Quarus (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 6)

by S J MacDonald

  Embedded journalism was different, too. It meant that the journalist would live as part of the crew, integrating himself as closely as possible to get a candid, insider’s view of events. Since this was clearly not something many services would be happy with, it always involved some degree of censorship either in prior agreement about what could and could not be reported, or the right of redacting footage to delete or blur any material deemed too sensitive for broadcast. In the Fourth’s case, as Alex had pointed out, so much of any such material would have to be deleted or blurred that it would do more harm than good.

  ‘Our footage is conditional on the Beeby Disclosure going well,’ Blaze explained, and with that, Alex understood. Of course the Diplomatic Corps were taking along a media team, recording the events at Serenity and at Quarus in the hope that they would be able to release that broadcast. ‘We are,’ Blaze announced, with evident pride, ‘the official journalists of record. So if we could, please, just have two questions…’ he made the classic gesture of holding thumb and finger close together to indicate that they would be very small questions. ‘Thirty seconds,’ he promised, ‘and yes/no will be…’

  He was interrupted by both he and the camera guy’s comms going off at high volume, making both of them start and look indignant.

  ‘Mr Tyler,’ a cross voice declared, when Blaze answered the comm to stop its buzz and whine, ‘You have contracted not to approach members of the Fourth or to film them without…’

  The camera guy was also being told off, and even as the scolding was in full flow, the scolders appeared on the scene. It was the two AWBs. They weren’t running – attaches did not run – but they were walking very fast and had a very purposeful manner.

  Ah, Alex thought. So they did have Brief, after all. There was no way they could have seen what was happening from inside the Embassy and have got here this fast, not unless they had been watching him and staying close. They were, he realised, his minders.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he would normally have been relieved to have minders swoop in and take away annoying journalists, but on this particular occasion it felt different. ‘They aren’t filming,’ he pointed out that the cameras were inactive and pointing away from him, an indicator used by journalists to reassure people who feared that the cameras might still be working even though they weren’t using lights. ‘And Mr Tyler is being polite.’ That, he felt, deserved recognition, as in Alex’s experience at least polite journalists were a rare and exotic species.

  ‘We weren’t lurking for him,’ Blaze assured the cross attaches. ‘We were just coming from the uni and saw him and yes, I know, sorry, but just couldn’t help myself.’

  That was honest, Alex recognised. And he could understand it, too. For a journalist to see one of the most elusive interviewees in the League strolling unguarded just a few metres away would be… well, Alex could see that the temptation would be just too much to resist.

  ‘I don’t mind,’ he heard himself say. ‘This time. Since you are the journalists of record.’ He mirrored the other man’s gesture with finger and thumb. ‘Thirty seconds,’ he confirmed. ‘Two questions. Yes/no.’

  ‘Thank you.’ This was the protocol which had been worked out for Alex’s press calls; the journalists allowed to ask questions had to restrict them to yes/no, could not take any longer than fifteen seconds to ask their question and got two questions each, max. It was not a situation which the media was happy about, for obvious reasons, but Blaze was obviously willing to go along with it in order to get any kind of interview at all. He was an expert at the game, too, forming his questions to wring as much information as possible out of the yes or no which Alex would give.

  The two AWBs withdrew a little way, a little reluctant but conceding the ground, and there were three busy seconds in which the camera guy activated and set his cameras and Blaze took up an interview position, facing Alex. As he settled himself he rolled his shoulders, flexed his jaw and tugged lightly at the hem of his tunic to make sure that it was straight. It took barely two seconds, and was evidently his usual, instinctive pre-camera routine. It made him seem very much more human, somehow – a real person, not the glossy image on holovision or the punchy journo in competition with a mob of colleagues.

  ‘Blaze Tyler, reporting for CNN.’ They always did that, identifying themselves and their station. Alex had always assumed that that was just to ensure that their name got on the air and to promote their station, but he had learned since that it was a legal issue. Even if the ID bit wasn’t broadcast, the interviewee could not then claim, later, that they had not been aware that they were talking to a journalist. ‘Captain von Strada, thank you for agreeing to talk to us.’ This too was format, putting it on record that the interviewee had agreed to be interviewed, which if Alex did not object to would be accepted as legal evidence of such an agreement in any future court disputes. ‘So – first question,’ Blaze went straight on. ‘Would you agree that we are standing at a momentous turning point in human history, hanging upon the reaction to the Beeby Disclosure for which you are responsible?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Alex.

