drink coffee?” Mele grinned again as she walked out with Lochan. “Hi, Carmen. It’s good to know I’m leaving Lochan in responsible hands.” She waved good-bye to the security officers they passed. “No hard feelings.”

  “Just don’t do it again,” one replied.

  “I’m good. I wouldn’t do anything that would cause this guy trouble,” Mele said, indicating Lochan. She kept talking as she, Lochan, and Carmen Ochoa headed to breakfast. “Where was I? Coffee. Let me tell you guys about the time I had to stay awake for a week, and there weren’t any official go drugs available. I did it, too. No, really. This actually happened.”

  • • •

  Six days later, Lochan escorted Mele Darcy to the loading dock where the shuttle would mate with the Mononoke.

  Mele hoisted her bag as the passengers debarking at Taniwha started filing into the air lock. “Thanks for seeing me off, boss. How come you’re so gloomy?”

  “I was hoping you’d stay with us all the way to Kosatka,” Lochan admitted. “You’re the one who told me to start thinking about working with other people instead of trying to do it all myself or giving up.”

  “Guilty as charged, but no. Kosatka looks okay, but I’ve got a feeling I should go on a little farther into the dark. I’ll know where I belong when I find it.” She gave him a questioning look. “You and Carmen are both going to Kosatka?”

  “Yeah,” Lochan said.

  “Personal reasons or mutual business, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  Lochan smiled. “Mutual business. Something I haven’t failed at yet.”

  “Huh. Remember everything we talked about. It’s not about running it all yourself, making every decision, and making sure you’re the only one who gets credit. That’s not what got us out of a one-way trip to Apulu. Give other people a chance to screw things up just as badly as you can.”

  Lochan nodded. “I’ll need to see if other people are as good at screwing things up as I am. Being forced to let you handle things showed me that by insisting on controlling everything, I wasn’t giving others a chance to show what they could do.”

  “So what have we learned?” Mele asked him.

  He smiled ruefully at her. “That I’m not in this alone. To make the big decisions alone only when I have to, and ask for advice, and to choose people I trust to handle things?”

  “And let them handle those things. There, you see? Not so hard. You might even succeed at a few things on Kosatka.” Mele hugged him tightly, then stepped back again. “It was fun serving with you, Lochan Nakamura.”

  “Likewise, Mele Darcy. It’s going to be pretty dull without you around. Take care of yourself, Marine.”

  Mele grinned. “I’ve got a feeling it might be more exciting than you think if you stick with that Carmen Ochoa. She’s got the look of someone who’s used to being in situations where she has to watch her back.”

  Lochan frowned. “You don’t trust her?”

  “That’s not what I said. I think you can trust her to watch your back. You’re going to need someone like that without me around.” She gave him a casual salute. “See you later on a ’gator.”

  Not sure exactly what her farewell meant, but certain of its friendly intent, he watched Mele walk into the air lock and disappear from his sight. After waiting until the shuttle launched, Lochan headed back to the room he was sharing with some of the other refugees from the Brian Smith. He had a lot to think about.

  • • •

  After Taniwha, the next jump took them to a still-unnamed star that was only visited because it, like Vestri, was on the way to other places that people actually wanted to go. Another red dwarf, the planets orbiting it varied from way too close/way too hot to way too far/way too cold, varying mainly in the color differences between their surfaces of rock or ice.

  Which made the presence of a new, small facility orbiting one of the frozen planets all the more surprising. “Another way station looking for suckers?” Lochan wondered out loud to some of the other refugees from the Brian Smith who were eating lunch with him. The Mononoke had arrived in the star system nearly seven hours ago and continued on her way through normal space toward the next jump point while passengers and crews speculated about the purpose and origin of the new facility.

  “Maybe worse,” Carmen Ochoa said.

  Lochan turned to see that she had just walked up, looking unhappy. “What is it?”

  “I just spoke with some of the ship’s officers. Mononoke has received a message from that facility. It said that this star system has been claimed by Apulu and named Turan.”

  “They can’t do that,” Lochan said. “Can they? Just lay claim to a star system?”

  “Under interstellar law as set forth by Old Earth, no. But who’s going to stop them?” Carmen asked him. “Not Old Earth, I can tell you that.”

  “But why would Apulu bother claiming a star system like this? There’s nothing here.”

  “Yes, there is.” Carmen pointed outward, beyond the hull of the Mononoke. “There are jump points that ships need to use. The message from the facility said that ships passing through this star system will have to begin paying transit fees to Apulu.”

  “Can’t ships go around? Use other stars?” one of the other refugees from the Brian Smith asked.

  “Going around would mean a lot longer trip, a lot more time, and more money. If Apulu is smart, and they seem to be playing things pretty smart so far, their fees will be big enough to make this space grab profitable but small enough that ships will pay rather than try to go the long way around to stars like Kosatka.”

  Lochan finally understood what Carmen Ochoa was driving at. “Which means the ships will have to add that fee to the cost of heading to stars down from here, which means prices will go up on passenger fees and any cargo carried. Every star down from here is going to end up paying for Apulu’s transit fees.”

