Alexis Carew: Books 1, 2, and 3

by J. A. Sutherland

  She followed them in and stopped, staring around in amazement as lights came on. Weapons of all sorts and sizes littered the walls and counters. Blades, from tiny knives to elegant dueling swords, chemical-propellant pistols, laser pistols, flechettes.

  What a bounty of potential mayhem …

  Dansby and Bickham were muttering together again, but this time Alexis felt no need to join them. She was far too fascinated with the surroundings and wandered the room take in all that was on offer. She’d thought for some time that she should purchase some personal weapons — all of the other lieutenants had something more than the dress sword they wore with their uniform — but hadn’t found the time.

  “Alexis? Dear niece?” Dansby was calling. She looked up from a display of lasers that were not only sold as matched sets for dueling, but whose capacitor cartridges were made of gallenium for use in darkspace. Despite the shocking price, she was sorely tempted to have a pair — to be able to fire lasers during a boarding action would be decisive. But the thought of dropping one or more of those cartridges, priced at nearly twenty pounds, while reloading with a vacsuit’s gloves on, was daunting.

  “This might be appropriate for you,” Dansby said, holding his hand out to her. “It will give you some means of defense and it isn’t too great to handle.”

  Alexis stared at his hand for a moment, thinking it was empty, until she saw the small flechette gun he held. It was a tiny thing. The darts must be no more than five centimeters. In fact it was almost smaller than her own hand and was dwarfed in Dansby’s. As a weapon it would be deadly enough — tiny darts would be stripped off a solid block of plastic embedded with metal and impelled by magnets at the target — but it was still so small that Alexis felt a surge of irritation that Dansby simply assumed it was all she could handle.

  “Uncle Dansby … dear uncle,” Alexis said. “Perhaps this might be the proper time to have a word or two about assumptions.”

  In the end, Alexis had to prove to Dansby that she could, indeed, use the items she’d selected. The look on his face when they crossed practice blades was only slightly less satisfying than that he had when she demonstrated her marksmanship.

  No more than half of those in the station’s corridors were openly armed, though, so it was with no little self-consciousness that she stepped out of Bickham’s shop. The sword on her left hip was a bit longer and much lighter than the cutlasses a Naval crew might use in a boarding action. Not so long as a gentleman’s sword for dueling, but long enough to make up for her shorter arms in action against another ship’s crew. The chemical-propellant pistol on her right hip would look too large in her hands, but it was powerful enough to punch through even a Naval vacsuit, and its recoil wasn’t so great that she’d be unable to use it in vacuum or if a ship’s gravity were cut, provided she was able to brace herself against something.

  Bickham had convinced her to take a shorter blade as well. She’d been reluctant, as she’d never used one, and the marines she’d trained with aboard ship had always been quite clear that there was never a winner in a knife-fight — only one who was bleeding somewhat less than the other. But if she were to find herself hard-pressed in close quarters, a smaller blade might be useful. She had two now. Both short and slim, but very sharp. One strapped to the inside of her left forearm and one in the outside of her right boot. Bickham had altered the orders for both her jumpsuits and boots to make accommodations for them, so that they’d be easier to draw.

  Lastly the tiny flechette pistol Dansby had selected was tucked into the small of her back. Bickham had changed the jumpsuits she’d ordered for that as well, giving her a small, unobtrusive pocket that sealed the pistol in place without being at all noticeable.

  All in all, she was better armed than she’d ever been — even aboard ship with a boarding imminent.

  “It’s not as though you’ll be fighting battles aboard Marilyn, you know,” Dansby said, his voice sour.

  “I simply wish to be prepared for any eventuality, uncle,” Alexis said. In truth, she’d been wanting some personal weapons for some time — to have them paid for out of Dansby’s purse was simply icing on the cake. “Marilyn? Is that your ship?”

  Dansby nodded. “Her name’ll change when we enter Hanoverese space, but that’s what she’s called now.”

  Alexis remembered the litany of ships’ names Eades had read off. “Are all your ships named after women?”

