The Renegat

by Kristine Kathryn Rusch

  He was not blamed for anything. Every investigation exonerated him and his crew. The problem was that the protocols themselves had not been flexible enough to handle the situation.

  After the incident, though, Preemas had slowly crumbled. He had requested a psychological and medical evaluation, which found him emotionally unfit due to unaddressed psychological stress, caused by everything from the lost year to the Drauxhill Incident.

  He had to go through a therapeutic regimen, and then start his climb all over again toward a captaincy. But with that emotional breakdown on his record, he knew—everyone knew—it would be harder for him to regain his captaincy of a DV-Class vessel.

  He didn’t take orders well from other captains, and finally ended up as captain of the Kaluwasan, a lower level SC-Class vessel known for making the occasional daring maneuver and saving more lives than it lost.

  He would have had a good reputation, based solely on his work on the Kaluwasan, if he had never been a DV-Class captain and hadn’t had the breakdown.

  And didn’t tend to argue with his superiors.

  Fiorenza was the first commander who could handle him. She actually seemed to like him.

  But Gāo didn’t.

  “I’ve seen enough,” Gāo said.

  “Going to give up on me so easily, Vice Admiral?” Preemas asked.

  She lifted her chin ever so slightly. “You have clearly given up on yourself, Captain. I need someone strong, who can handle a mission that is probably the most dangerous the Fleet has designed in centuries. You are not that man.”

  She pivoted and walked out of the ready room, and onto the Kaluwasan’s bowl-shaped bridge. The small security staff tried not to look at her, and she tried not to act relieved that she was breathing actual clean air. She had crossed the bridge, around the captain’s chair, which, to her surprise, was neat and pristine, when Fiorenza caught up to her.

  “Give him a chance, Vice Admiral,” Fiorenza said, not even trying to speak softly.

  “I did,” Gāo said. “He knew we were coming, and—”

  “Respectfully, sir,” Fiorenza said, “he is exactly what you want on this mission.”

  Gāo looked at the bridge crew. They all had their heads bent, trying not to pay attention to the conversation around them, but unable to ignore it.

  Gāo sighed heavily, climbed up the incline to the back of the bridge and the exits. She left the bridge, waited for Fiorenza, and did not speak again until the doors closed on the bridge itself.

  “I want a leader,” Gāo said.

  “He is one,” Fiorenza said. “And he’s creative. You’re going to want that too. He breaks protocol to test you, because protocol got his entire first-contact team and his backup team killed in Drauxhill. He believes protocol is a bind that restricts thought and forces captains to make bad decisions.”

  “You could have warned me,” Gāo said. “I would not have come.”

  “I made you promise that you would take him seriously, Vice Admiral,” Fiorenza said.

  “I did,” Gāo said. “I examined his resume. I thought about him as a candidate. I need someone who is able to handle a difficult mission, not act like a sullen teenager who didn’t get his way.”

  “This sullen teenager has always had his crew behind him,” Fiorenza said. “Since his misadventure in foldspace decades ago, he has gone into and out of foldspace more than any other captain in the Fleet.”

  “Daring it to harm him again, no doubt,” Gāo said. Then she softened her tone. “You see that as a good argument, Commander. I see it as reckless.”

  “He’s always saved lives when he’s gone in,” Fiorenza said. “I know who your other candidates are, Vice Admiral. He’s the best of the bunch.”

  Gāo nodded. “I realize that, and it’s not a recommendation. The bunch is a sorry lot.”

  She patted Fiorenza on the arm.

  “I appreciate your enthusiasm, but Captain Preemas is not what I’m looking for on this mission.” And, Gāo thought, she would not be bullied into taking him.

  She left Fiorenza in the corridor, and headed to the docking bay where the orbiter she had arrived in waited.

  Once again, Gāo would talk to Admiral Hallock. Gāo had interviewed every single captain candidate now, and found them all wanting. She had spoken to existing captains, demoted captains, and young officers who were good, but about to be passed over for the plum DV-Class assignments.

  She could see just from the interviews why those young officers weren’t being given plum commands. The existing captains usually were doing well enough not to dislodge them from their posts, and demoted captains, like Preemas, had too much baggage.

  Gāo would tell the admiral that there was no one suited for this trip, at least that she could find. And she would be able to back that finding up with evidence.

  No matter how much Hallock argued that expendables get sent on this mission, there was a counter-argument. The mission had to have even a slight chance of success. Bringing on incompetent captains would guarantee a failure.

  There would be an investigation if (when) the mission failed; the mission couldn’t look like it had been sabotaged in the first place.

  As she headed to the docking bay, Gāo was already lining up her arguments for Hallock. Then an ensign stepped out of one of the side corridors.

  “Vice Admiral Gāo?” the ensign asked. She was young—maybe twenty-five—and had the bright eyes of a woman who loved her job.

  “Yes,” Gāo said as calmly as she could.

  “Captain Preemas requests another moment of your time,” the ensign said.

  “Thank him and tell him that I’ve given him enough time today,” Gāo said.

  “Vice Admiral, I’m to keep you from going into the bay until he arrives,” the ensign said.

  “I countermand that order, Ensign,” Gāo said. “I’m leaving.”

