Cally's War lota-6

by John Ringo

  He used the intercom to buzz through to her quarters.

  “What can I do for you, Lieutenant Pryce?” she came back, voice only.

  “Captain M-Makepeace? I was wondering if you could spare some time to meet with me? I’ve picked up the daily cube of our work for the general and I was wondering when we could get started. I know you haven’t actually reported in yet, but the general, he doesn’t believe in idle hands,” he offered apologetically.

  “Well bless his heart, I was afraid I going to be stuck with old movies and monopoly. Is there someplace on this ship with a desk, or are we going to have to work here?” she asked.

  He had to give her points for accepting the extra work gracefully. He thought about trying to work in the mess hall, but it would mean they couldn’t start until after the second shift of breakfast, and had to break for both shifts of lunch. Then he thought about trying to work with Captain Sinda Makepeace in her quarters, in a cube not much bigger than six feet on a side with no place to sit but her bunk, for a whole week. There were times when doing the right thing approached the painful.

  “I think it’ll have to be the mess hall between mealtimes, ma’am,” he said.

  “Fine by me. Are you headed over there now?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “All right, I’ll see you there in a few minutes.” She pressed the button to disconnect the call.

  * * *

  One of the improvements in modern Federation courier ships over earlier designs was that most areas of the ship were able to sense which species was passing through a given area and adjust the lighting accordingly. The walls reflected each version of the lighting in a shade that at least was acceptable to the inhabitants. For humans this amounted to a muddy brown that had no distressing overtones. Still, the drabness of the walls tended to make the gray silks look washed out, and the institutional pale green of the human-only mess hall walls was a bit of a relief. Except on Earth itself, of course, all eating areas for humans were human-only by common aesthetic decree of the other Galactic races.

  She had beaten him here. Her quarters were closer. Stewart saw that she had already gotten halfway through a cup of coffee. He came to attention and saluted smartly, then ruined the effect by sideswiping a table with his thigh and bending over it, wincing slightly before straightening up.

  Makepeace hesitated disbelievingly in the act of returning his salute. He offered an apologetic grin.

  “Guess I haven’t gotten my space legs, yet, ma’am.”

  “That’s all right, Lieutenant. Why don’t you get yourself a cup of coffee and we can start going over that cube the general sent us,” she said, smiling.

  “Can I get you a refill, ma’am?” he asked.

  Her eyes widened in alarm, doubtless envisioning a lapful of hot coffee.

  “Uh, no! I mean, I’m just fine as I am, Lieutenant, thank you.”

  You certainly are, Captain, you certainly are. Maybe could spare a bit off the thighs, but otherwise just fine. Stewart walked past her to the coffee machine, stifling a grin.

  After he got his coffee, as he sat down and pulled out his PDA, he glanced at her eyes before looking away somewhere over her left shoulder.

  “Permission to speak freely, ma’am?”

  “What’s on your mind, Lieutenant?” She leaned forward, crossing her hands one over the other, and focused on him with an earnest, listening expression.

  “Ma’am, how much did they tell you about this job?”

  “Very little, Lieutenant. Any scuttlebutt you could offer would be very helpful, if you’ve got any.”

  “Your background is clerking in personnel, right ma’am?” When she nodded, he went on, “Well, what kind of things does a clerk in personnel do?”

  “Well, I’m not sure why you want to know, but mostly I matched square pegs to square holes. Checked position requirements to make sure they were correct and not tweaked to make someone’s buddy a fit for a job. Well, not very much, anyway,” she amended. “Mostly I ran searches for positions and optimization programs and then checked behind the computers to make sure their recommendations made sense. The human factor in the loop, you know?”

  “Well, ma’am, this position may be a bit… different… from what you were expecting.”

  “Well, I wasn’t expecting anything in particular. Different how, Lieutenant Pryce?”

  His words would have triggered red flags in the minds of almost any experienced officer in Fleet Strike. If a red flag had gone up in Makepeace’s mind, the earnest and slightly puzzled blue eyes gave no sign of it. She leaned slightly farther forward, and, if anything, the impression of careful, attentive listening increased.

  “Ma’am, do you remember in college taking an elective course, taught by computer, in the history of legal administration?”

  “Okay, what about it?”

  The expression in the blue eyes was still blank. Stewart was starting to feel like he had stepped into the twilight zone.

  “Ma’am, General Beed likes paper.”

  “Well, okay. It’s not very usual, but people collect some very strange things. What, does he display the collection in his office or something? I’ll make a point to admire it. Thank you for—”

  “Sorry to interrupt, ma’am, but that’s not what I meant. He doesn’t collect paper, he insists on working with it.”

  “I’m not sure I understand.” She tilted her head to the side and waited for him to elaborate.

  “Ma’am, the general does not use an AID, he does not use a computer, the only electronic devices in his office I’m sure he uses are the lighting and the life support. Oh, and the coffee machine,” he added.

