by J. L. Doty
“You mean this has been here all along?” York asked.
Marko smiled and nodded. “It’s about time you got your head out of your ass.”
York looked at their destination, which was listed as nothing more than a meaningless string of numbers and symbols. “What’s that mean?”
“Those are interstellar coordinates.”
“How do I figure that stuff out?”
Marko pointed him to a couple of books on interstellar navigation in the ship’s library, and others that gave information on basic ship’s systems and operations. The books on ship’s systems were interesting, but York struggled with the navigation books, understood nothing, and finally gave up. A few days later, Marko asked, “How’d you like the books?”
York grimaced. “The navigation stuff is way over my head.”
“Over my head, too,” Marko said. “But I’ll talk to Pallaver. Maybe he can give you a few pointers.”
Pallaver took a keen interest in York’s curiosity, sat him down, and helped him wade through several pages of one of the navigation texts—then, to York’s horror, gave him a homework assignment. York didn’t want to do homework; he wanted to spend his spare time with Sissy. But Pallaver’s mind was set: York had shown an interest in interstellar navigation, and Pallaver was damn well going to make sure he learned it.
“I don’t get it,” he told Sissy, lying beside her in his coffin, tracing a finger along the curve of her bare hip. When they’d come back from that first shore leave together, they’d both tried to squeeze into York’s gunner’s coffin to get a little privacy, and they’d discovered that the coffin automatically adjusted to the size of its occupant—or in their case, occupants. The coffin did not restrict their activities in the least.
“Don’t get what?” she asked.
“Why Pallaver’s so interested in teaching me navigation.”
She rolled toward him, and looking at her breasts he almost forgot the question he’d asked. “They do it to all of us,” she said. “Look at me. I just turned sixteen so I’m an adult, and they’re still making me take lessons.”
“I am looking at you,” he said, leering at her breasts.
She whacked him in the side of the head. “Talk to me, not my tits.”
He reluctantly looked her in the eyes. “Okay, they still make you take lessons. But my first year they didn’t make me do anything but scrub decks and drill in the simulators.”
“That’s because we thought you weren’t going to make it, what with your record and a couple of bad mistakes you made after you joined us.” With her finger, she traced one of the lash scars on his shoulder. “And then you shaped up, and we learned that maybe your mistakes were because of a certain bad influence on ship, and now you’ve been trouble-free and done your job for more than a year.”
“Exactly,” he said. “I do my job, so why does Pallaver need to teach me all this crap?”
“It’s in the regs,” she said. “Something about encouraging our continuing education. I think all ship’s officers are stuck with it—NCOs included.”
York wasn’t that interested in the topic of conversation, and using extremely unfair means, he managed to distract Sissy and focus her on other activities. But later he did look it up in the regs, which stated clearly that it was the responsibility of all senior personnel to continue the education of the junior members of the crew. During their next session, Pallaver even admitted that somehow Jarwith had heard of York’s interest, and the lieutenant’s enthusiasm for York’s training had come directly from her.
They rendezvoused with the Seventh Fleet near Turnham’s Cluster, a heavily disputed group of stars all within a few light-years of one another and possessing several occupied planets. Pallaver gathered all his gunner crews together in the main mess, where Jarwith and Thorow briefed them on the coming mission—though Thorow did most of the talking with Jarwith looking on.
“This is going to be a big one,” he said. “We’ve been quietly assembling all of Seventh Fleet, and in the next day or two, we’ll number over two hundred. We think we’ll have the Federals outnumbered, but don’t get overconfident. Captain Jarwith and I both think this is going to be a nasty one.”
York noticed that Jarwith’s eyes had settled on him with an almost vacant stare, and that made him uncomfortable. He looked away from her and focused on Thorow’s words.
“With this many ships involved, friendly-fire casualties are inevitable, but try to keep that to a minimum. Stay calm, listen to your station commanders, don’t shoot without an allocated target, and shoot straight.”
As the briefing broke up, York glanced Jarwith’s way. Her eyes followed him as he left the mess hall.
For the first engagement at Turnham’s Cluster, there was no sudden screech from the alert klaxon, no blaring voice from allship, and no scramble to battle stations. The Imperial Seventh Fleet had assembled one light-year from the opposing force. They could detect transition wakes to a distance of about five light-years, so there’d be no surprises on either side. That morning, York and the gunners took their rotation in the mess hall and ate a leisurely but tense breakfast, with none of the usual teasing and banter. Then they climbed into their pods to wait.
Jarwith gave a little speech on allship, spoke of loyalty to the grand empire and the need for a decisive victory. Shortly after that, they up-transited, driving hard toward the enemy fleet.
York put a navigation summary in the corner of one of his screens. Because of Pallaver’s tutelage, he now knew how to interpret it properly. At two thousand lights, they’d traverse the distance to the opposing fleet in just under four hours. On his screen, he saw the green blips of a dozen ships they’d left behind in sublight, spread out over a tenth of a light-year to give them a large baseline for their transition scanners. With the fleet blind while in transition, their comrades who remained behind could upfeed targeting information. Every tenth light-year, a dozen ships down-transited to provide more accurate data in the upfeed, while those farther behind, who were no longer needed for that, up-transited to catch up with the main body.