  ‘And – if we could just try, please, for a slightly more nuanced response…’ Blaze gave him a look of sympathetic understanding, as if he really did recognise how difficult this was for Alex and wanted to do his very best to help him through it. ‘If you could just indicate, on a scale of one to ten, how confident you are about the forthcoming mission to Quarus...?’

  That was not what they’d agreed, but Blaze Tyler would not have become the household name he was on Therik if he’d always stuck to the pre-agreed dialogue.

  ‘Wrong question,’ said Alex, and seeing that Blaze was perceiving that as a ‘no comment’ rejection of his attempt to introduce the ten-point scale, he carried on, ‘Confidence implies a stated goal and expectations, which we do not have. We’re going there to learn, no more than that.’

  Seeing that Blaze’s face had lit up with joy at getting an actual answer, he could see too that the questions would keep coming now that he had indicated his willingness to talk. So he held up a hand, palm outward, indicating stop.

  ‘Two questions,’ he reminded the journalist, and rather to his surprise, Blaze looked pleased.

  ‘Thank you, Captain,’ he reached over and took Alex’s hand, giving it a quick but courteous shake. Then, as if by some signal Alex hadn’t detected, the cameras turned off. ‘I am sorry about the psycho thing,’ Blaze went on, with evidently earnest regret, ‘it was a pundit, you know, not one of our journalists.’

  It took Alex a moment to realise what he was talking about. Of course, he remembered, it had been Chartsey News Network which had broadcast the allegation that he was a psychopath, right back when the news had first broken about the Minnow going onto irregular terms of service. It had never really gone away since.

  ‘Thank you.’ Alex was surprised. It was the first time any journalist had ever apologised to him for unfair and untrue broadcasting. ‘Mr Tyler,’ he acknowledged, and with a nod to him and the camera guy, turned and went on his way feeling that that had gone quite remarkably well.

  Things had been going well aboard ship, too. Buzz had been in charge in his absence and had dealt with a lot of things while Alex had been in his meetings. One of them had been mediating the situation between Barney Barnardt, Byl Fox and themselves. That had taken some doing, as Byl’s furious reaction had only entrenched Barney even further into an obstinate declaration that he was not going to hand over his data and they couldn’t make him. Heated threats from Byl about suing for breach of contract and criminal proceedings for obtaining funding by fraudulent application had not improved things one little bit. Buzz, though, had managed to calm things down, giving Barney the one piece of information which had prompted him to change his mind and hand over the data, complete and unencrypted.

  ‘Come and see who’s here…’ Buzz greeted Alex at the airlock, already drawing him towards the command deck as they shook hands. Alex went to prote
st – he wanted a shower and to get out of his groundside rig – but Buzz was already steering him through the hatch, a guiding hand on his back while the other gestured ahead with a flourishing ta-da!

  ‘Oh!’ Alex exclaimed with delight as he saw the two women getting up from the command table. It was Tina Lucas and Kate Naos. Lt Lucas now, Alex noted, and Cadet Officer Naos. ‘What a lovely surprise!’ They shook hands, Tina greeting him with a happy grin and ‘Hello, skipper’ while Kate gave him a sparkling look and ‘Good afternoon, sir.’

  Alex surveyed them both with all the pleasure of someone meeting family he hadn’t seen for some time. Both had matured since he had seen them last. Tina had acquired a poise which sat well with her Lt’s insignia, no hint of self-consciousness in her handshake now. Alex remembered the first time they’d met – she’d been brought into the port admiral’s office at Therik, almost dropping with weariness and nerves but still, speaking up boldly as she’d made her case for being allowed to do her final-year cadet placement on the Heron. She’d actually graduated aboard this ship, as they’d been way over League borders at the time she’d changed her cadet stripes for a Sub-lt’s stars. She had been the most junior of junior Subs at the point where the Samartians had asked for her to visit one of their ships in exchange for a woman of similar age and status going aboard the Heron. So it had been Tina, in fact, who’d made the first face-to-face contact with Samartians.