  “Paper?” she whispered, the light of understanding dawning in her eyes at last. “Well, that’s… special.” She paused, obviously lost in thought. Stewart was beginning to suspect she could get very lost indeed.

  “How does he ever get any work done?” she asked.

  “Ma’am, Fleet Strike promoted you to captain and sent you here because you’re the closest thing to a legal secretary it had. In this case, you were the closest thing to a square peg it had for this square hole. I’m afraid that means this position may be a bit different from what you’re used to, ma’am,” he said. He carefully didn’t state that the promotion had probably been something in the way of a consolation prize from a fellow personnel officer who had winced at the obviously shitty job he was forced to stick her with. Promotions weren’t supposed to be given out like that, but the bean counters tended to stick together.

  She brushed her left hand over her hair, smoothing it unnecessarily.

  “Lieutenant Pryce, a good Fleet Strike officer goes where she’s sent and does what she is ordered to do.” She shrugged, “I guess I’ll have to brush up on paper.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Thank you for the scuttlebutt, Pryce.” She smiled warmly at him and Stewart was suddenly glad he was seated on the opposite side of a table. “Now, about that work you mentioned. Hadn’t we best get started?”

  Okay, she’s stacked and her face and hair aren’t bad. Beautiful wouldn’t be too strong a word. But for God’s sake, man, you’re not seventeen! Definitely a good idea not to work in her quarters. Constant seven-foot separation would be about right. Unfortunately, that suggested the kind of work he was beginning to think he’d like to do in her quarters, including a remarkably vivid mental image of her naked breasts in his hands — He cut the thought off and handed her the copy he’d made of the original cube. A spark of static jumped between their hands and he inhaled sharply. She was a hopeless ditz, but obviously there was some chemistry there in addition to the normal reaction of any healthy, straight young man to a woman built like she was. Not that he was young. But his body obviously thought it was. It was going to be a long week.

  * * *

  Cally had escaped after dinner to her quarters which, being onboard a ship, resembled a broom closet with all the necessary furniture and electronics shoehorned in.
Everything except a head. That was down the hall and wasn’t exactly designed for meaningful privacy. The design specs for these hulls had been laid down when female humans had been few and far between in Fleet Strike, and Fleet had evolved a more relaxed attitude towards body modesty anyway. The upshot was that her shower shift in the morning had surreptitiously been more crowded than strictly necessary. Some of the troops who showered on her shift had almost certainly been scheduled for the other one. But as they didn’t touch and were discreet about looking, and as Makepeace was enough of an airhead to get by with it, she affected not to notice. She did notice that the lieutenant was not among her covert admirers. He was on the same shift, but kept himself well along towards the end of the line of shower heads. At least, if he was looking, he was very good at not getting caught at it.

  She and Pryce were on the first meal shift with the other officer passengers and a few rather glum enlisteds that probably would have preferred the other shift for their chow.

  This left the problem of what to do while the second meal shift was using the mess hall. Since space was at a premium, however, they usually spent the time leaning against the wall in the passage outside. Cally tended to either linger over a second cup of coffee or play two-player Space Invaders against Pryce. They had discovered that they both shared an odd passion for very early arcade space games. He had offered to show her his collection of games once they got to Titan. She didn’t think it was a line, and wasn’t quite sure how she felt about that.

  Today Pryce had muttered something about needing something from his quarters. She hadn’t paid much attention, grateful for the respite that gave her time over the coffee to sort out how she felt about him. He wasn’t the clumsiest man she’d ever met, but he certainly wasn’t graceful. Maybe Granpa’s right. The job’s starting to get to me. Okay, it’s been a couple of weeks and I’ve got a normal, healthy set of hormones, but half the guys in the shower were as okay looking, and none of them were tripping over their own feet. Okay, the way that little strand of hair keeps falling across his forehead is kind of sexy, but… the job must be getting to me after all. The first acceptable excuse I get for getting laid I need to do something about some of these hormones.

  Her coffee cup was empty, so she went back into the mess hall for more. She could hear a couple of whispers, and feel the eyes, but the railroad tracks on her collar effectively prevented anything more overt. Pryce was back when she got back out with her fresh coffee.

  “I wonder what’s on the cube this morning. Had a look?” she asked.

  “No, ma’am.” He leaned against the wall just a bit outside normal conversational space, as if he was afraid of getting too close.

  “Okay. Why don’t you tell me a little bit about our office setup on Titan. Have you been out there yet?” Her back was already aching a bit, and she stood away from the wall so she could arch back and take some pressure off of it, reaching a hand back to rub out the slight cramp.

  “What? Oh.” He shook his head slightly. “I’ve been to Titan Base before, ma’am, but not to CID. I reported in to the general before he left Earth. Okay, ma’am, you know the general just took command of the Third MP Brigade on Titan. Most of the brigade, all but about two companies of it, brigade headquarters, and CID, is forward deployed with various combinations of the infantry. Most of the day to day management of the brigade is handled by the XO, Colonel Tartaglia. The general feels that the best use of his attention involves more of a hands-on focus with CID, so, other than the time-honored passing of canapés, that’s where I’m likely to be spending most of my time. That’s also why he wanted you familiar with so much of CID’s background. If he asks you to find him something, he’s… well, patience and explanations don’t appear to be his strong suits, ma’am.”