  Dansby leered. “Amazing what a lady’ll do if she thinks you’ve named a ship for her.”

  Alexis sighed. Life aboard ship with Dansby was going to be a chore, no doubt. She thought of the idea she’d had before being distracted by Bickham’s armaments room. Civilian clothes would not be at all amiss, if they were to be had as readily as her jumpsuits.

  “I believe our next stop should be a civilian clothier — for something other than shipboard attire.”

  Dansby scowled. “Now what do you need that for, niece?”

  Alexis looped an arm through his and pulled him into motion. “Well, uncle, a man may wear the same three suits day after day, but if I’m to meet who I plan to, then I should be prepared to dress for any occasion or venue.” She scanned the storefronts for someplace that looked likely. Her dress uniform was appropriate attire for any event, but she couldn’t very well wear it in Hanover. Nor could she wear a simple, ship’s jumpsuit in any but the most common of station pubs. “After all, there’s no telling where he’ll be. There may be many meetings necessary to settle the proposal, and they could occur over dinner, at a club, perhaps a ball, anywhere at all.”

  “A ball?” Dansby asked, nearly choking.

  “Of course.” Alexis patted his arm, already planning what she’d need. Clothes had never been very important to her. On Dalthus, denim trousers and a linen shirt would suffice for most days. She’d owned one dress that she wore for special occasions — she did not include the horrid, pink concoction her grandfather had seen fit to buy her for courting. Since she’d entered the Navy, it had been nothing but uniforms. Even at liberty, a uniform would suffice. But meeting Delaine in Hanover, she’d have to appear as something other than a simple spacer — especially a foreign spacer. No, civilian dress was the thing, and fine enough that no one would think twice about seeing her in conversation with a young lieutenant. “Don’t worry, uncle,” she said. “We’ll only need a few things here. The rest we may purchase at our destination.”

  “Rest?”

  Twenty-Two

  “And for yourself, miss?”

  Alexis glanced up from the menu displayed on the table’s surface to the hovering server. Hovering, indeed, for it was simply a thick, round tray floating in the air beside the table. She blinked once, then caught the smirk on Dansby’s face. He seemed to take an inordinate amount of glee in her reaction to any technology she hadn’t encountered before. A glee which irked her both for him looking down on her and because it caused her to dampen her own enthusiasm.

  I should be able to enjoy these things without being laughed at.

  “Do you have Scotch?” she asked. She saw Dansby frown, likely at the price, for real Scotch whiskey was produced in only three systems and cost of transport made it dear indeed.

  Dansby cleared his throat, but the menu in front of Alexis had already changed to display The Glaive’s selection of whiskeys.

  “The Auchindoun Reserve, please,” Alexis said. It wasn’t the most costly on the list, but the price was high enough to sting.

  “Very good, miss.” The server floated away.

  “I should have taken you straight to my ship,” Dansby said, “and saved my purse.”

  “And have me come aboard in some spacer’s castoffs, uncle?” Alexis smoothed the front of her dress. “That would never do, I think.”

  Dansby frowned. “Wouldn’t have thought you such a clotheshorse, coming from the Navy as you have.”

  “And I would have thought you’d speak with more circumspection, considering your line of work.” Alexis glanced
around the dining room to see if anyone was close enough to overhear.

  “The privacy field’s on,” Dansby said, tapping a red light at the center of the table. “No one can hear us.”

  “If there’s one thing my association with Mister Eades has taught me, uncle, it’s that no system is entirely secure.”

  Dansby grunted.

  Alexis smoothed her dress’ skirts and had to admit to herself that he had a point about the clothes. She’d not have thought it of herself, either, but the remainder of the day’s shopping had been … enlightening. The first civilian clothier they’d stopped into had completely changed Alexis’ perception of both clothing and herself.

  The shopkeeper had taken her in hand and she’d found that the scanner in Mister Bickham’s shop had stored on her tablet not only her sizes, but a complete three-dimensional rendering of her. The clothier’s systems could show her a life-size image of herself wearing virtually anything the shop offered. Alexis had merely to react to seeing it and the system would quickly move on, using her expression of approval or dislike to determine what she was presented with next, and doing a quite creditable job of learning her tastes.