  “And what’s to stop other star systems from setting up the same toll deal at other unoccupied stars?” a bystander asked.

  “Nothing,” Carmen Ochoa said.

  “This could choke trade all over the down regions of space,” Lochan said. “The Old Colonies will have to—” He stopped as realization hit.

  “Have to what?” Carmen Ochoa asked.

  Lochan laughed, the sound low and bitter. “I’ve been a politician, and I’ve been in business. You know what’s going to happen? Everyone is going to look at their bottom lines. How much would it cost to deal with this, and who is going to pay for it? More taxes? On who? The politicians aren’t going to want to touch that for something so far away, not the way things are now. And the big businesses are going to look at short-term expenses and the costs of mounting a military effort to clean out places like this, and they’ll balk.”

  “But in the long run—” someone started to argue.

  “The long run?” Lochan demanded. “Do you know how hard it can be to get some major business owners to look past the next stockholders’ meeting? This is something that would require just about everyone with a big voice in an Old Colony to be behind it, and too many of those voices won’t want to. Don’t look for help there.”

  “Where can we look for help then?”

  “Out here,” Lochan told the crowd listening to him. “This is our problem. We have to deal with it. And if we don’t, why should we expect someone else to?”

  An easy question to ask. How to get anyone in the fiercely independent new colonies to work together and invest limited resources in ways that benefited others would be a much harder question to answer.

  Chapter 5

  “Lieutenant?”

  Rob Geary woke at the call, blinking up at the pipes and ducts and conduits overhead, which weren’t that far over his head. The grandly named captain’s st
ateroom on the newly rechristened Squall was smaller than the cabin he had shared with another lieutenant aboard one of Alfar’s destroyers. That didn’t bother him nearly as much as the fact that the council’s continuing failure to agree on an official status for him meant that technically he wasn’t captain of the Squall despite being the ship’s commander. “What’s up?”

  The watch-stander visible on the comm pad next to Rob’s bunk had the look of someone suddenly jarred to alertness in the midst of what had been another uneventful watch in the middle of the ship’s night. “We’ve spotted two ships that arrived at the same jump point as the Bucket, I mean, this ship, came in from.”

  “The jump point from Scatha? What are they?” Rob demanded, his pulse racing as he worried about Scatha’s destroyers. It had been over a month since the Squall had been captured, which was time enough for Scatha to have heard and sent off a retaliatory attack.

  “Freighters. They’re broadcasting civilian identification, Scatha registry.” The watch-stander paused, frowning. “They were broadcasting that, anyway. They both just went silent.”

  Rob shoved himself up from his bunk, trying to relax and wishing the report had led with that most important bit of information. “Can we see any weapons on them?” he asked, trying not to sound as impatient as he felt.

  “Um . . . sensors can’t identify any weapon modifications. Both freighters do have a couple of heavy-lift shuttles strapped to them, though.”

  “Shuttles? Also unarmed?”

  “Yes, sir.” The watch-stander peered at his display. “Looks like they steadied out on an intercept with this planet in its orbit.”

  Two freighters. Unarmed, but coming here. What was Scatha up to?

  Rob called up his own display, waiting impatiently while the old systems flickered before steadying. The freighters were moving at merchant-ship velocity, substantially less than that of warships. At point zero two light speed, they would take nearly two weeks to reach the planet.

  The Wingate had long since departed. There was one other ship still in the star system, heading outward toward the jump point for Jatayu, back up toward stars like Kosatka and Taniwha. That ship had left the orbit of this planet only two days ago after off-loading a new batch of equipment and a large new group of men and women and children eager to get a new start on a new world.

  Rob straightened himself up, trying to look serious and professional, then touched the comm control. He derived some small satisfaction in knowing that since the ship’s day on the Squall was matched to the night and day hours at Glenlyon’s still-only city, he would be waking up council members with his message. “This is Lieutenant Geary on the Squall. Two freighters showing registry from Scatha have arrived in this star system and are heading toward this world. As far as we can tell, the freighters are unarmed. They are projected to reach this planet in thirteen days at their current velocity. I request instructions for dealing with the ships. My recommendation is that the Squall be sent to intercept them and conduct searches to ensure this isn’t another hostile act.”

  Council President Chisholm called back a quarter of an hour later. She looked half-worried and half-rumpled from being woken. “Why do you think this might be another attack, Lieutenant?”

  “Because the last time Scatha sent a ship here, it was an attack,” Rob explained. “And because these ships broadcast their identities once after arriving, then went silent. That’s not normal. Maybe the Squall wasn’t just going to extort money from us but would have also hung around this star system to provide escort for those two freighters.”

  “Why would the freighters need an escort? What can they do?”

  “I don’t know,” Rob said. “That’s why I recommended intercepting them and searching them.”

  Chisholm paused, thinking. “How long will it take you to intercept them?”

  “About three days if we don’t push it. That’s after we get under way, which will probably take another day to get necessary people and supplies back aboard.”

