HMS Nightingale (Alexis Carew Book 4)

by J. A. Sutherland

  “Nicely done, Mister Villar,” Alexis said, “and you as well Busbey.” She watched the images on the navigation plot as the first lines were launched across the space between the ships, puffs of gas visible from the mouths of the launchers as bags and grapples flew from Nightingale to attach to the other ship. “Now we’ll just —”

  The other ship disappeared.

  Thirty-Nine

  5 April, aboard HMS Nightingale, darkspace, enroute to Zariah

  “Well it can’t have just gone nowhere!”

  Alexis slammed her hand onto her tabletop, jarring it enough to slosh a bit of beer out of Ousley’s glass. The bosun, along with the others, hurriedly grasped his glass to save the rest, and Isom appeared with a cloth to wipe up the spill.

  The table’s display showed nearly every angle Nightingale’s optics had caught of the Silver Leaf’s disappearance. Alexis and her officers had finished reviewing them, sometimes frame by frame, searching for some explanation of where the other ship had gone and how.

  She rubbed her forehead, trying to calm herself.

  “Gentlemen, there must be some explanation.”

  Ousley, Villar, and Spindler all looked at each other, then back to her.

  “It did appear to be a transition event, sir,” Villar said.

  “And yet we are nowhere near a system, much less a Lagrangian point,” Alexis pointed out. “So what do we have, gentlemen? Has someone — pirates, no less — discovered how to transition to and from darkspace outside of a Lagrangian point? Or is it Creasy’s bloody Dutchman?”

  “Might be better it were Creasy’s Dutchman, sir,” Ousley said.

  “How’s that?” Villar asked.

  “The men might be shaken by ghosties, but a ship that can transition at will?”

  Alexis nodded agreement. “Escape our fire, transition back to darkspace where we don’t expect and rake us with fire, then disappear again before we can respond. We’d be at such a tactical disadvantage we’d have no hope of overcoming.”

  “If we were facing that, wouldn’t the Leaf have done so?” Villar asked. “It’s been hours since it … well, transitioned … surely if they had that capability they’d have come back to strike at us.”

  “We did them a bit of damage, perhaps they’re grateful to have got away.”

  “And we’re lucky they’ve not appeared off our stern to rake us.”

  Spindler shivered at the thought, and Alexis agreed with him. How did one fight such a foe?

  Yet the Silver Leaf hadn’t done so, she’d only used the ability to escape them. Perhaps, given the difference in distances and space between darkspace and normal-space, it wasn’t possible. There was little in the way of theory, much less consensus, about how normal-space mapped to darkspace, other than the Lagrangian points and the dark matter shoals which built up around corresponding normal-space masses.

  Away from a system, in the true depths of darkspace, there was no telling.

  Or there might be a danger, in the midst of an action, of transitioning back to darkspace in the same place as the other ship. That thought made Alexis shudder — the whole reason for pilot boats and the convention of transitioning into and out of systems at specific Lagrangian points was to avoid just such an event. Whatever differences in physics there were in darkspace, the same place couldn’t be occupied by two different masses — that rule held here as well, at least.

  “I wish we had word back from Admiralty on those helm circuits we took off Greenaway.” Alexis rubbed her face. Knowing what those changes to the helm did might let her understand what exactly she was facing out here. “Or that we’d kept them for ourselves to look into.” She sighed.

  “Perhaps we should tell the men it is a Dutchman,” Villar said, “but we’ve some hocus-pocus in our shot that will do for him.”

  Alexis raised an eyebrow. “Hocus-pocus?”

  “Fight superstition with superstition, sir.”

  “There aren’t really Dutchmen, are there, sir?” Spindler asked, eyes wide.

  “And that’s why not, Mister Villar,” Alexis said with a nod at Spindler. She knew, or at least suspected, that Villar had been joking, but superstitions were strong in spacers. “Encourage that, and at the next bit of bad luck we’ll have talk of a Jonah aboard, or some poor landsman will find himself beaten for whistling.”

  “Well, that wouldn’t happen at all, sir,” Ousley said. “Not aboard Nightingale.”

