A chill ran through Alexis. She and Delaine had visited this shop many times. The proprietors were a charming, friendly couple who’d only ever spoken French so far as Alexis had heard, and the shop had been busy. They’d always had a bit of chocolate for a child peering through the window and nothing but smiles and friendly words for their customers.
She looked back down the street to the main market square. Could the people of Courboin really have done such a thing?
“I can’t believe it.”
“We’ve started a revolution here,” Roswell said with a shrug. “A civil war. There’s no reason to expect it won’t become just as bloody as that sort of thing always does. Oh, in an hundred years it’ll all be speeches and fireworks, but here and now it’s a bloody business.”
“But —” She stopped herself. The proprietor’s name had been Steinach, a Hanoverese name, to be sure, no matter that he’d gone by monsieur and spoken perfect French. “His grandfather started this shop,” she whispered finally, still unable to believe that anyone in Courboin could do such a thing.
“This sort of hatred takes no heed of generations,” Roswell said. “It runs deep and it takes little to set it loose. Look even at New London and New Edinburgh — settled for hundreds of years, allies for generations — but I’m certain there are no few on either planet who’d paint themselves blue and take up arms at some excuse. And this —” Roswell pointed at the burned out shell of a building. “This is why we in the Core tolerate the Fringe and all its prejudices. Give that type of fool their own planet and let them have a go at it if they like, just so long as they leave their neighbors alone.”
“Not all of the Fringe is like that,” Alexis said, feeling she should defend her home world in some way.
“No,” Roswell agreed, “most of the worlds are settled by those who just want a bit of space, but even they turn up the odd bit of bigotry far too often. Good riddance to the lot of them, I say.”
Alexis frowned. Roswell must have forgotten that Alexis was from the Fringe herself. She took one last look at the burned-out shop before they made their way back to the market. She wasn’t entirely convinced that this policy of forcing such hatreds farther and farther toward the edges of humanity’s expansion was the best solution … nor, having seen such a thing rear its head in Courboin, was she at all certain there could ever be one.
The market, when they returned to it, seemed to have lost some of its color and vibrancy. Alexis found herself wondering if this smiling-faced farmer or that grinning shopkeeper had held a torch or a bit of rope the night the Steinachs’ shop had been burned.
And what happened to them? Were they killed or have they made their way to some camp near Atterrissage?
She was lost in these thoughts when she felt Roswell grasp her arm and shake her gently.
“Carew? Are you listening at all?”
Alexis shook herself out of her reverie.
“That girl over there seems quite intent on you. Do you know her?”
Alexis looked and caught sight of a girl staring at her. She looked away as soon as Alexis turned in that direction, but seemed familiar.
“I may,” Alexis allowed. When she’d been held here, she hadn’t really spent time with any of the residents of Courboin for more than shopping; most of her time had been spent with Delaine. Still, the girl did look familiar.
“I’d recommend finding out what she wants, if she’s going to be following us all day anyway,” Roswell said.
“I suppose.” Alexis paused for a moment. If the French were willing to engage in such violence against the Hanoverese, mightn’t there be Hanoverese partisans who would do the same against New London’s forces? “I never thought to ask, but are we in any danger? From Hanoverese, I mean.”
Roswell shook her head. “No, whoever planned this romp chose a good world to begin on. There’s been none of anything like that. If anything, the locals have been too friendly with our troops.”
They made their way toward the girl who was watching them and Alexis frowned, trying to place her. There were many people in Courboin she recognized from her time here and many who recognized her in return. As they drew nearer, the girl stopped trying to avoid Alexis’ gaze and drew herself up. She seemed nervous and Alexis couldn’t understand why. She’d been on friendly terms with everyone she’d met when last here.
Then it struck her. The first time she’d seen the girl had been in the lap of Midshipman Penn Timpson, the berthmate from Hermione who’d stopped her messages. The last time Alexis had seen the girl she, along with several other local girls, was leaving Timpson behind after Alexis had all but called him out in a nearby café. She hadn’t seen those girls again during her stay.