  The outcome of which was that the longer she stayed in the shop, the more she liked what was presented to her. There were even, she discovered, some … structural enhancements, as the shopkeeper described them, that made the most of what little she had, and she found herself judging each outfit presented to her by what she thought Delaine might make of it.

  In the end, it was only Dansby’s insistence that they had barely enough time to return to The Glaive and dress for supper that had convinced her to leave the shop. She’d settled on only four outfits, varied to be suitable for a wide range of occasions. The most delightful, and expensive, being the dress she wore now.

  The dress was a rich, deep purple, accented in black. Its skirts didn’t billow like the dresses that had been in fashion when she left Dalthus, but instead fell in straight lines that made her, somehow, seem taller. In fact every aspect of the dress seemed to be perfectly designed for her, accentuating those attributes she had and, she had to admit, enhancing those she did not.

  No, I’d never have considered myself to be one to care about such things, but …

  She slid her hands over the skirts again, delighting in the feel of the fabric. She caught Dansby staring at her and flushed.

  The server returned with their drinks, which slid off its surface and onto the table without spilling a drop. Alexis took a small sip of hers, and then another, and made a mental note to remember this one. It was really quite good.

  “Will you be having wine with the meal?” Dansby asked. “Or will you be swilling my guineas the entire evening?”

  “Perhaps I should have a bottle sent to our rooms, uncle? To celebrate our new enterprise?”

  Dansby looked pained and Alexis almost had a moment’s sympathy for the man. She hadn’t looked at the cost of a single thing she’d bought that day, only smiled at Dansby’s look of outrage when presented with the reckoning. On the other hand, he’d once been a pirate and was now a smuggler, and seemed to have done well for himself at both, even leaving aside what Eades had paid him.

  Two servers appeared and slid plates onto the table in front of each of them. Dansby dug into his with gusto.

  “Enjoy the meal, Carew. There’ll be nothing like this once we reach Hanover.”

  “Do you not care for the food, then?” Alexis asked, glad to be hearing even a little about where they’d soon be going.

  “The cakes are wonderful, but they have an unnatural penchant for pork and sausages.” He chewed a mouthful of food thoughtfully. “Should you be offered anything called currywurst, I suggest you refuse. Neither Hanover nor Deuchsterne are able to put on a proper curry … and there are some things that simply shouldn’t be prepared that way. That’s one reason I chose to stay at The Glaive tonight, instead of going directly aboard Marilyn.” He raised another forkful to his lips. “And I plan to see a play after supper, before we head off into the hinterlands. I find Hanover’s entertainments no more to my liking than their curries.”

  “What play is that?” Alexis asked with some interest. She’d rather not go with Dansby, but she’d found she enjoyed live performances, though she’d only been to a few.

  “Henry V. It’s one of the histories.”

  Alexis sat back and pursed her lips. “I realize that you and Mister Eades at least found common cause in ridiculing my colonial origins, Mister Dansby, but I did learn some of New London’s history and I well know we’ve only had three Henry’s in the Monarchy.”

  Dansby stared at her for a moment, unmoving, and Alexis thought she’d put him at a loss for words until he suddenly barked laughter that actually sprayed food onto the table. He laughed more, then started coughing and grasped for his wine.

  Alexis flushed.

  If he falls over and turns blue, I’ll not lift a finger to save him.

  “Oh, dear lord,” Dansby said finally, alternating between drinking and clearing his throat. “That may be …” He coughed violently. “I suggest you learn your classics, Carew. It will give you something to pass the time on our voyage.”

  The play, Alexis allowed as she and Dansby left the theatre and made their way through the station’s corridors back to The Glaive, had been quite good, and she was rather pleased with herself for wrangling her way to see it along with Dansby. She hadn’t fully understood it, but it was captivating enough to make her want to. And she understood Dansby’s amusement at her a bit better, now that she’d seen the play was based on a different kingdom than New London.

