by Marko Kloos
“Ship’s gym,” Lieutenant Hunter said on the next deck down. This was the storage deck, loaded with supply modules for the three-month deployment, secured in neat rows along the walls. There was a small open space in front of the compartment’s refrigeration locker, and someone had installed a compact treadmill and a strength-training machine in that spot.
“I’m afraid it may not be as extensive as what you’re used to from Minotaur. But it’s what they could squeeze in.”
“Looks cozy,” Dunstan said.
“It’s a popular spot. Quiet and private. I hate the treadmill. But I come down here to hear myself think.”
The bottom compartment of the ship was the engineering and propulsion deck, the control center for the ship’s fusion reactor. Dunstan knew that below the deck flooring, a few tons of dense radiation shielding separated the fragile crew from the reactor and the ship’s fusion rocket drive.
“How did the acceleration trials on the shakedown cruise go?” he asked.
“Fourteen and a half g at ninety-five percent,” Lieutenant Hunter replied with pride in her voice, and he rewarded the statement with a low whistle.
“Not bad. Not bad at all. That’s a lot of zip for a two-thousand-ton hull.”
“Once we have her all tuned in, we can probably make her kiss up to fifteen at full throttle.”
“I like the sound of that. There’s always another half g in the drive somewhere if we don’t mind a few nosebleeds.”
Dunstan looked around the compartment. It was the most modern engineering section he had ever seen, and most of the control elements were unfamiliar to him—new consoles to steer and monitor millions of ags’ worth of experimental technology.
“Thanks for the initial tour,” he said. “I’ll repeat the process with the chief engineer and the weapons officer. But you left out an essential piece of information, Lieutenant.”
“What’s that, sir?”
“How’s the coffee on this boat?”
She grinned.
“Best I’ve had in the fleet. You want to give it a try, the dispenser is in the galley. I dialed in a fresh batch when I came aboard this morning.”
Dunstan nodded at the ladderwell.
“I’ll put it to the test right now. Join me for a cup if you would.”
They climbed up to the mess, where Lieutenant Hunter took two mugs out of the vertical rack and filled them with coffee from the galley’s dispenser. The scent of the hot brew displaced the smell of new plastics and paint and made his ship feel more real somehow. Dunstan took the offered mug from Hunter and sat down at one of the mess tables.
“Have a seat. I want to ask you something.”
She sat down across the table from him. From her body language, he could tell that she had a good idea what he was about to ask her, but when she looked at him, there was no anxiety in her expression.
“I’ve never heard anyone with your accent in the fleet,” he said. “It’s Gretian, isn’t it?”
She nodded.
“I still can’t pass for a native,” she said. “Don’t think I ever will. Some people have an ear for it, but I don’t. Comes with learning the language later in life. The mouth is already too used to making sounds in a particular way.”
“So what’s your story? I know you’re Rhodian because you’re wearing the uniform. And you’re cleared to serve on a classified ship. How did you get that accent?”
“I was Gretian once,” she said. “In a previous life. I met my mate when she was on Gretia as an attaché with the diplomatic corps. Then I moved to Rhodia with her. We got married, I got naturalized three years later. That was two years before the war started.”
She took a slow sip of coffee and looked at him impassively.
“She was in the navy, so I joined, too, once I was a citizen. Figured our lives would be easier that way. I made middie and got into the fleet just in time to see the whole system blow up all around us. Not much to tell after that. Four years of combat deployments. I came home. She didn’t.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” Dunstan said. The blunt, matter-of-fact way in which she had recalled her loss threw him off a little. From the way she looked at him to gauge his reaction, he knew that she had intended it exactly that way, to preemptively put him on the defensive a little. “I wasn’t implying that you had divided loyalties.”
“Yes, you were,” she said. “But I don’t take offense. I’m used to it. And I can’t say I wouldn’t do the same. If I came across someone else in the navy with a Gretian accent, I’d feel the same way. They started a war with us, after all.”