  “I’m looking forward to this assignment already,” she commented dryly.

  * * *

  Stewart had always worked at jobs without fixed hours. When most teens his age had been watching the clock at fast food places, Stewart had been running a successful street gang under his original name, Manuel Guerrera. Then, as now, organizational problems and responsibilities often couldn’t be pigeon-holed into set hours. Which was why he was lying here on his bunk, while Captain Makepeace was either in her cabin or doing God knew what, going through a list of names and detailed security profiles trying to detect which one or more of the people who had put in for assignment to the Fleet Strike CID on Titan were most likely to be plants of the nameless enemy organization revealed by their contact.

  The completed profiles had finally come in this morning, but his scheduled work with Makepeace had meant he couldn’t go over them during the day. They were arriving in Titan orbit tomorrow afternoon, and he wanted the list done before they landed. Five more of their people had arrived on Titan while he was on Earth, and he wanted to know what he was looking at before he met them.

  It was a frustrating task because of their near total lack of information about the goals and motives of the enemy, beyond knowing that those goals included espionage against Federation military and civil government organizations, which in itself was enough to suggest unfriendly and likely hostile intentions. Their best guess so far was that someone in the humanist fringe had finally gotten organized, a thought that was frightening, given the number of feral Posleen that were still on Earth and other planets, and the extent to which Earth’s defenses against a resurgence still depended heavily on purchase of Galtech technology and equipment.

  Constant vigilance against reorganization of the Posleen, including retaking previously conquered Galactic Federation real estate, was Fleet and Fleet Strike’s highest priority. Each and every feral Posleen was a potential danger because each was born with the fundamental knowledge of the species. While most feral Posleen were the moronic and barely sentient normals, all Posleen were hermaphrodites who could self-fertilize in a pinch. A single smart God King could potentially rebuild the entire ravening hoard.

  Consequently, the first part of his task was to list all the humanist connections of the various personnel, and the second to list anything that stood out in the personnel or their friends and relatives as having any discontent with the Federation.

  It made for a long list, and a late night. Anders, for example, had a brother and a second cousin who were humanists, the brother more active, but she and her brother were allegedly estranged and hadn’t spoken in years. Could be true. Could be a cover. Baker’s family were Indianapolis Urbies and apparently apolitical. Carlucci had no family, and no close friends outside Fleet Strike. Sergeant Franks had a humanist wife who was profiled in the report as also believing the aliens were in league with the Masons, the Illuminati, and Satan — your typical, garden-variety humanist nut. It certainly made him a security risk. The rest was more of the same. Even Makepeace had a neighbor the next farm over with a humanist daughter. Out of fifteen people in the office, twelve had some sort of documented humanist connection. The other three, well, you never could tell, could you?

  * * *

  Titan Base had the worst case of smog in the inhabited universe. Approaching from the black of space, the glowing blue edge of the nitrogen atmosphere looked almost Earth-like, but the orange-brown layer of hydrocarbon smog, so thick as to be visually impenetrable, would have made prewar Los Angeles or Mexico City, or present day Chicago, look like sparkling bastions of atmospheric cleanliness.

  The shuttle didn’t bother with artificial gravity, so the first part of their descent into Titan’s atmosphere felt like riding up a steep hill, “down” being in the direction of the backs of their seats. Pryce had let her have the window seat, and Cally stared out the window in what she hoped was not complete tourist goggling. In fifty-one years of a life that in many ways had made ordinary cosmopolitan sophistication look positively cloistered, this was her first time off-planet. Fortunately, it was also Sinda’s first time off-planet, so she didn’t really need to restrain natural curiosity and excitement too much.

  The l
ieutenant reached over her shoulder, pointing at a fluffy white mass. “Look, a cloud. We don’t see too many of those.”

  “It’s methane, isn’t it?” She stared out the window.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  As they moved into the heavy brown haze, they also curved around into the nighttime side of the moon. The outside blackened. Unfortunately, they were at the wrong angle for her window to have a view of Saturn. They crested the “hill” of freefall and then started “down,” pressing lightly forward against their five-point seatbelts as the shuttle began braking.

  “Will we be able to see Saturn from the base?” She craned her neck to see if there was anything interesting still visible through the darkened window.

  “Only as an occasional hazy bright spot in the dark, ma’am.” He smiled regretfully. “Other than that and the Sun for a couple of days when we’re close to noon, it’s pretty much like living in an underwater birdcage with a blanket thrown over it. Well, if the bird had electric lighting,” he added, grinning.

  Landing was a couple of muffled thumps, and, at one-seventh her accustomed weight, did feel extraordinarily like being at the bottom of a swimming pool.

  “And now is when we’re glad for the warmth of our silks,” he said.

  “How cold is it?”