  “Four days will be fine,” Chisholm said. “Go intercept them, leaving as soon as you feel your ship is ready. While you’re on the way there, the council will deliberate and decide on a course of action.”

  “We need to search them,” Rob said.

  “The council will decide on a course of action,” Chisholm told him, her tone reassuring even though her words didn’t actually promise much.

  “May I make one more suggestion?” Rob asked, trying his best to sound diplomatic. “We can get Lyn Meltzer on contract again to check out the freighters for whatever she can find out. It’s possible she could break into their systems enough to find out what they are doing.”

  “That’s an excellent suggestion,” Chisholm said. “The council will handle the contract, though.”

  “That’s fine,” Rob said, meaning it. Maybe the council thought it was ensuring that Ninja was answering to them and not Rob, but such an arrangement meant that he wouldn’t once again be Ninja’s boss. And he was increasingly feeling like he wanted to avoid that.

  As soon as the call ended, Rob started double-checking the status of the ship. What needed to be done to leave orbit and head for an intercept with those freighters? The council had continued to make only short-term purchases of necessary supplies like food and water, so he only had about six days’ worth of food on hand. He would have to get the council to cough up enough money for the ship to be out for weeks, though since most of what they were getting were emergency rations siphoned from disaster-readiness supplies, no one would be happy with the quality of the food. Rob double-checked to ensure that there was enough coffee on hand. Ships ran on fuel cells, but crews ran on coffee. At least in the matter of fuel, he could still make use of the supplies the Squall had carried when captured from Scatha. There were enough fuel cells aboard to handle power for more than a month of routine operations.

  Danielle Martel had pretty much stayed on the Squall since the ship’s and her own change of allegiance. She had confessed to feeling unwelcome on the planet, and Rob had to admit she had good cause for that. He felt guilty because that social isolation meant that Danielle, the only other trained sailor, was always available to help him handle matters on the ship. There were several members of the volunteer crew down on the planet who would have to be brought up, though, and one contractor who would have to be sent down if he wouldn’t volunteer to help out. Rob didn’t have a lot of hope on that account.

  After getting a shuttle on the ground alerted to the need for a lift in the morning, sending the council a list of the supplies needed, and having word passed to the crew members who were being recalled, Rob went in search of the contractor.

  It was still an hour before ship’s dawn when Rob roused Corbin Torres from sleep. “We’re going to be leaving orbit on orders from the council. I’d like to have you along, but I can’t insist on it. It’s up to you.”

  Torres scowled at him. “I did my time. I’m not going on any missions. When can I hop a shuttle?”

  “One will be here in five hours, so you have time to wrap up what you were working on and pass on any more essential information. Are you confident that the people you trained can safely operate the power core?”

  He got a shrug from Torres in reply.

  “Are you comfortable knowing you’re sending them out with what little you’ve been able to teach them so far?” Rob asked, letting his voice grow cold this time.

  Torres glared at him. “I’m not the one giving the orders for this ship to go somewhere. Save your self-righteousness for the people in charge, which happens to include you! You’re making the decision to send them out, not me!”

  “Nothing is your responsibility, huh?” Rob said. “Just get off my ship.” He turned to leave.

  “Do you think they’ll be grateful?” Torres yelled after him. “Do you think they’ll really care about what happens to you? You’re an i
diot! A young, idealistic idiot who thinks sucking up to the people in charge will earn him rewards!”

  Rob paused long enough to look back and shake his head at Torres. “I’m not doing anything for other people. I’m doing this for myself because I think these things need to be done. And, no, I don’t expect any rewards. That doesn’t matter.”

  He walked away, knowing that it really did matter even if he told himself otherwise. Lack of recognition did hurt. That was a big part of why he had left Alfar’s fleet with its small, clubby officer corps and the exclusive set of men and women who knew all the right people, got all the right assignments, and got medals and promotions like clockwork regardless of how well or how little they had actually done. But it also really didn’t matter since he would do what needed doing, anyway. That much was true, that he had to do what he thought was needed because he would have a hard time living with himself if he didn’t. The last thing he wanted was to become as bitter and burnt-out as Corbin Torres. Avoiding that fate was, in the end, why he had left Alfar. And, for that matter, why he was in command of the Squall when anyone with common sense would have already told the council to pound sand.

  Twelve hours later, his current “full” crew of fourteen men and women aboard, along with enough additional food, water, and coffee to keep everyone alive if not fulfilled, Rob took his seat on the bridge and studied the projected tracks on his display. The path of the two freighters from Scatha formed a broad arc of about four light hours’ distance, which came to over four hundred billion kilometers. If things worked out, the freighters would never finish that journey, instead being forced to turn back, because Rob fully expected to find something on those spacecraft that Glenlyon wouldn’t want in its star system.

  Squall would leave her orbit about this planet, already being called Glenlyon after the new name of its star. Swooping along another arc that intersected that of the freighters, Squall would meet them nearly two light hours from the planet, more than four days before the freighters would reach Glenlyon. That would allow plenty of time to search the other ships and take whatever other steps the council would authorize.