  “You think not?”

  Ousley shook his head firmly. “Tell every newcome aboard he’d best not whistle on my decks, sir. Bad joss, that.”

  Alexis opened her mouth to reply, but hesitated as she sought just the words to use.

  “Challenge the winds like that?” Ousley went on. “Damned foolish. Why, I was on the old Adonis once and some damn fool whistled — with shoals to leeward, mind you — next thing we knew was a hell of a storm blowing us in on them. Hull was breached and were a full day drifting in a hulk, sippin’ at our vacsuit air, afore help came.” He shook his head again. “Won’t risk that again, I won’t. Nip that in the bud, me and my mates, don’t you worry.”

  “So the Dutchman’s right out, then, sir?” Villar asked, eyes bright.

  “Indeed.” Alexis stared at Ousley for a moment. “We’ll tell the men this only makes Nightingale’s gunnery that much more important — that we’ll want to disable a ship quickly, before it can escape.” She caught Villar’s and Spindler’s eye in turn. “Escape, mind you. Let them think that’s the only capability this transitioning-anywhere gives our enemy, while we three on the quarterdeck stay alert in case they can transition back.”

  The others nodded.

  “So keep talk of Dutchmen to a minimum, Mister Ousley.”

  “Aye, sir.” The bosun frowned, his brow furrowed. He pointed toward the hatch to Alexis’ pantry. “Have you by chance counted your wee beasty’s toes, sir?”

  Alexis found herself frozen in place again, mouth half-open, and unable to think of a single thing to say. Of all the things her bosun might be concerned about, the number of toes on that vile creature wasn’t a thing she’d have guessed.

  “It’s only that he’s nearly a cat, isn’t he?” Ousley went on. “That’s lucky, sure, but a polydact? Well, the lads’d be comforted by that, Dutchman or no.”

  Alexis shared a look with Villar, who was smothering laughter, and Spindler, who seemed puzzled.

  “Thank you, Mister Ousley, I’ll keep that in mind.”

  She drained her glass and nodded as the others did as well and took their leave.

  Once the hatch was closed and she was alone, she took her beret off and ran fingers through her hair. Her head was aching.

  The fight at Up Spirits had marked a change in Nightingale. Alexis had noted that the extortion of the men’s spirits issue appeared to have ended entirely, and the crew as a whole seemed happier and more responsive with the new situation.

  She waved a hand across her tabletop, dismissing the images of the Silver Leaf. Staring at the ship wouldn’t tell her the truth of where or how it had gone, she could only deal with the knowledge that it had somehow.

  And worry that the next ship we take action against can do more.

  The men would likely do enough speculating on their own, after all.

  A sudden thought occurred to her. She pondered it for a moment, grimaced, but then resigned herself. It couldn’t hurt, after all.

  “Isom?”

  Isom stuck his head through the pantry hatchway.

  “Aye, sir?”

  Alexis took a deep breath. It might be silly, but with this crew and ship she’d take whatever advantage she could find.

  “Do you suppose I might bother you to count the creature’s toes?”

  Forty

  12 April, aboard the merchantman Drunken Hermit, darkspace, enroute to Zariah

  “There ain’t nuffink t’find, I tell yer!”

  Alexis watched as Ousley and one of his mates eased a panel aside and peere
d into the space behind it. The Drunken Hermit, a name Alexis felt more suited to some spacers’ pub than a ship, was twelve days out of Eidera when it crossed Nightingale’s path.

  The captain, a sweating, bald-headed man of middle age, was anything but pleased by that happenstance and less so at Alexis’ insistence that they inspect more than just the obvious cargo in his ship’s hold. Something about the Hermit reminded her a great deal of the ship she’d traveled aboard through Hanover.

  That ship, Marylin, was owned by an utter rogue, Avrel Dansby, and Alexis had become quite familiar with the hidey holes and spaces for less than legal goods possible.

  “Nothing,” Ousley called, his head fully inside the space and shining a light about.

  “Ain’t that what I tells you already? Yer just wasting time here!”