No wonder she’s hesitant, when all she’s seen of me is a screaming harridan slapping Timpson in the face.
Alexis tried to put on a friendly expression, while wondering what the girl could want.
“Bonjour,” she said as they approached.
“Bonjour,” the girl said. She smiled shyly, not at all what Alexis expected. The girls she’d seen with Hermione’s midshipmen that day had been anything but shy. “Allo. Mademoiselle Carew, oui?”
“Lieutenant,” Alexis said, nodding, “but yes. Oui.”
“Je suis … I am, Marie Autin.” The girl, Marie, spoke her English slowly and held out her hand. Alexis took it, still puzzled. “The ship … Hermione? It is come back?”
Alexis shook her head. “No, I’m afraid Hermione is long gone from here,” she said, “gone before my last stay, even.”
Marie frowned. “Not ship, but le officiers? You have come back?”
“I have, at least. I’m on another ship now, Shrewsbury. The other officers from that time, they’re …”
Alexis wasn’t quite sure how to explain what had happened and she had no idea where Hermione’s other officers had been sent. An older woman came out of a nearby shop. She carried an infant, probably not quite a year old, who she held out to Marie. She nodded to Alexis and Roswell, but spoke rapidly to Marie.
“Oui, Mama,” the girl said, and took the child.
Alexis looked from the girl to the child with sudden understanding. An infant less than a year old and some eighteen months since she and Hermione’s officers were last on Giron made the connection clear.
Penn Timpson, you utter, irresponsible arsehole.
A simple visit to the ship’s surgeon for an implant would have eliminated the risk of this sort of thing. For the crew it was mandatory, but not for officers, and Timpson must not have bothered. Marie must not have bothered either, which was understandable given Giron’s low population. Many colony worlds, unless they’d been settled as a religious colony, welcomed as many new residents as they could get and paid little notice to the proprieties. Still, with a war on, Marie might have been in an awkward position. No matter how French the population of Giron considered themselves, it couldn’t be thought proper to come up pregnant by the ostensible enemy.
Of course now New London was Giron’s ally, if not liberator, which made for an entirely different situation. In addition, with New London forces in place on Giron, Marie could make a case for support. It would be a simple matter for someone on General Malicoat’s staff to test the child’s DNA against Timpson’s medical records and the errant midshipman would quickly find his pay docked no matter where he’d been reassigned.
And serve him right, as well, it would.
Alexis nodded to the child. “He is —” She trailed off with a cough, unsure if it was the sort of thing one should ask on Giron, but Marie was looking at her questioningly. “I mean to say … Aspirant Timpson’s?”
“Oui,” Marie said with a shrug. She looked at the child and her face seemed to glow as she smiled widely. She took one of his pudgy little arms and waved it at Alexis. “Say ‘allo’ to Lieutenant Carew, Ferrau. Allo. Allo.”
Ferrau said nothing. He simply looked at Alexis blankly, pursed his little lips, and blew a bubble of spittle that poppe
d and dribbled down his chin.
Timpson’s get, indeed.
Roswell cleared her throat. “I think your men have bought out the market, Carew. Perhaps we should be on our way?”
Forty-Five
“Six bells of the forenoon, sir, you asked for me to wake you.”
Alexis opened her eyes at Isom’s words. She’d been almost napping, her tablet lying on her chest. A particularly dry treatise on attacking fortified systems was a wonderful sleep aid, she’d found. This document was supposed to be quite the thing, but it was a long slog through.
“Thank you, Isom.” She threw her legs over the side of her cot and sat up. Belial’s master’s cabin was small compared to the captain’s quarters aboard a frigate or 74, but a luxury after a lieutenant’s berth. Nearly twice the size of her cabin aboard Shrewsbury, and all for her. The cot itself was so much larger that Alexis found herself rolling from side to side in the night just to enjoy the space.
