“I’m glad you stopped them,” the girl went on.
“Sarah!” The girl’s mother made it around the wagon and rushed up to them. “I’m sorry, miss, if she’s bothering you. Sarah Graber, you must not rush off like that. Whatever were you thinking?”
“I’m not bothered,” Alexis assured the mother, then to Sarah, “I’m glad I stopped them, too.”
“Do you know for certain you stopped the ones who killed Samuel?”
“Sarah, come along, now!”
“I want to know!”
“I’m sorry,” the mother said again, “she’s a willful thing when she sets her mind to something.”
Alexis had to smile at that.
“I’m as certain as I can be,” she said, then rose to speak with the mother. “It’s all right — I was much the same at her age, if my grandfather’s to be believed.”
“I’m sure,” the woman said, “but I’d not have her turn out the same as you.”
Alexis froze, stunned at the stiff tone in the woman’s voice. Before she could think to answer, the woman grabbed the girl’s hand and pulled her along down the street. Alexis looked after them, both hurt and angry. People from this world had been the cause of the trouble — slaughtering crews, attacking innocents, all for their beliefs. Then she’d risked herself and her own crew to protect this town. Some of the residents did seem to appreciate that, now that the fight was over, there were still some who were almost offended by it. She shook her head in bewilderment.
“Sarah!”
The girl was free again and dashing toward them. Alexis knelt down instinctively to greet her and found Sarah suddenly wrapped in her arms.
“I don’t think it’s right,” Sarah whispered. “My mother says it’s wrong to fight back, but I don’t think it’s right that Samuel should’ve had to stand there and be killed without fighting back. It’s not right.”
Alexis was a bit shocked by the fervor in the girl’s words. The mother was stalking toward them now, her face angry. She had a sudden thought — it might not be the right one, nor her place to do so, but she felt it was right. It was one thing for a people to have their beliefs and live by them, it was quite another to force those beliefs on others, even their own children. Teach them, yes; encourage them even; but Man’s Fall — and Al Jadiq, come to that — kept their people so isolated that there was no option, no opportunity to even learn about something else.
“Would you fight them, then, if they came again?” Alexis asked.
“Yes. I wouldn’t just stand there and let them hurt someone. It hurt when Samuel died and I don’t want anyone to feel that if I can stop it.”
That decided Alexis — if the girl meant only to defend herself, that might be different, but something in the words spoke to her.
She glanced at the approaching mother.
“You think about that and be sure of it, then when you’re older — fifteen and not a day younger, mind you — if you see someone in a uniform like mine here in town or more likely at the big field to the south, you know the one?”
Sarah nodded.
“You go there and you find someone in a uniform like mine, then you tell them that you want to be a midshipman, and you say those words, just like you did now.
Sarah nodded again and pulled away from Alexis. “Thank you.”
“You be sure, though,” Alexis said. “There’re some decisions one can’t come back from.”
“Sarah!” The girl’s mother was there again, taking her arm and pulling her away.
Alexis watched her go, wondering if she’d ever make that decision and what would happen to her if she did. She shuddered at the thought of that girl floating dead in the airless hulk of some ship as Sterlyn Artley had aboard Belial. Still, there were darker things than the Dark itself in the souls of some men, and the defenseless of the Kingdom had need of those who’d protect them.
She found Isom looking at her oddly.
“What?”
Isom shrugged. “May be trouble from that, some’d call it interfering and all.”
“Perhaps it’s time someone did. Past time with some colonies.” She watched the pair walk away, mother now tightly clutching the girl’s arm. When did a desire to be left alone, to follow one’s beliefs, become a thing she should oppose — perhaps when the choice of doing so was denied to others. “I don’t understand it at all. We stand between them and danger, yet they despise us for it.”
“Not all,” Isom said, nodding to the pie.
True, the baker had taken no payment for them, simply smiling and shaking his head. It was odd, then, how one woman’s disdain could sour so much. Alexis handed her plate to Isom, the pie she held no longer appealing to her.
“Not all,” she agreed, “but enough to sting.” She took a deep breath. “Let’s get back aboard ship, Isom, I feel the need of a few days at home.”
Epilogue
12 July, Carew Farmstead, Dalthus System
The farmyard was bustling with activity and celebration. In addition to the farm workers, most of the village had come up and Alexis had half her crew present. The other half were still aboard Nightingale anxiously awaiting their turn.
The fall air was cool and crisp, scented with wood smoke and grilling meat from the turning spits. Her grandfather had spared nothing and she watched tolerantly as crewmen from Nightingale jostled back into line for another serving of real beef or pork. Tables fairly groaned under weight of other dishes and she could see that her lads found the hard cider being served not at all a bad replacement for the weak beer and diluted spirits aboard ship. She could also see that Ousley and his mates were keeping a close watch on them to ensure that no one got too drunk and caused a scene.
The families of Hermione’s men were still clustered to one side, as though unsure of their acceptance, but there were inroads being made. A few groups of both Hermiones and villagers formed and chatted together, and she felt that it would not be so long before they felt like they were at home here on Dalthus.