At a half light-year, they still hadn’t encountered any opposition, and even with nothing happening, the stress wore on them all. Straight’s voice came over York’s headset. “Per section’s orders, we’re administering a low-dose kikker to all of you.”
As the drugs flowed through his system, York felt a rush of adrenaline that did nothing to calm his fear.
At a quarter light-year, one of the imperial ships on York’s screens blossomed into a white-hot ball of thermonuclear fire. A tense voice on allship said, “We’ve run into a cluster of seeker mines, so stay alert.”
York tensed and waited. An enemy blip appeared on his screens, allocated to Zamekis and Stark. They both fired, didn’t get a kill but diverted it.
Another imperial ship exploded, the gunners took out a few more targets, then allship announced, “We’re clear of the minefield.” York saw it on his navigational summary from the upfeed a second before allship said, “Approaching enemy pickets. Gunners watch for transition rounds from their main batteries.”
The upfeed gave Dauntless a targeting solution on one of the pickets, and the ship’s hull thrummed with the boom of its main batteries. Unallocated targets appeared on York’s screens, nothing close to Dauntless. He tracked the pod gunner rounds from other ships in the fleet. One zinged close to Dauntless, flashed red as it was allocated to York. He locked a target designator on it and fired. His round killed it, but it wouldn’t count for a chevron at gunner’s blood since it was friendly fire. By then, most of Dauntless’s gunners were occupied with targets and York had another bogie to worry about.
They down-transited at a hundred million kilometers from the enemy fleet, split into five strike forces with one going straight at the Federals, while the other four fanned out in an attempt to flank and englobe them. Dauntless was
assigned to one of the flanking flotillas. They swung wide, but as they approached the enemy ships, York’s screens filled with targets, with one or two always allocated to him.
His gut tightened with fear, and his jaw hurt from clenching his teeth so hard. He examined that fear as he fired another round—missed the target, but Stark took it out. What did he fear? he wondered. Was it death? He thought about that while he locked a designator on another incoming round. Death didn’t hold much sway over him, and he realized the thing he dreaded most was letting down his comrades. And there was a piece of him that found the constant threat of death exhilarating, that found the next incoming transition torpedo a thrilling challenge.
A stronger dose of kikker washed through his system—someone must have decided he needed it. It put his nerves on edge, and he clenched his teeth even harder, but it helped him focus.
The day turned into a grueling test of endurance, Dauntless’s hull pinging regularly with the sound of smaller rounds that made it in to her plast shields, her main batteries thrumming like large drums. There seemed no end to the targets on his screens. Then the fleet withdrew and a strange calm settled over the ship.
When York climbed out of his pod, he learned that Stark had been killed. A fragment from a round had punched a hole in his pod shielding, took off most of his head.
After four days of on-and-off fighting, Turnham’s Cluster was declared a grand victory for the imperial forces. They’d lost thirty ships with all hands, while they estimated the enemy fleet had lost more than seventy. When York asked about survivors from the ships that had been destroyed, Straight shook her head and said, “Ten-megatonne transition torpedo blows just off a ship’s bow, there ain’t no survivors.”
They withdrew a few light-years, then down-transited in the middle of interstellar space. The most seriously wounded were transferred to a hospital ship, while those Dauntless’s medical staff could handle remained to be treated in her sick bay.
Since the gunners didn’t have anything to do, they were assigned to assist engineering on damage control. There was quite a bit of minor damage that needed repairing, and York spent several days crawling over Dauntless’s outer hull in a vac suit, became quite adept at moving about in zero-G.
Three days after the last engagement at Turnham’s Cluster, they buried the dead in space. For them, it’s over. For us, it goes on. York noticed that Durlling’s eyes were red and puffy, and when it was time to bury Stark, her eyes teared up. He asked Zamekis about it, and she told him that Durlling and Stark had been an item. Luckily, York and Sissy were on the same watch rotation, so they spent the nights together in York’s coffin.
That night they up-transited, headed back toward the central empire. York had gotten two kills at Turnham’s Cluster, and they cut another full chevron into his arm.
Chapter 14:
Party Time
“Did you hear?” Marko said as he strode into the lower deck bunk room.
Seated at a table, York, Zamekis, Sissy, and Durlling looked up from their card game. They’d all noticed the note of excitement in the older man’s voice.
“Hear what?” Zamekis asked.
Marko paused in the middle of the room as if he were about to make a momentous announcement. “I just heard our new orders.”
For some reason, Marko wanted to stretch out the delivery of his message dramatically.
“Out with it,” Sissy said.
Marko grinned. “We’re to head to Muirendan.”
“That’s inner empire,” Zamekis said.
Even York understood there must be more to it than that.
Durlling prompted Marko. “And …”
Marko’s grin broadened. “For an indefinite period of time, for repairs and major refitting.”