I could grow quite used to this.
“I brought a bit of a bite for you, as well, sir.”
Alexis saw the tray with sandwich, glass, and wine on the cabin’s table.
“Doubly thanked, then.” She rose and went to the table, which doubled as a large desk surface complete with a repeater of the quarterdeck’s navigation plot.
Belial was still in orbit around Giron, still endlessly circling, and with still no sign of the returning transports or the rest of the fleet.
Alexis keyed her tablet to call the quarterdeck. “Mister Artley?”
“Yes, sir?” he responded after a moment.
“Have the bosun pipe Up Spirits, if you please, and set the men to their meal afterward.”
“Aye, sir.”
Alexis set her tablet down and waited for Isom to pour her a glass, as the familiar bosun’s pipe sounded over the ship’s speakers. She could hear the rustle and tramp of feet even through her closed hatch as the crew responded to the call. Up Spirits marked the start of the daily rum issue, and none of the crew would miss that. It was a time to be a bit idle, chat with friends, and settle debts by giving over their daily tot for the man owed to take his sippers or gulpers.
Most of crew was idle to begin with, as she’d ordered yet another make-and-mend day. With Belial in orbit for so long, there was little work for the men once the day’s cleaning was complete. They’d long ago completed even the least important of maintenance tasks. Alexis had let the ship fall into a routine of three days, where the port and starboard watches alternated liberty on Giron for a day each, followed by a make-and-mend day with all the crew aboard and at personal tasks, such as their hobbies or mending their uniforms.
Still, she sensed the crew was growing restive. More and more their liberty time on Giron was ending in fights with the soldiers, and the injuries from those clashes were growing more serious. The army on Giron was not taking their idleness well either. There were more fights aboard ship, as well. Day after day spent on hobbies was beginning to pall and every uniform and bit of gear aboard had long ago been mended.
Alexis eyed her tablet and the article it still displayed. The treatise on the techniques of attacking from darkspace to normal space might be dry, but she imagined the exercise itself would not be so.
She keyed her tablet again to call the quarterdeck.
“Mister Artley?”
“Yes, sir?”
“After the hands have finished their meal, we shall break orbit. And pass the word for the carpenter, if you please.”
“You’ll transition thusly, Boothroyd,” Alexis said, indicating on the helm exactly what she wanted the spacer to do. Nearby, Artley looked on as well, his brow furrowed in concentration. “Then you, Leyman,” she continued to the spacer on the tactical console, “must sing out as quickly as the sensors come to life.”
“Aye, sir,” they both said.
“And no sooner have we fired, then it’s back to darkspace, do you see?”
Alexis saw their blank looks and didn’t blame them. This was so different from the sort of action that took place in darkspace. There, with no electronics or sensors other than the ship’s optics, an engagement at even a kilometer was rare, and most took place with the ships only a few hundred meters apart or even closer.
“They’d never see us,” Artley said from his place at the navigation plot.
Alexis looked at him.
“Sorry, sir,” he mumbled.
“No, Mister Artley, finish your thought, please.”
Artley frowned. “Well, it’s that we left the target Mister Oakman made so far away.” He ran his fingers over the plot. “We’re here at L3, but we left the target almost as far away as Giron, just behind it in orbit here.” His brow furrowed. “If that target were a ship, then all it can see at L3 now is empty space, but when we transition …”
“Go on,” Alexis prompted.
“Well, they’d still not see us. That target’s almost a full light second away. When we transition, we’ll be able to see it … or how it was a second ago, but it’ll take that time for anything from us to reach it. If we can target and fire before they even see us …”
Alexis nodded. “And then transition back to darkspace instanter.”
“Any enemy’d be struck before they know we’re there and have nothing to shoot back at. By the time the light from our arrival got to them, our fire would be close behind and we’d be back in darkspace already.”