Lieutenant Hunter turned her coffee mug in her hands and took another sip.
“The first two years of the war, they wouldn’t let me serve on a frontline unit,” she said. “I spent a lot of time on supply freighters and rear-guard patrol boats. Had to prove myself to every new crew. Hear the same stupid comments over and over. Third year of the war, they were finally running low enough on junior officers to have to put me in the AIC of a proper warship.”
“Which one?”
“RNS Laconia. Light cruiser, Hellas class.”
“Lost in 916,” he recalled. “At the First Battle of Pallas.”
She nodded, and he could see the pain of the memory darken her expression.
“With two-thirds of her crew. We took a missile hit in the aft magazine that blew the ship in half. Nobody below the airlock deck made it to the pods. Luckily, we had a battlecruiser nearby that took the time to come about and pick up pods. I don’t know how the Gretians would have treated me as a prisoner of war, but I have my suspicions.”
She shook her head lightly as if to cast off the recollection of that day.
“Commander, I served on three frontline ships during the war. Had two of them shot out from underneath me. Those three ships got a total of seven enemy ship kills and four assists. I don’t care if anyone questions my loyalties at this point. They can check my service record. And if they still doubt my allegiance after that, then it’s their problem, not mine. I think I’ve earned the right to be left alone about the way I talk, or my planet of birth.”
Dunstan knew commanding officers who would have taken her last sentence as a challenge, evidence of a personality conflict that would give them an excuse to have her replaced with a different first officer. Five years ago, he might have done just that. But he appreciated candor and courage, and whatever emotions were swirling behind Lieutenant Hunter’s pale-blue eyes, he could tell that fear or duplicity were not among them.
“If I gave you that impression, I apologize,” he said. “I’m not going to tell you that I’m fond of the Gretian accent. But you are right, Lieutenant. That’s my problem, not yours. You put on that uniform and stepped into harm’s way for Rhodia. You did earn that right.”
She nodded.
“Thank you for saying that, sir.”
They sipped their beverages in silence for a few moments. Dunstan looked at the walls of the mess deck. This was usually the place on a warship where the memorabilia from deployments was displayed, but Hecate was so new that she didn’t have any trinkets or trophies yet.
“We’re taking out an experimental ship,” he said. “An unproven experimental ship. And we’ll be using untested tactics. I hope you are comfortable with writing the manual as you go, Lieutenant. Because we are leaving day after tomorrow.”
“Any word on what we’re going to be doing out there? I figure they didn’t press this boat into service early to babysit merchants on the Pallas run.”
“We’re not.” Dunstan leaned back with a sigh. “You figured correctly.”
“So what’s the mission? I mean, I can wait until you brief the command staff tomorrow. But I am curious.”
“If we come across any pirates, we’ll bag and tag them for the patrols,” Dunstan said. “But that won’t be our main job. We’re going to find the ship that dropped a nuke on our home three weeks ago. And if we run into the fuzzhe . . . the Gretian gun cr
uiser that’s out there somewhere, I’ll consider it a bonus. I’d love to get a rematch with that bastard.”
“So we’re going to look for trouble,” Lieutenant Hunter said. “Good.”
“They were the ones who were looking for trouble,” he replied. “We’re just delivering what they were seeking.”
He swirled the coffee around in his mug and took another sip. Hunter hadn’t oversold the stuff. It really was exceptionally good, better than any he could remember having on a navy ship.
“Of course, our orders say that we are not to engage in combat except for self-defense. We are to find them and call in the heavy guns when we have a fix,” he said. “So if you were looking to add to your kill tally, this deployment may disappoint you.”
She smiled wryly.
“You fought in the war, too,” she said. “You know as well as I do that ‘self-defense’ can be a pretty flexible term out there.”