  “Measure it,” Alexis ordered, then to the ship’s captain, “Captain Manser, the inspection will be conducted to my satisfaction — if that time is wasted, I do apologize for the delay in your ship’s schedule.”

  Alexis looked around the engineering space again. The Hermit was filthy and cluttered, with a buildup of grime on the control surfaces that made her want to rub her hands clean from just looking at them, but it was an odd sort of disorder. None of the clutter came near the controls themselves and the Hermit’s ship handling had been anything but slovenly. It was just the sort of facade Dansby had shown her would make it appear the ship was a poor merchant, barely scraping by — and deter anyone from digging too deeply beneath the surface.

  Ousley cursed as he shifted position and his knee slid into something not quite solid on the deck. Verley, the master’s mate, coughed and drew back, hand to his mouth, as did Alexis a moment later as the smell reached her. Ousley coughed and cursed again, but kept at his work.

  “Verley!” he called. “What’s the space in the next one over?”

  Verley moved to compartment they’d already searched and began measuring it.

  “Look, now,” Manser said, licking his lips. “What if we was to retire to my cabin an’ —”

  Alexis was saved from hearing what Manser thought they might do in his cabin, though she suspected she’d be forever haunted by the possibilities, by Ousley’s shout of triumph.

  “Bugger —” Manser muttered.

  “What is it you’ve found, Mister Ousley?”

  Ousley worked his way out of the compartment and stood, then held a glass jar with a screw top out to Alexis. She took it and looked it over, not quite understanding why Ousley was grinning so broadly.

  “Bugger —” Manser repeated. He looked around, but then his shoulders slumped. The three Marines Alexis had with the boarding party, and the knowledge that Nightingale’s guns were still manned, likely had something to do with that.

  “What is this?” she asked, tilting the jar up to the light. It looked like nothing so much as fruit preserves. She turned to Manser. “Captain?”

  Manser looked hopeful for a moment, then Ousley cleared his throat and his shoulders slumped further. He scowled at Ousley.

  “Go on and tell ‘er then, if yer so bloody clever.”

  “If I’m not mistaken, sir, that would be an Eideran viper chili jam. It’s on the proscribed list.”

  Alexis frowned. There were innumerable plants and animals on the proscribed list, those items it was forbidden to transfer from one world to another, usually because they were too dangerous or unusually invasive in some way. The list didn’t generally include prepared products though.

  “It’s a food?” she asked.

  “Not as such,” Ousley said. “The chili’s addictive when mixed with sugar, you see.”

  “So it’s a drug, then?”

  Ousley shook his head. “Tasty, I’m told, but no other effects.” He narrowed his eyes and stared at Manser. “No, the trick is to get someone to eat it, then they’re addicted and’ll pay through the nose for more. There’s enough in that false compartment there that it’s not just for someone aboard.”

  “I see.” Alexis turned a cold eye to Manser as well. “Well, then, Mister Ousley, run the tests to confirm what it is, then have one of your mates take command of the Hermit. Three hands and two Marines along with him.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  Villar and Spindler, along with a similar number of crew and Marines were already aboard the two other ships Nightingale had seized for smuggling. The captains of those were simply carrying goods on which they’d tried to avoid paying the Crown’s duties, and would likely face nothing more than a fine and confiscation of the goods when her little flotilla arrived at Zariah, but the Hermit was now a different matter. Carrying goods on the proscribed list meant Manser’s ship was liable to be seized and he’d face prison or indenture.

  She motioned to one of the Marines. “Angers, see that Captain Manser is made comfortable in Nightingale’s brig, will you?”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “Walk with me back to Nightingale, Mister Ousley.”

  Alexis waited until they were in the docking tube, midway between the two ships before speaking again.

  “Has Scarborough been found?”

  Ousley shook his head. “No sign of him.”

  Alexis winced. The leader of the former extorters had been missing from his station when Nightingale went to quarters after sighting the Drunken Hermit. As quarters meant clearing the decks and striking all unnecessary items down into the hold, there were few places the man could be — an exhausted crewman, deep in sleep, might miss the call coming over the ship’s speakers, but was unlikely to sleep through his bunk being folded up fast to the bulkhead.