  The young woman sighed, but didn’t move. At least she understood protocol.

  Gāo slipped past her into the docking bay. She half-expected other members of the Kaluwasan’s crew to try to stop her. They did not.

  She had almost relaxed by the time she reached her orbiter. There, outside of it, stood Captain Preemas. Clearly, the Kaluwasan had a quicker and more efficient way for the captain to get to the docking bay than the route that Gāo had taken.

  “Our business is completed, Captain,” Gāo said. “I am afraid you’re not what I’m looking for.”

  He gave her a half smile.

  “I know you’re caught in a bind, Vice Admiral,” he said. “I know that you’ve been given a task that requires maybe a dozen ships to complete and you’re only allowed to use one. You’ve also been given a list of names to fill out that single ship, and none of them are stellar—including mine.”

  She felt a bit cold. She had thought all of that information was classified.

  “If what you know is true, Captain,” she said, “someone has illegally given you access to classified information.”

  He tilted his head slightly, as if acknowledging what she said.

  “I work on an SC-Class vessel,” he said. “When we’re effecting a rescue, we often don’t have time to go through channels to get information. I have maintained my DV-Class security clearance, which you can discover by going through the records. I have dreams of captaining my own DV-Class vessel again.”

  Then he gave her a self-deprecating smile.

  “Of course,” he said, “the longer I’m away, the more I see my chances of achieving that dream slipping away.”

  Gāo opened her mouth to tell him that those chances would be completely gone after her report, but she stopped herself, and made herself listen to him. If he did indeed have DV-level security clearance, then he had access to some of the information she was acting on. It wouldn’t take much to figure out that she was putting together an important mission.

  He would probably assume she was sending him to a Scrapheap, because she was in charge of Scrapheaps. He wouldn’t
know which one, because that was classified well above a DV-level.

  Still, his willingness to approach her again intrigued her. Even though she knew that he was still not following protocol.

  “I’ll be blunt with you, Captain,” she said. “This mission that I’m recruiting for is not the stepping stone you want to a DV-level vessel. After reviewing your record, and watching your behavior here, I doubt you will ever have another command like that. So you do not need to advocate for this job. Be glad. It isn’t really a job that anyone should want.”

  He started to say something, then stopped himself. He frowned, as if he hadn’t expected her words at all.

  “Sir,” he said quietly, “if I were to promise you that I could complete this mission, whatever it is, would you consider me for a DV-Class vessel the next time a captaincy opens?”

  “No,” she said.

  He looked startled.

  “I doubt you could complete this mission,” she said. “I doubt anyone can.”

  His energy shifted. He went from pushy to still so fast that she almost thought she was looking at another person.

  “An impossible mission,” he said slowly. “You’re setting this ship up for failure.”

  “I am not,” she said. “The mission is what it is.”

  His eyes narrowed, as he thought. He seemed to be putting pieces together, words she hadn’t said.

  That strange expression crossed his face again. His eyebrows went up slightly.

  “A mission that the brass consider worthwhile. A mission in which they—you—are sending a second-tier ship, one that can be written off, with an unestablished crew.” That head tilt again. Apparently, Preemas did it when he was thinking. “A crew no one would miss.”

  Gāo should have moved away, because she didn’t need to discuss anything with him anymore, but watching him think was fascinating. She was beginning to understand his appeal.

  He was brilliant.

  He was also emotional, moody, and difficult.

  “This is a suicide mission, isn’t it?” he said slowly, as if it were all being revealed to him. “You’ve been told to send a single ship on a mission that has been deemed impossible but necessary.”

  She didn’t move. Thank the stars, she had learned how to keep her expression neutral.

  “Which means that it’s a fact-finding mission or it’s an experiment.” He gave her that quirky half smile again. Yes, appealing, but somehow dangerous.

  She still didn’t like him, but she had to respect his reasoning process.

  He nodded, as if confirming his own assumptions to himself. “That’s why only one ship will go when you wanted more. That’s why the list of names I saw were…let’s say ‘compromised’…at best.”

  Gāo did not answer him. She just watched him think.

  Then his gaze met hers, his green eyes even brighter than they had been a moment ago.

  “I’ve heard about you, Vice Admiral,” he said. “I’ve heard that you’re blunt and a straight talker. You don’t make promises you can’t keep. So if you were to send me on this mission, a mission you don’t think I’ll survive, you won’t make me a false promise of a promotion that you believe I won’t live to see.”

  She still didn’t speak, even though he was spot-on with his assumption.

  “But what if I exceed expectations?” he asked. “What then?”

  She smiled in spite of herself. Charming and arrogant. She had seen that combination before and didn’t trust it. It led to entire ships following a leader who was promoted too quickly, didn’t have the experience to make good decisions, and refused to listen to others when it was needed.

  Although she had seen none of that in his record through his service on the Raadiya. When he had been on the career track, he hadn’t behaved that way at all. If anything, he adhered to protocol too rigidly.

  But there was evidence that his arrogance had overtaken him as the captain of the Kaluwasan. Or perhaps, he was simply trying to prove something—to himself, and to the Fleet.