Home, she thought fondly as she felt her grandfather’s arm go around her shoulders.
“Thank you for this,” she said. “The lads needed a bit of comfort after Man’s Fall.”
“And you?”
She nodded. “Aye. A bit and more.”
Julia appeared at her other side carrying a tray laden with full plates. “Come on then,” she said, nodding to a nearby table that had seats free. “You’ve, neither of you, had a bite all morning. Come and sit.”
They did and Alexis found just how hungry she was. She tucked into the food with a will.
“The Conclave’s set to be held in four months’ time,” her grandfather said. “Will you be able to attend?”
Alexis frowned. “I’ll try. I’ve a great deal of leeway with Nightingale’s sailing and I’ll try to be back at Dalthus at that time, but if there’s trouble elsewhere I can’t ignore it.”
“I understand,” Denholm said. “But I’ve heard from more than one that they’d like you there to speak to the inheritance vote.”
Alexis chuckled. That was a far cry from when she’d first left Dalthus, so that her presence wouldn’t remind others of her “reputation” and spoil the chances of changing that law.
Denholm nodded. “Word’s spread of what happened on Man’s Fall, but I think there’s more to it than is published in the Gazette.”
Alexis flushed. The Naval Gazette had painted the story of Man’s Fall in quite a different light than its reality. According to the official reports, a brave, small band of New London’s spacers, outnumbered four or even five to one, had triumphed over religious zealots bent on slaughter not only against their own colony, but their neighbors as well. That the zealots were mostly young men, women, and children with no training wasn’t reported.
For Alexis’ part, she was glad that she’d stopped the slaughter of the Man’s Fall colonists, glad the zealots were no longer a threat, but horrified at the cost. No matter Nightingale had seen so few casua
lties, there was still a cost. She could see it in her crew’s eyes and sometimes haunted expressions.
It was so pointless, she thought, and worse that it was painted as some great victory by those who hadn’t been there.
She couldn’t tell her grandfather the truth, though. She both didn’t want him to know the full story of what she’d done and didn’t want to distract from the story the Navy had chosen to make of it — surely they had some point in doing so.
“I’ll try my best to return, grandfather,” Alexis said, turning the subject — the last thing she wanted was credit for those events, “but the Conclave lasts a full month and I can’t keep Nightingale here all that time.”
“Do what you can. I’ll see to the schedule and try to accommodate your patrols.”
Alexis took a long drink of cider, letting the burn of it hide her reaction to talk of Man’s Fall and the feelings it brought.
Her tablet pinged for attention and she pulled it out frowning. There should be nothing aboard Nightingale that she was needed for until it was time for the port watch to come down for their celebration.
A sudden chill ran through her as she saw the first message: that a ship had transitioned into Dalthus space. She half rose, ready to call her lads to the boat and return to Nightingale when the second message made her relax.
It was simply a fast packet dropped in-system to transfer mail. Then her tablet pinged yet again as the mail was delivered and she saw that she’d gotten news and orders from Admiralty itself.
She read them, first almost shouting with excitement at the first news, then falling into despair as she read the rest.
“Damn them! Damn them to bloody hell!”
“Alexis?”
She looked up to find Julia and her grandfather watching her with concern.
“What is it?”
“It’s …” She trailed off, unsure how to explain or why she was upset. “It’s peace. Peace with Hanover — or a cease fire, at least — but …”
Julia smiled. “Well, that’s good, isn’t? For the war to be over?” She half rose, smiling wider, as though to tell the others and celebrate, but then she frowned at the look on Alexis’ face and sat. “What else?”
“It’s a peace in-place,” Alexis said. Her eyes burned and her chest was tight as she looked back to the orders, trying to make sense of it. “No concessions from Hanover at all. It means they’ve … they’ve abandoned the worlds of the Berry March … just left Giron and the rest of them to Hanover.” She paused, still not believing it. She looked across the yard to where Marie and Villar were laughing together — she’d have to tell the girl, tell her that she and the other refugees would likely never see their home world again. “It was all for nothing.”
She reread the rest of the orders, those for her and for Nightingale, and shook her head, anger growing with every word.
A peace in-place. The Berry March abandoned and Delaine still who-knows-where in Hanover. And Nightingale declared “surplus to requirements” and to be laid up in ordinary here at Dalthus. The crew to be paid off here, all of them light-years from their homes, save for the few who hold warrants and will live aboard until she’s required again.
“Alexis?”
She looked up to see her grandfather and Julia watching her closely. Saw the hope in Julia’s eyes as she asked, “What does that mean for you?”
Alexis caught her lip between her teeth, the last bit of her orders echoing in her head.
Lieutenant Alexis Arleen Carew ordered to Reserve and Half-Pay, to await upon the Future Requirements of Her Majesty and Her Majesty’s Naval Service.
She looked between them, trying to keep her own feelings off her face so as not dampen the growing hope she saw on theirs.
