‘Permission to detach,’ said Min, with a nod to the watch officer, and with that, they began to accelerate away.
It was at this point, though, that things went decidedly off-script. The Stepeasy had slowed down with them but glided off so that while they were still visible on the Assegai’s scopes, they were beyond those of the little starseeker. But now, instead of powering up with them and slipping back into starboard-escort position, they angled in to replace the Assegai alongside the starseeker.
Signals flickered, but by then the Assegai was too far ahead to pick them up, moving out of visual range. Longer range thermal imaging scopes showed them, though, the mighty Stepeasy dwarfing the yacht. It was obvious to spacer eyes, too, that the Constitutional was running their engines too hot, at higher energies than their systems could cope with for long. They would be lucky to get to Kavenko at that speed without major breakdown. And given that none of them was qualified as skipper, engineer or even deck-technician, their ability to cope with technical breakdown would be very limited. They might not even have anything more than the bike-spanner toolkit kept in a little drawer under the flight console.
‘Shall we reduce speed, skipper?’ the watch keeper enquired, seeing the Stepeasy evidently engaging with the starseeker, and that they were rapidly drawing away from them.
‘Hold at L20,’ Min confirmed.
They didn’t have to wait for long. Less than two minutes later, the Stepeasy began accelerating too… and at the same time, like a little miracle, the starseeker dropped on a rapid plunge from L8 to a stable L6.
‘Well, I’ll be…’ Min said. She’d gone back to her seat at the command table by then, and looked across at Alex, amazed. ‘What did he do?’
Alex grinned. ‘If you want to know,’ he suggested, ‘you ask him.’
Min did that, when the Stepeasy came back up alongside and they resumed accelerating to their own cruising speed. Establishing a skipper to skipper contact call, she complimented Davie on having persuaded the starseeker to slow to a safe speed.
‘Can I ask, though – purely for personal interest – how you did it?’ She was making it clear that she understood she had no right to ask, the encounter being between two civilian ships out of the Assegai’s comms range.
Davie smiled at her. He was on his own command deck, wearing a sloppy sweatshirt and in his favourite pose, angled in his command chair with one leg hooked comfortably over its arm. He looked even younger than usual, and radiantly angelic.
‘I exercised,’ he said, ‘my personal charm.’
Min spluttered. She had come a long way since that first nervous meeting – could it only be three days ago? It felt as if she’d known him a whole lot longer than that.
‘Your considerable personal charm,’ she retorted, for which he blew her an airy kiss from the tips of his fingers.
‘Always a joy, darling,’ he said, and broke off the call before she could say any more.
They never did find out what he’d said to the starseeker – rumours that he’d offered them a million bucks to behave themselves were unlikely to be true, not because he wouldn’t have considered it worth such petty cash but because he wouldn’t want to set a precedent which might even encourage such risk-taking behaviour. Whatever he said, though – and Alex never asked – it had been effective.
And as the twin ships powered on through the frozen void, there was, perhaps, just the hint of a giggle, trailing in their wake.
Twelve
They found the Rose Voyager exactly where it was supposed to be, on course, on speed, riding precisely along the virtual line followed by autopilots. This meant that they were relatively easy for other ships to find, and they had, as was usual, acquired some company along the way. Two of the ships keeping company with the liner were fair sized yachts, tagging along together more for the company en-route than for safety reasons. Two more were freighters, hanging back a little distance from the yachts. The last was one of the charter ships which had sprung up on this route as passenger demand outstripped liner capacity. It was what would euphemistically be referred to in advertising as a budget vessel – a converted freighter, its hold pressurised and heated, fitted with bunks, mess tables and the minimum one shower per twelve people.
As soon as he saw it wallowing along behind the liner, Davie called Alex on priority code.
‘Is there any way we can…’ he said, and broke off as he saw a shuttle leaving the Assegai, much faster than a human pilot could handle it.
‘What the…’ Min saw the information on her screen at the same time, informing her that shuttle P-32 had launched under emergency release, using her command code.