  She knew little of Earth’s history — what little history she’d studied had more to do with New London than anything before that ruling system was founded — but thought now she might be well-advised to learn more.

  Between histories, strategy texts, and these ‘classics’, I may be studying the rest of my life.

  “I suggest you get a good night’s sleep,” Dansby said as they neared The Glaive. “I expect to be aboard Marilyn and making sail midway through the morning watch, and remember that I’ll have you keep to yourself for most of the voyage. As my ‘niece’ it will be your first journey with us and it’s reasonable you’d simply remain silent and observe.”

  Alexis fought down a sigh. Perhaps one of the most enjoyable things about the play had been that Avrel Dansby had remained silent throughout.

  “Tell me about the ship and crew,” Alexis prompted, hoping to pry a bit of solid information from the man, “and your plan for finding Commodore Balestra’s fleet.”

  “Plan?” Dansby gave her a bemused look. “I have as much plan at this point as Eades does, which is to say none. He’s turned the whole mess over to me with no more plan than ‘go find them’.”

  Once again, Alexis was struck that their only common ground seemed to be a mutual dislike and distrust of Mister Eades. She eyed Dansby.

  I suppose even a snake can recognize something slimier than himself.

  “There’s a system called Baikonur,” Dansby went on, “a bit inside Hanoverese space. No habitable planets, but there’s a mining outpost with a less than thorough bureaucracy. We’ll head there first — someone will have heard of where this Balestra’s fleet has been stationed.”

  Alexis grimaced in distaste. “Some other pirate or smuggler, I presume.”

  “Someone with reason to keep track of the Hanoverese navy’s comings and going, and willing to answer questions while not speaking of what’s been asked.” Dansby shrugged. “This system, Baikonur, does tend to attract an unsavory sort. If it offends your sensibilities, you’re welcome to stay here and tell Eades you refuse to go. I’ve been paid either way.”

  Alexis sighed. “I suppose I’ll have to get used to the idea. And your crew?”

  Dansby shrugged. “They’ll do as they’re told and not ask questions.”

  Twenty-Three

  “‘Niece’, my arse, Dansby! What’re you getti
ng us into now?”

  Alexis widened her eyes at the woman’s outburst and took a half step back, placing Dansby firmly at the forefront on his ship’s mess deck and bearing the brunt of the woman’s ire.

  The crew of Dansby’s ship, Marilyn, was the scruffiest, surliest looking group Alexis had ever encountered. Naval crews often had hard men, men taken straight from the gaols and given the choice between the Navy and imprisonment, transport, or even hanging. She was used to that. These, though, were different. Alexis had the sense that these were men who’d done all the things that might warrant imprisonment, transport, or hanging … but had been smart enough to not get caught.

  And women, she thought.

  The crew consisted of twelve men and two women, and any elation Alexis had first felt about being aboard ship with other women for the first time was quickly quashed.

  “Now, Anya,” Dansby said, holding up his hands in a placating gesture. “There’s nothing more to it than I’ve said already.”

  “Bollocks! Bollocks in a vice!”

  Dansby winced visibly. He’d gathered Marilyn’s crew on the mess deck and introduced Alexis to them as his niece, much removed, who’d had some issues with her family’s shipping company. Issues that made it prudent for her to remove herself far from the systems in which they traded — and which led all concerned to believe she might be better suited for the work Dansby’s side of the family engaged in.

  Alexis tried a tentative smile, but the woman glared at her. Anya Mynatt was Marilyn’s first mate, something Alexis had been thrilled to discover until the woman began talking.

  “You promised me I’d have this ship when Tarver left it! Now he isn’t captain any longer, but you’re in his cabin instead of me, and brought this bedwarmer aboard!”

  “Mist … Miss Mynatt!” Alexis objected. She cursed herself for the slip, but wasn’t used to addressing anyone aboard ship except as mister or by rank. The rest of the crew would be addressed simply by last name, as on a Navy ship, and the only other petty officer, a master’s mate named Bowhay, was clearly a ‘mister’ with his bald head and massive beard, but she was at a loss as to what to call a female petty officer on a civilian ship.