How could she explain it to them? How could she explain that with the Conclave prepared to vote and some signs pointing toward them changing the laws so that she’d be able to inherit, that the peace meant she’d be free of the Navy and free to take her place here on Dalthus … how could she explain to them that she felt as though what she wanted most in her life had suddenly been snatched away? How could they understand when she barely did herself?
Alexis forced a smile and blinked to clear her eyes.
“It means I can come home.”
Her tablet pinged again with one more incoming message and she frowned. What more could there be?
She frowned more when she opened it, from confusion at first, and then further anger at someone who made so free with the Navy’s communications systems and must have found it quite humorous to send her a message ostensibly from herself with all of Nightingale’s security headers properly in place.
Malcome bloody Eades, she thought.
A single word.
Wait.
Author’s Note
Thank you for reading HMS Nightingale. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed writing it — and, yes, though there’s no timeframe I’m prepared to announce at this writing, Alexis’ story will continue in book five, tentatively titled Privateer.
If you did like it and would like to further support the series, please consider leaving a review on the purchase site or a review/rating on Goodreads. Reviews are the lifeblood of independent authors and let other readers know if a book might be to their liking.
In the previous two books, Mutineer and The Little Ships, I used historical events as the basis for at least part of the plot. That’s a habit I intend to continue in the series, but Nightingale doesn’t have a historical basis, so those of you looking for one can stop now. :)
Unless you count the mongoose.
One might wonder where Dansby, at the end of Little Ships, would have found a mongoose to give Alexis. Curiously, many of the island colonies in our history did import them.1 The theory was that they would control vermin and snakes in the colonies.
Sadly, the mongoose was also partial to both chickens and eggs, so that didn’t work out -- but centuries later, it’s not inconceivable that colonists in Alexis’ time would make the same mistake and bring a few along.
I’d also, on a far more serious note, like to comment on Alexis’ nightmares.
As several readers have noted in reviews of the series, Alexis’ experiences have brought on post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as evidenced by her feelings of guilt, nightmares, increased drinking, and the shortening of an already abbreviated temper. This is an area I wanted to address in her character, because I’ve always felt the effects of combat were glossed over in much military scifi. Massive battles with huge numbers of casualties seem to have little real impact on the characters once the obligatory funeral scene is done.
Despite not having served myself, I have a great deal of respect for those who have, and, especially as current conflicts seem set to drag on into the “Oceania has always been at war with Eastasia” phase, I think glossing over that very real impact does a disservice to those military scifi should honor.
I hope that those who have real experience with PTSD will feel I’ve dealt with it in Alexis so far with the respect and empathy I hoped to.
J.A. Sutherland
September 6, 2016
Saint Thomas, USVI
Darkspace
The perplexing problem dated back centuries, to when mankind was still planet-bound on Earth. Scientists, theorizing about the origin of the universe, recognized that the universe was expanding, but made the proposal that the force that had started that expansion would eventually dissipate, causing the universe to then begin contracting again. When they measured this, however, they discovered something very odd — not only was the expansion of the universe not slowing, but it was actually increasing.
This meant that something, something unseen, was continuing to apply energy to the universe’s expansion. More energy than could be accounted for by what their instruments could detect. At the same time, they noticed that there seemed to be more gravitational force than could be accounted for by the observable masses of stars, planets, and other
objects.
There seemed to be quite a bit of the universe that simply couldn’t be seen. Over ninety percent of the energy and matter that had to make up the universe, in fact.
They called these dark energy and dark matter, for want of a better term.
Then, as humanity began serious utilization of near-Earth space, they made another discovery.
Lagrangian points were well-known in orbital mechanics. With any two bodies where one is orbiting around the other, such as a planet and a moon, there are five points in space where the gravitational effects of the two bodies provide precisely the centripetal force required to keep an object, if not stationary, then relatively so.
Humanity first used these points to build a space station at L1, the Lagrangian point situated midway between Earth and the Moon, thus providing a convenient stopover for further exploration of the Moon. This was quickly followed by a station at L2, the point on the far side of the moon, roughly the same distance from it as L1. Both of these stations began reporting odd radiation signatures. Radiation that had no discernible source, but seemed to spring into existence from within the Lagrangian points themselves.
Further research into this odd radiation began taking place at the L4 and L5 points, which led and trailed the Moon in its orbit by about sixty degrees. More commonly referred to as Trojan Points, L4 and L5 are much larger in area than L1 and L2 and, it was discovered, the unknown radiation was much more intense.
More experimentation, including several probes that simply disappeared when their hulls were charged with certain high-energy particles, eventually led to one of those probes reappearing — and the discovery of darkspace, along with the missing ninety-five percent of the universe.
Dark energy that moved through it like winds. Usually blowing directly toward a star system from all directions, pushing those systems farther and farther apart, but sometimes coming in storms that could drive a ship far off course. Dark matter that permeated the space, slowing anything, even light, outside of a ship’s hull and field.
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