‘Ah.’ Alex was sitting beside her, keen to hear Skipper Eldovan’s explanation when she came aboard. ‘I’m afraid,’ he commented, ‘that Silvie has borrowed a shuttle.’
Borrowed, after all, sounded so much nicer than stolen.
‘Uh?’ Min had heard that Silvie did that kind of thing, but she’d been so settled on the Assegai, Min had thought such wild stunts were behind her.
‘Nothing to worry about,’ said Alex, with the calm of experience. ‘She’s going,’ he explained, ‘to rescue the passengers aboard the Turtle.’
‘She’s…?’ Min could see that the shuttle was already docking with the charter ship, making that transit in the blink of an eye.
‘Silvie,’ said Alex, ‘does not like to see creatures caged in depressing conditions… birds in a concrete aviary, students in a rancid bunkroom. She considers it her moral obligation to liberate them.’ He flicked a grin. ‘And where higher moral imperatives kick in, compliance with little things like - ah, excuse me.’ He picked up a call from Shion, ‘Yes, by all means,’ he said, and to Min, ‘if you’ll give Firefly permission to launch…’
Min did so and the fighter launched at once, Alex explaining as it did so, ‘Shion will negotiate.’
‘Negotiate?’
‘With the skipper,’ Alex said. ‘To come to terms under which Silvie is satisfied for him to keep his passengers.’
‘To keep his…?’ Min shook her head, briskly, shaking it clear. ‘Sorry.’ She said. ‘I echo when I’m startled. Bad habit. But you mean, she’s actually…?’
‘She’s gone over there,’ Alex clarified, ‘to check out the conditions in which the passengers are being carried. And I think we both know that unless something is very unusual aboard that ship she will find those conditions pretty cramped and miserable. Silvie will then express her opinion of the morality of keeping people in those conditions to the skipper – in fact, my guess would be she’s doing that right now – and unless Shion can figure out how to upgrade the provision to Silvie’s satisfaction, Silvie will tell people to pack and start taking them to the liner herself, handing them over there to be looked after as refugees.’
Min stared at him.
‘She’s done this before.’
‘The first time,’ Alex confirmed, ‘Mr North ended up with seventy four student backpackers aboard the Stepeasy. We’re heading in the wrong direction, or I’ve no doubt she’d be bringing them here. And no, Min, I am not going to tell her that she cannot or should not do this. The conditions those people are living in are as abhorrent to her as if you or I came across children being kept in a cage, half-starved and filthy. Anyone trying to tell us in those circumstances that we shouldn’t be taking them out of there would be told where to get off. And I do, I really do, have to respect Silvie’s stance on this. She tolerates a lot, has to accept a lot of things about life on our worlds which are heart-tearingly awful to her, the poverty, the drugs, the crime. She knows that she can’t fix all that, all she can do for that is grieve. But this, these people, captives in misery right in front of her, that she can do something about. And from her perspective, must do something about.’
‘Captives in misery, though?’ Min queried, with a tone which conveyed, that’s a bit melodramatic.
‘Well, they can’t get off the ship, can they?’ Alex pointed out. �
�They bought berths aboard it because they couldn’t afford anything better – they’ll have been aboard since Telathor, too. And the fact they’re declaring eighty four passengers ought to tell you everything you need to know about conditions back there.’
Min grimaced. She did know. Narrow, shallow bunks, four deep and stacked so tight together you had to wriggle in from the end and sleep in a space not much bigger than a coffin. Narrow tables with bench seats. Tight, flimsy showers. Cheap rehydrated food, served three times a day, take it or leave it. Too many people packed into a confined space, unable to get away from one another, getting on each other’s nerves. Silvie had a point. If they hadn’t paid for their tickets and gone aboard voluntarily, it would have been illegal to treat people like that.
‘But, you know… backpackers,’ she said. ‘All part of the experience, isn’t it?’