  They had seen her since then, when she’d been lent to the Stepeasy. Many of Davie’s own people had quit when the ship went into port at Chartsey, unable to cope with the stress of having Silvie on board. Since it was an official diplomatic mission and it would take weeks for Davie himself to find suitably qualified people, the Fleet and Diplomatic Corps between them had lent him all the people he’d needed. Top of that list, and asked for by Davie himself, had been Tina Lucas. She had done a great job, too, bonding with Silvie and helping her to find a stable identity as well as doing watchkeeping and other work of the ship. Tina, though, had had to leave them at Telathor, as the tagged and flagged accelerated programme she was on required frequent transfers between ships and a broad range of experiences. Alex knew that she was likely to pop up again and might well, indeed, do her command school training with them, but he’d had no idea that she was coming to Serenity.

  And Kate, too. She was so different that it was hard to recognise the shy kid in the confident adult. Her red-russet hair was in a neatly sculpted style now and the uniform suited her as she stood straight, head high. Alex knew that she was in her second year of training, which was not a time when cadets left their academies, so her appearance here was a mystery as well as a surprise.

  ‘And…’ Tina ushered forward a young man who Alex hadn’t even noticed till then – he too was wearing cadet uniform, with the final year insignia and Class of 64 badge which marked him as one of the elite. ‘Cadet Officer Nyge Tomaas.’

  ‘Good afternoon, sir.’ Nyge Tomaas was quite tall – a good ten centimetres taller than the captain – and broad shouldered with it. Later in life, he would carry that height and bulk with authority. Just now, though, he gave the impression that he was wishing he could shrink.

  ‘Mr Tomaas.’ Alex shook hands with him too, then gave Tina an enquiring look, waiting for the explanation.

  ‘Mr Tomaas,’ Tina informed him, ‘is here to do his placement, subject of course to your agreement.’

  Ah, Alex thought. They had missed the previous year’s cadet placement as they’d been off exploring at the time, and he had not expected that the Admiralty would approve another cadet coming out to them this year, either, given the length of the mission they were undertaking.

  ‘Ms Naos,’ Tina went on, ‘is here on part-time secondment to the Second on condition that her cadet training is sustained – again, of course, subject to your agreement. And I,’ she smiled brightly, ‘am here in the capacity of cadet instructor. So – will you be able to find us a corner, do you think?’

  Alex chuckled, and at the same time spotted that one of the other people sitting round the command table was Davie North. He looked all right, Alex saw – cheerful and relaxed, looking on at the reunion with an air of being happy to wait. Seeing that Alex had noticed him, he gave an amicable grin and mock-salute. Alex returned the grin, though not the salute, but then resumed his conversation with Tina.

  ‘Oh, I’m sure we’ll manage that…’ he looked at Buzz, who beamed confirmation.

  ‘No trouble at all,’ he said, and knowing that Alex would want to catch up with Davie, he ushered Tina and the others away, ‘Come with me…’

  ‘Mr North,’ Davie got up too now that the others were leaving, and he and Alex shook hands. He was tense, Alex realised – it didn’t show outwardly but there was a sense of buzzing, twanging tension in him like a tightly-strung guitar string. ‘Everything all right?’ Alex asked, and they both knew that ‘everything’ was the elephant in the room, the looming presence of the Entrepus.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Davie said, going straight to the heart of what he knew Alex would be afraid of, ‘he is not coming with.’

  There was something in his tone which made it clear to Alex that there had been some emotive father-son discussion on this subject. When they had first met at Karadon Davie had been so entrammelled by his father’s care that he was not allowed to visit the Heron. Even if he’d tried, his father had a wall of security around him who took their orders from Papa, not from Davie himself. There was a small army of valets and other attendants, likewise. Davie had not even been allowed any say in his own hairstyle, since Papa thought he looked adorable with ringlets.