CHAPTER 8
SOLVEIG
The gyrofoil settled down on the landing pad so gently that Solveig could barely feel it when the skids contacted the ground. She had dismissed her bodyguard Cuthbert just before the flight home from the spaceport to get fifteen minutes of solitude before meeting her father again, and the brief aerial hop had not been long enough to quell the anxiety that had started to well up in her when they had arrived planetside.
There’s no telling what two weeks of silence has done to his anger, she thought as the sound of the engines faded and the soft cabin illumination came back on. Maybe it died down. Or maybe he used it to keep the coals red-hot all the while.
“We have arrived, Miss Ragnar. It was a pleasure to fly you again this evening,” the pilot said over the intercom. The door at the front of the passenger cabin opened and let in a gust of warm summer air. Solveig unbuckled her safety harness and got out of her seat.
Outside, the late-summer heat and the blazing sun felt like an assault after spending more than three weeks in climate-controlled environments and steady twenty-degree temperatures. It was her least favorite time of the year. She suspected that part of her dislike for summer originated during her school years—summers were for going home and spending time in her father’s company, away from her friends and the safety of relative anonymity.
“Where would you like me to bring your luggage, Miss Ragnar?” the pilot asked.
“Just inside the front hall would be great. I don’t know yet whether I’ll be staying at the house tonight.”
“As you wish, ma’am.” The pilot moved to the rear of the gyrofoil to get her baggage out of the cargo compartment. Solveig walked to the pathway that led from the landing pad to the house through a little grove of young trees that stood barely taller than she did. It was early evening, and the low sun was bathing the estate in a soft golden light that made everything resemble the slightly gaudy landscape paintings her mother used to like.
Inside, the main house was cool and quiet. She walked through the foyer and down the central hall to her suite. When she passed the lounge, she peered inside to see if her father was sitting in his usual spot at the bar, but the room was empty, and the screens were dark. The house had felt huge even when they had lived here as a family. Now, with her mother and Aden gone, it seemed like an enormous waste of space—twenty rooms and enough social space to entertain hundreds of people, all sitting mostly empty, her father paying for a dozen domestic staff to maintain a house with only two residents. They used to have parties and social functions constantly, an almost steady stream of guests and drop-in petitioners, but her father seemed to have lost all interest in having people over when the war ended and he no longer had control of Ragnar Industries.
Back in her suite, Solveig took off her business clothes and stepped into the shower for a long and thorough rinse to rid herself of the smells of travel. Then she got into her workout clothes and went off to find her father.
When she stepped through the wide patio doors, Falk Ragnar was sitting outside on the patio underneath a sun canopy, sipping a drink from a tall glass and reading something on his compad. He looked up and smiled.
“Hello, daughter of mine. You finally made it home.”
Solveig walked over to her father and sat down in one of the empty patio chairs. Out over the manicured grounds, watering drones made their quiet passes above the artfully arranged flower beds, misting the plants in regular intervals.
“I wasn’t prepared for the system catching fire while we were on Acheron,” she replied. “They made us wait a week for a clearance slot. And Cuthbert almost got himself shot by some Alliance marine in the end.”
“Oh?” Falk raised an eyebrow. “How did this happen?”
“They did a pat-down, and Cuthbert thought the marine who did mine got a little too handsy.”
Her father’s expression darkened a little. “And did he?”
Solveig shrugged.
“I don’t like it when anyone puts their hands on me. Once they get to do that, the rest is just semantics. But they had the guns and the armor. I told Cuthbert to stand down. I didn’t feel like spending any more time waiting in orbit.”
“This whole blockade is a bunch of chest-beating nonsense,” Falk said. “So someone dropped a nuke on Rhodia. What did we have to do with that? We don’t even have a navy anymore. It’s all just pretext to squeeze us a little harder. Punishing a whole planet just because they can’t keep a watch on theirs.”
“Well, they were enjoying their jobs, I can tell you that,” Solveig said. “They had us give up our comtabs for a data dump, too. They’re going to have a fun time trying to get through the encryption.”