‘I wouldn’t say that to Silvie if I was you,’ Alex said. ‘She is of the opinion that people who are young, broke, far from home and vulnerable should be taken more care of than others, not less, and I must say that once you start talking about the morality of it it does become hard to argue that it’s all right for people to have to travel in those conditions, so eager to see beyond their own worlds but unable to afford a liner ticket. Anyway, either Shion will resolve it or the Rose Voyager will have to find bunks for some extra passengers. Either way, Silvie will not apologise for borrowing your shuttle or acting on her own initiative in this, and I would not expect her to. She’s doing what she believes is right, fair enough. So just, please, log it as an exodiplomacy incident which Shion is handling as Silvie’s liaison, no further action required, all right?’
‘Fine with me,’ Min said, reassured by Alex’s own unconcern, but already being distracted by messages appearing on a different screen. ‘That’s odd,’ she said, and copied the screen to Alex.
The Assegai’s watch officer had signalled the Rose Voyager as the destroyer circled round and decelerated to run alongside. A message had been sent to the skipper as a matter of courtesy, informing them that the Assegai was here to pick up one of their passengers, while another message had been directed to Skipper Eldovan herself, requiring her to report aboard.
In these circumstances, it was expected that the officer would throw their gear into a kitbag and run, racing to whatever airlock the liner had allocated for the Assegai’s shuttle. They were, now, having to prep another shuttle because Silvie had taken the one they’d been about to use, but it would only take a minute or two to launch, getting docking clearance from the liner, and another minute or two to cruise over and dock at the assigned airlock.
Skipper Eldovan, however, had signalled back, I’ll be ready in 25 minutes.
‘Odd?’ said Alex. He could think of other words.
It was an extraordinary message. No apologies, no explanations, just I’ll be ready in 25 minutes. One of the newest, fastest, most expensive destroyers in the Fleet had come out to the liner just to pick her up. Any officer would be amazed, by that – they certainly wouldn’t want to keep that ship waiting for one second, let alone expect them to hang around for a quarter of an hour while they…what? What could possibly be so important, or take that long?
‘Maybe she’s gone mad,’ said a young Sub at the Ops table, too audibly, and blushed fiery red when everybody looked at him.
Neither Alex nor Min commented, but they did exchange a quiet glance. This behaviour would have been startling from any officer. From the notoriously rigid by-the-book Eldovan it was way beyond out of character.
‘She must have a reason,’ said the watch officer, who’d served with Eldovan some years before and considered her a role model.
Alex inclined his head. He would not rush to judgement. He would see Eldovan, hear her explanation. And it wasn’t as if they were in a position to rush off anywhere, anyway, with Silvie aboard the Turtle – and Shion, now, hopefully resolving the matter with tact and good humour.
‘We’ll wait,’ he said.
Eighteen minutes later, after some three-way exchanges of signals between Shion, the Rose Voyager’s skipper and Alex, a deal was struck over the Turtle.
It was not a compromise. Silvie would not compromise where the welfare of helpless people was in her hands. But it wasn’t as bad as it could have been. The skipper, utterly overwhelmed by the arrival of the quarian ambassador, would have turned the ship inside out for her if that was what she wanted. Her scolding about the condition of his Human Cargo brought him near to tears, and by the time Shion arrived he would have agreed to anything, but anything, to appease Silvie.
In the event, this meant twenty four of the passengers being transferred to the liner, where the Rose Voyager would accommodate them in a rather more spacious emergency bunkroom. This would free space on the Turtle for bunks to be moved into the bay configuration Silvie had specified, with a forcefield curtain over the outer end of each bay effectively creating little cabins. The number of showers was to be increased, proper tables and chairs brought in, and a list of leisure facilities to be provided. Most importantly, catering would be provided from the Rose Voyager from now on, with all the passengers allowed to go aboard the liner on short passes for reasonable access to the facilities there.
The cost of all that to the Rose Voyager was not trivial, including the tech teams Silvie expected them to send over to carry out the refit work. But they agreed to it with alacrity, even with pleasure.