The three women jumped to their feet, whooped and shouted and slapped one another on the back. York asked, “What’s going on?”
Sissy turned toward him, closed the distance between them, wrapped her arms around his neck, and gave him a kiss that curled his toes. When they came up for air, she said, “We’ve been rotated back.”
York heard the muted sounds of other spacers elsewhere on the deck whooping and cheering. Apparently, going for refitting was good news that spread quickly.
“What’s that mean?”
Zamekis said, “When they use that wording, it means only one thing: We’re being taken off combat status.”
Marko said, “And they sent us to a nice, plush inner-empire world.”
Durlling slapped York’s back so hard he staggered. “We’ll be there for at least a year or two, maybe more. Light duty, no combat. While Dauntless is in orbit around Muirendan getting refitted, she’ll only need a skeleton crew.”
Sissy leaned close to York’s ear and whispered, “Let’s get an apartment off base. We’ll only have to come up to the ship for a day or two out of every ten, just to log some time in the sims to keep our skills up. We’ll have all the time in the world to just kick back and enjoy.”
“Everyone gets their turn,” Marko said. “That’s the way it’s always been, kid. We’ve been out here for close to five years. Now we get a couple off to relax and enjoy ourselves. It’s fair payback.”
Nothing on Dauntless changed immediately; they were too close to the front lines to ignore the ever-present danger of a feddie hunter-killer lying in wait, ready to put a big transition torpedo into the ship’s gut. But as they put more distance between them and that possibility, the entire crew grew almost festive. They still got up each watch and did their work, but after four days at two thousand lights they’d covered a little more than twenty light-years, and York noticed a decided difference in the collective mood of the crew.
Seated at a workbench in the lower deck supply room, York was assisting Marko and Straight at inventorying spare pod parts. They’d been at it for several hours: a necessary task, but tedious at best. They had about an hour left in the watch when he came up with a small discrepancy in the count of target designators.
York glanced over his shoulder, saw Marko standing at an open parts locker looking at a hand terminal. “Marko,” he said, standing. “I’m short one target designator.” He started toward the cabinet where the designators were stored. “I’ll have to do a physical count.”
York had only gone two paces when Marko said, “Hold on a moment, kid.”
York halted and turned toward the older man. Marko shouted, “Straight, can you come in here?”
Straight appeared in the door to the supply room’s inner office. “What do you need?”
“We came up short one designator. Kid’s going to have to do a physical count.”
“Shit,” she said, glancing at the clock above the hatch. “That’ll take a couple hours, and we’ve less than an hour left.” She looked at York, then at the clock again, considered it for a moment, then said to York, “Forget it, Ballin. We’ll do the count next watch.”
York couldn’t believe his ears. It was so out of character for Straight to show such flexibility. Under any other circumstance, she’d not care in the least that they’d have to work well beyond the end of their watch.
“Better yet,” Marko said. “It’s just one designator. Let’s just forget it, let the engineers handle it during refitting. They’ll write it off on a discrepancy report, and we’ll have a fully reconciled inventory when we have to go out again.”
York tensed, appalled that Marko would make such a suggestion. He waited for Straight to explode. But she shrugged and said, “That works for me.” She turned and disappeared through the door.
York noticed a lot of little things like that, and the deeper into the empire they traveled, the more frequently such small lapses in discipline occurred. Five nights later, the petty officer in charge of another gunner crew found two of his team quite drunk on contraband ’trate, a horrible breach of discipline while on ship. But inst
ead of turning them over to Zhako to be tossed in the brig, they spent one watch scrubbing decks.
York had long ago learned to adjust to the situation and not fight the inevitable. In any case, he’d never been so happy. He had friends, and his crewmates respected him for his skills as a gunner. He was one of the best, and somehow he’d found a future in this strange world he’d been dropped into. He had a simple set of rules to live by, regular food, and a comfortable place to sleep. And above all, there was Sissy; the two of them had such plans for the coming year.
After eighteen days under full drive, and a little more than a hundred light-years, Dauntless down-transited outside Muirendan’s nearspace.
As the sound of Muirendan Prime’s docking gantries coupling to Dauntless echoed through the ship’s hull, York examined his small bundle of meager possessions. Unlike the other spacers, he didn’t have any souvenirs or sentimental keepsakes; he’d come aboard with nothing but the clothes on his back and the manacles on his hands and legs. Now all he had was a couple of uniforms, a small personal reader he’d purchased from ship’s stores, and a few toiletries. He considered carefully what to take for his year on Muirendan, and decided to take it all. He didn’t make any attempt to fold the uniforms as he tossed them into a small duffel.
“Ballin.”
He recognized Straight’s voice, turned, and found her standing in the hatch to the bunk room. She hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Report to the captain’s office.”
His heart skipped a beat. “Did I do something wrong?”
She shook her head. “Not that I know of.”
York stopped by the marine barracks. “Here,” he said, handing Sissy his duffel.
She eyed him warily. “Where are you going?”
“I’m supposed to report to the captain’s office.”
“You do something wrong?”