“Nosy bastards. Just looking for a hook to hang you from. Now you know what we’ve been dealing with since the end of the damned war. One little cut and pinprick after another, just to keep us bleeding.”
She nodded at his glass. “What are you drinking?”
Falk looked at his beverage.
“I’m trying something new. Synthetic distillate, without ethanol. I’m not sure I’m wild about it. But it’s better than I had expected.”
“Can I try?” she asked.
He handed her the glass.
“You just want to check if I am telling the truth about the drinking. But here you go.”
She took a sip. The drink had the smell and flavor of alcohol, but there was something undeniably different about it. It lacked the sharp bite of her father’s regular fare, and she didn’t feel her face flush like it usually did whenever she had her first taste of a strong drink.
“Not bad,” she said. She didn’t ask why he was suddenly drinking cocktails without alcohol, despite her surprise at the shift. Falk Ragnar did nothing on a whim. Whatever the reason for his sudden abstinence, she was sure that it was part of a larger strategy, but she knew better than to ask about it and give him what he wanted.
She handed his glass back to him. “I think I want something to drink as well. It’s been a long week.”
“Go ahead,” Falk said. “There’s still quite a bit of that dry white left. The one you like, from Acheron.”
“I’ve had my share of Acheron wines for a little while. Let me see what else we have.”
She got up and walked back into the house to check the stock in the bar. None of the wines really appealed to her today, so she brought up the AI bartender’s screen. After a moment of consideration, she selected her mother’s old favorite summer drink, a strong pale-green cocktail made with aniseed liquor and fizzy water. When she got back to the patio with her freshly mixed and dispensed cold beverage, her father wrinkled his nose.
“That smelly stuff. I never could stand it. Tastes like medicine.”
“I like it. Mama always said it was an acquired taste. People love it or hate it.”
“Well, I never acquired the taste. But I don’t have to drink it. How was the trip? Other than the indignities at the end, I mean.”
“It was mostly fine.”
“Mostly,” he repeated.
&nbs
p; “I think I may have mentioned my troubles with the Acheroni inability to give clear yes-or-no answers,” she said. “But once I was used to their way of talking around something they didn’t want to address, it wasn’t so hard to get them to play along. But gods. Never make me spend another day in Gisbert’s company, please.”
Falk barked a laugh and looked out over the rows of flower beds behind the patio. “That bad, huh?”
“I know you picked him because he does what he’s told. But he was a liability. I had to do all the footwork in the conference room. He spent the whole time either complaining about everything or sucking up to me. And he made us look like a bunch of rude boors. When he gets a few drinks in him, he turns into a pig.”
“I didn’t hire him for his tact, that’s true. But he was always on his best behavior around me. It seems that my prolonged absence has lowered the standards.”
“That’s because you were in a position to fire him,” Solveig said. “He was the senior VP on the trip. And he never left out an opportunity to act like it. Except when it came to doing the work, of course.”
Falk looked at her, and for a fleeting moment she could see the spark of the old, familiar anger in his eyes.
“Nobody is senior to you in that place,” he said. “Except for Magnus, and he knows who will take his chair when he retires. If Gisbert isn’t smart enough to know his place, then maybe he has outlived his utility.”
“I’m less than half his age,” Solveig said. “And he has been a VP for a decade.”
“And your family name is Ragnar,” Falk said. “You outranked him the moment you walked into the building on your first day.”
“Firing him may be a little harsh, Papa,” she said. “It would be bad for morale among the other VPs. Make us look like we don’t have our ship in order.”
He shrugged and sipped from his glass.
“You’re too forgiving. It’s a quality your mother passed down to you. Along with a taste for that awful aniseed liquor.”
She held his gaze with a neutral expression. This was supposed to be a training lesson, and she had no idea what his goal was, but for now she was just relieved he had chosen to engage in this work-related banter instead of blowing up at her over what she’d said to him on Acheron.