  The weeks since Nabb and the others had stood up to the extorters had seen many changes amongst the crew. Even the older, frailer members walked a bit straighter and taller, while Scarborough and his cohorts kept to themselves more and more. It wasn’t out of the question that some of the crew might have decided to take a bit of revenge against the man, and Alexis dearly hoped that was not the case. It wasn’t unheard of for a hated member of a crew to be run outside the hull and tossed off into darkspace. If that had happened, she’d never know — despite the ship’s log recording things, there were ways a crew learned to get around the optics both inside and outside the hull.

  “Run a thorough search for him once we’ve secured from quarters.”

  “Aye, sir.”

  “T’booson, sar!”

  Alexis blinked — she wasn’t sure if it was a good thing or not, but she seemed to have become used to Clanly’s accent.

  “Send Mister Ousley through, Clanly, thank you.”

  Her hatch slid open and the bosun entered.

  “Found Scarborough, sir.”

  Ousley’s face was still, as though he were carefully controlling his emotions, and a sudden chill went through Alexis. She’d already been fearing the worst. Oddly, the worst, at least for Nightingale, wasn’t that he’d been put over the side into darkspace. If that was what had happened, she could assume he’d simply been lost — if he’d been found dead, though, if there’d been a murder aboard her ship, she’d have to take action against whoever’d done it.

  “Is he …”

  “Ah, he’s alive, sir,” Ousley said. “Found him in the hold.”

  Alexis breathed a sigh of relief — anything short of murder she could deal with.

  “Drunk? Beaten?”

  Ousley’s face twisted and he cocked his head to the side. “Ah … not as such, sir, no, but poorly nonetheless. It’s —” He scratched at his neck. “Best, perhaps, if me and my mates were to handle it, sir.”

  “Really?” She pondered that for a moment, then shook her head. If he was alive and not drunk or beaten, then he must have been hiding down there and shirking his duties. She’d had little enough opportunity to punish him and his cohorts for their actions that she’d not pass up an opportunity now. Perhaps it was unfair, but even if he were sick, “poorly”, as Ousley said, she’d have a go at him.

  “No, the man missed a call to quar
ters — and not from just oversleeping. If he’d been found in his bunk it would be different, but hiding down in the hold, ignoring the call to quarters during an action?” She shook her head again. “I have to take notice of it, I think. I’ll see him at next captain’s mast, but want his explanation now — can you bring him in or is he with the surgeon?”

  “Ah … he’s outside, sir, no call for Mister Poulter at all, but …”

  Ousley trailed off. Alexis had never seen the bosun at such a loss for words.

  “Whatever is the matter? Bring him in.”

  Ousley grimaced. “Sir, I’d suggest —”

  “What’s got into you, Mister Ousley? Bring the man in!”

  Ousley sighed. “Aye, sir.”

  He trudged to the hatch, slid it open and gestured. Two of Ousley’s master’s mates entered with Scarborough between them, but not closely held as they normally would with some malefactor. Instead they kept their distance, gesturing for him to move forward, but not shoving or guiding him.

  The man was disheveled and dejected, shoulders slumped and head bowed … as well as soaking wet.

  His hair hung in wet, tangled clumps and rivulets streamed down his face. His wide eyes darted quickly in the direction of nearly every sound or movement, as though terrified. Liquid fell from him to pool on the deck. Outside her hatch, Alexis caught sight of a crewman following along behind with a mop. Clanly, the Marine, edged away from the hatch, face twisted in disgust as though …

  “Good lord, what’s that smell?” Alexis exclaimed as Scarborough came to a stop and a sharp, acrid odor reached her.

  Ousley cleared his throat.

  “You’ll want your deck scrubbed, sir,” he said. “Found him in the hold, as I said … in a, ah —”

  “Sippers and gulpers after,” Scarborough muttered, barely audible. His gaze was vacant.

  “I thought you said he wasn’t drunk?” Alexis asked.

  “No, sir, but near drowned when we found him.”