Alexis clapped a hand on his shoulder. “You have it.”
Artley smiled, but then frowned again. “But at such a distance, how’re the crews to aim?”
“That’s the beauty of being in normal space when we fire, Mister Artley,” Alexis said. “We’ll have access to all of Belial’s sensors and electronics once we transition. The guns are all locked in place and the computers will track our first shot to calibrate where they’re aimed — after that, we simply need to designate our target after we transition and the computer will maneuver the entire ship so that the guns bear. We aim with Belial herself.”
Alexis laid her palms flat on the navigation plot and smiled. This would be even more fun than a regular gun drill. There was an element of stealth to it that appealed to her.
“On my mark, gentlemen.” She waited a moment, then, “Now!”
Belial transitioned to normal space and the stars appeared on her navigation plot.
“Locate that target, Leyman,” she said, but before she’d finished he’d done so and highlighted it on her plot. Alexis designated it as the target and the visual feeds from outside spun and twisted as the computer adjusted Belial so that her broadside faced the target.
“Fire!”
The order and its execution were still manual. The gun captains on Belial’s gundeck would still have to mash their hands down on the firing buttons, as well they’d have to reload by hand, but the guns were locked to the deck and Belial’s computer knew how their fire would diverge and disperse over the many kilometers to the target. The magnified view of the target showed hull material boiling away as at least some of their shot struck home.
“Back now, transition!” Alexis ordered. “As soon as we’ve fired once it’s back to darkspace.”
Most of the quarterdeck’s monitors went dark as her order was obeyed and they transitioned back to the darkspace. Only the optical feeds remained.
Alexis grinned.
“Let’s do it again, shall we?”
“Match our speed and vector to the target, Boothroyd.”
Alexis watched her plot as Belial closed with the target, what was left of it after hours of drill. She could have left it drifting, she supposed. Eventually its orbit would decay and it would drop into Giron’s star, but she didn’t feel it was right to clutter up the system like that. Also, she wanted the crew to see how successful they’d been. The target, fashioned to look like one side of a ship’s hull, just a bit smaller than Belial’s, was pocked with holes where their lasers had blasted through the tough thermoplastic. The force of the plast
ic vaporizing had set the target spinning and changing vectors after every shot, making their next even more difficult.
“Mister Artley, once we’re alongside, detail some men to cut the target into manageable sections and bring it inboard for Mister Oakman.” The carpenter would be able to recycle what was left back into Belial’s tanks for future fabrication. “And inform Mister Dobb that we shall ‘splice the mainbrace’ on our way back to orbit.”
“Aye, sir.”
Alexis had to smile at the rustle of anticipation from the helmsman and other spacers on the quarterdeck at her words, but they’d worked hard and deserved it. An extra issue of rum with each man receiving his full measure and without sippers or gulpers for debts owed. The three hours’ transit time back to Giron would give them ample opportunity to enjoy their reward.
A soft ping from the tactical console cut through her thoughts.
“Transition, sir,” Leyman announced. “At L1.”
“Belay that order, Mister Artley.” A transition at L1 would mean a military ship, as merchants typically used the larger and more stable L4 to transition into a system. The arriving ship was probably a packet, either from the fleet and on its way back to New London, or from New London in search of the fleet. Either way she’d best take Belial back to orbit instanter. “Boothroyd, set a course for —”
“Transitioned out, sir,” Leyman said.
Alexis frowned. That was what ships were supposed to do when approaching a system without a pilot boat where there might be the possibility of a hostile fleet; transition in and then back to darkspace quickly, so as to have a glimpse of what was going on in normal space and be prepared to flee if an enemy was present, but the packets had proven themselves quite lax in that regard during her time at Giron. Most hadn’t bothered.
“No signals or colors, sir,” the spacer on the signals console reported.
“Leyman, send that transition sequence to my plot, if you will.”
Alexis Carew: Books 1, 2, and 3 Page 84