  Things had changed considerably since then. Davie had gone off to have things out with Papa and returned, triumphantly, to walk through the Heron’s airlock carrying a kitbag, not a minder or valet in sight. When he’d turned sixteen, his father had handed over to him a mess of polluting industries for which Davie had been asking for years – an indicator both that Papa was now fully accepting his son’s adult status and that he had accepted, too, that Davie-Boy’s mania for clean and green corporate practice was not a phase he was going to grow out of. Evidently, though, Papa had wanted to come along on this mission and Davie was still just a little defensive about it.

  Alex did not point out that they could not prevent Andrei Delaney taking his ship to Quarus if he wanted to. Davie knew that even better than he did. It was Davie’s ancestors, after all, who’d enshrined the right to travel freely in space as one of the primary grounds of the League constitution.

  ‘But he does,’ Davie said, ‘want to meet you.’

  Alex picked up on the tone and indicators which did not mean ‘at some time in the future.’

  ‘What, now?’ He asked, startled.

  ‘He doesn’t generally,’ Davie observed, ‘do waiting for people.’ A sudden, mischievous grin. ‘I had some trouble convincing him that he could not ‘send a car’ with some people to pick you up.’

  Alex could imagine it. The green limo-shuttle, the expensively dressed people with their urbane request to get in the car, please.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, and put things together. ‘So… you?’

  Davie nodded. ‘I estimate,’ he said, ‘that we’ve got around three and a half minutes before he decides that if you won’t go to him, he’ll have to come to you.’

  ‘Understood.’ Alex said, and was already walking away. ‘Give me a minute to shower.’

  He did not want Andrei Delaney coming aboard his ship. Captain Bull Stuart of the Eagle had told him what it was like having Mr Delaney paying a visit. The first wave would be the decontamination crew, ensuring that all the areas Mr Delaney would be exposed to were sterilised. Then would come the security, legal, catering and advanced valet teams, ensuring that every provision was in place for his comfort. After that, Andrei Delaney himself, followed by his personal retinue.

  It was easier, much easier, for Alex to go over to the Entrepus.

  They went in Davie’s shuttle
, Alex content to be piloted by him.

  ‘New look for the Stepeasy,’ he observed, as Davie set them on course for the Entrepus.

  ‘Ummn.’ Davie confirmed, with a somewhat brooding glance at the sullen grey now covering his lovely yacht. ‘Papa,’ he said, ‘had it decorated for me as a surprise.’

  ‘Like that?’ Alex was even more startled by that, seeing the contrast between the aggressively Spartan style imposed on the Stepeasy and the gaudy flamboyance of the Entrepus.

  ‘No, not like that.’ Davie’s manner was guarded. ‘He had it painted with fish,’ he said. ‘Seahorses, mostly.’

  Alex had a sudden mental image of the Stepeasy covered with brilliantly coloured images of seahorses and corals – Papa’s notion, presumably, of a good look for the yacht for the mission to Quarus. And now he understood entirely why that harsh grey paint had been slammed on, making a definitive statement. My ship – hands off.

  Alex made a small choking sound, tried to contain it, caught Davie’s eye and cracked up laughing. And so, at that, did Davie himself.

  ‘Ohhh,’ he was still chuckling, shaking his head, ‘He is just so…’ he gestured helplessly, but gave Alex an appealing look. ‘Try not to be offended?’ he asked.

  Alex wasn’t offended. He wasn’t offended by the fact that he was made to go through a high level of decontamination in the airlock before he was allowed aboard the Entrepus, nor by the fact that he was scanned for weapons and instructed not to attempt to make physical contact with Mr Delaney before he was taken to the meeting.

  In fact, they met in a corridor – Papa had been waiting with increasing impatience for more than four hours, now, as Davie had said that he could not grab Alex out of meetings at the Admiralty office or Embassy. Seeing that Alex was finally on his way over to his ship, Andrei Delaney came rushing to meet him, hailing him from forty metres away and surging through the corridor with both arms outstretched. For one awful moment Alex thought he was going to either hug him or trample him down – it was quite hard to tell his intentions with that bull-charge and wordless bellow.