  “If you’ve looked at my record,” she said to him, “then you know that I care less about the results than I do about the way they were achieved. I don’t make promises based on results. I never use prizes as incentives, particularly for dangerous missions. Doing so leads to cut corners, which leads to sloppy work.”

  “You would rather a mission fail because it was neat and tidy?” he asked.

  “I would rather that difficult missions not exist at all,” she said. “But they do, and they require a specific kind of crew, one that can do the mission as assigned and maintain the dignity of the Fleet.”

  His half smile twisted into a full smile. “The dignity of the Fleet,” he said, and his tone was mocking. “You believe such a thing exists.”

  “I know it does,” she said. She had seen it. She had reinforced it. She did her best to maintain it, each and every day.

  He raised his eyebrows again, letting his expression disagree with her instead of his words.

  “So if I come back from this suicide mission,” he said, “but you think I compromised myself or my ship to do so, you wouldn’t promote me.”

  “That’s correct,” she said.

  “And you’ve already decided that I’m not the right material for this mission, is that correct as well?” he asked.

  “You needed to impress me, Captain,” she said. “And you did. Just not in the way that you wanted to.”

  “You want a regulation captain, someone by the book,” he said.

  She didn’t nod. She let her silence speak.

  “Your list doesn’t include any,” he said. “If you want someone like that, you’ll have to promote from below, and I suspect this mission takes an experienced leader, not some green kid, am I right?”

  He was right, and that was her dilemma. But she didn’t tell him that either.

  “So what if you take a chance with me, Vice Admiral? And what if I end up doing something great for the Fleet? What if I survive this mission, complete it successfully, and do something beyond your expectations? What then?”

  She had no idea how to answer that. She didn’t believe he could do that. She didn’t believe anyone could.

  Preemas’s eyes glittered as he watched her. He seemed to think he was convincing her to take him on as captain of this mission.

  He had no idea she had mentally gone down a different track.

  “You seem quite self-involved, Captain,” Gāo said.

  He leaned back just a little, clearly surprised by her words. He must have thought that he had convinced her.

  “I’m sure you will find a way to achieve whatever goal you set for yourself,” she said, “Or rather, you might, if you start giving protocol a second look. Now, if you’ll excuse me.”

  She really wasn’t asking permission to walk past him. She said if you’ll excuse me as a verbal shove, as a way of getting him to move aside.

  He leaned against her orbiter for an extra minute, reminding her once again of a sullen teenager—defiant even when he had lost—and then he smiled politely, nodded, and stepped into protocol.

  She brushed past him, and placed her hand on the exterior door panel. The door rose, and two steps lowered so she could go inside.

  “Vice Admiral,” he said, “self-involved or not, I’m the guy you need on this mission.”

  She smiled at him. Had he really said that? Reinforcing her self-involved statement as if it had meant nothing to him?

  Her smile seemed to annoy him.

  He straightened further. He was taller than she had realized. He had slouched as he stood, which was not something an overconfident person did.

  Perhaps the bluster had been for him, and not for her.

  His gaze remained on hers.

  “One last thing.” He sounded almost desperate. “If you can’t find a victim you approve of to take command of your suicide mission, just remember that you have a volunteer.”

  He touched his chest lightly, in case she miss
ed the point.

  “Duly noted, Captain,” she said, and climbed into the orbiter.

  The door closed behind her and she stood for just a moment as if the airlock had been engaged, even though it hadn’t been.

  Victims and volunteers.

  She didn’t like how sharp his words were, mostly because they were on point.

  She would have to give this meeting a bit more thought.

  After she spoke to the admiral. After she tried to scuttle this mission one last time.

  The Coj

  Gāo felt like the lowest ensign whenever she boarded Admiral Hallock’s DV-Class ship, the Coj. Gāo felt that way even though she requested the meeting.

  She had taken an orbiter to the Coj, and landed in the cushy docking bay it had for Fleet dignitaries. Everything inside the Coj was either designed for the dignitaries or to intimidate someone who didn’t belong.

  Gāo belonged, and she still felt intimidated.

  The Coj wasn’t decorated the way that working DV-Class vessels were. It didn’t have obvious black nanobit walls or floors. It wasn’t low maintenance at all.

  Every inch of the Coj required the kind of upkeep that the Fleet usually frowned upon. The walls and railings appeared to be made of real wood, expensively grown on one of the hydroponics decks of the so-called jungle ships.

  Gāo suspected that the walls and railings weren’t made of real wood, because that would be wasteful, and Hallock was generally about conservation of resources. The walls and railings were probably made of nanobits, programmed to appear shiny and rich and expensive—in both time and resources.

  The floors of this part of the Coj were expensive. They were covered in carpet, specially woven just for this ship. They had the Coj’s name written over and over again into an almost geometric pattern, repeated in various browns to accent the wood.

  If Gāo looked down, the carpets made her dizzy. She preferred a standard black floor that matched the standard black ceiling, so that if the ship lost attitude control, she didn’t need to think about up and down.

  She tugged on the sleeves of her uniform. She wouldn’t have even worn her uniform if the meeting had been held on her ship. But because she was coming to the Coj and making a very formal request, she felt she needed the armor her uniform provided.