‘Please – consider it our privilege,’ the skipper said, when Alex told her that he would cover the costs. That would not be a problem. The Diplomatic Corps had an enormous exodiplomacy budget and had been very open handed with the funding they’d placed at Alex’s disposal. This sort of thing, as he knew from experience, would be put down to ‘sundry expenses’. But the Red Line skipper was adamant. ‘The least we can do,’ she kept repeating, ‘The very least.’
Alex let it go – he would leave it to the Diplomatic Corps and Red Line’s head office to resolve that at some future date. For now, it was enough that everyone was happy; the Rose Voyager pleased to be able to assist, the Turtle getting a free upgrade, its passengers over the moon and Silvie, most importantly of all, satisfied.
They did have to send another shuttle over to the Turtle with a spare pilot to bring the one back which Silvie had borrowed. Shion brought her back on Firefly, pointing out that Silvie did not, in fact, have either a license or permission to pilot the Assegai’s shuttle, and while higher moral imperative might arguably justify her doing so in what she considered an emergency, that didn’t apply now.
So Silvie came back on the fighter, heading up to the command deck with a bounce in her step and a big happy smile. Everything about her conveyed Well, that’s my good deed done for the day. She was bringing Shion with her, too – holding her hand till they got to the command deck, and glancing back at her with an air of come on!
‘I’d like,’ she told Alex, ‘you to do a commendation for Shion. She was great, sorting that out.’
Alex looked past her to Shion, who’d come quietly to attention and was looking back at him, a gleam of amusement in her dark, speaking eyes.
For answer, Alex, without saying a word, picked up the two small packets of fruit-chip cookies he’d asked the duty rigger to bring him. And, getting to his feet, he shook Shion by the hand and gave one of the packets to her. Then he kissed Silvie lightly on the forehead and gave her the other. It was a warm but oddly formal little ceremony, evidently a ritual understood by all three, though watched with astonishment by the Assegai’s command deck team. When both were holding packets of cookies, Alex gave the kind of benevolent nod of dismissal with which he might send someone off after giving them a commendation.
Shion and Silvie departed, Shion with a broad grin and Silvie with a deep, contented chortle. Alex did, though, Min saw, make a rather more official note for the log, commending Shion for exceptional handling of an exodiplomatic incident. She had a lot of such commendations on her record.
‘Do
you mind,’ Min asked, ‘if I add to that, myself?’
Alex indicated that he didn’t mind – Shion was, after all, working on the Assegai as one of Min’s officers, too, so it was appropriate, even expected, that Min would log some comment after an incident like this.
Min did so, commending Shion for prompt, courteous handling of a sensitive situation, and putting on record her opinion that Lt Shionolethe was functioning significantly above her current rank.
That made Alex chuckle. Min had already expressed doubts and some confusion over why Shion was not holding the Lt Commander rank she’d have expected, even for her role as pilot instructor and lead pilot of a wing of fighters.
As Alex had explained, though, this was due to Shion herself. She was sensitive to the fact that, superhuman abilities aside, she had never even spent one day in a Fleet Academy, let alone graduated from one. Even after she’d acquired all the qualifications a Sub was required to have, and immeasurably more experience, she still felt at some level that her rank was an honorary one. And she would not, just would not, accept promotion she felt was not her rightful due. Alex himself had spent nearly two years trying to convince her that she was ready to be a Lt and had earned that rank fair and square. In the end, Dix Harangay had to be quite forceful on the subject, pointing out that her refusal to accept the promotion from him was calling the First Lord’s own judgement and integrity into question. It would be some time, Alex knew, before Shion would even consider a further promotion. And Shion, standing on a point of principle, could be even more stubborn than Alex himself.
Min, though, was not going to allow that to prevent her making the recommendation for early promotion she believed that Shion deserved. It would be interesting, Alex thought, to see if she could persuade Shion to accept that. But if he was having a dollar on it, his money would be on Shion.
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