The Mutineer's Daughter

by Chris Kennedy

  Palmer lowered his pistol, his expression shifting between interest and rage. He kept his eyes on the crew. Ashton stopped moving toward him and caught OPS looking at her, his expression one of disgust.

  Benno continued. “Puller crew, I am a traitor and a mutineer. I escaped from the brig and moved to take this ship for my own purposes. I deserve the execution that inevitably awaits me when this is over. But I want you to know why. I want you to ask yourself, ‘What would I have done?’ ‘What should I do next?’ I can’t answer for you, but before you take up arms again, either for the Alliance or for me, I ask that you listen, and decide for yourself if you’re sure they’re not both the same thing.

  “We all know about the Lost Six, our homestead worlds seized by the Terran Union while we engaged in this major offensive into Turd territory. My family is on one of those worlds. Many of you know this. Many of you have been affected in the same way. But what you may not know is why I was thrown into the brig and likely sentenced to death. I discovered our six worlds were knowingly given up by the Alliance military. The Navy abandoned them on purpose and pulled back their patrols to defend high-value aristo real estate. And rather than detail a task force to free them now, the decision was made to cede them to the Terrans until some point when we accomplish whatever the hell our raids are supposed to accomplish here.”

  At that, several of the crew bristled. They looked at the three senior officers in front of them, searching their faces for some sign of denial or confirmation. What they saw appeared to fill each of them with varying degrees of dismay, anger, or pity, depending on the person. Even the young Officer of the Deck looked sick.

  The CO let his gun hand drop to his side.

  “Puller crew: officer, chief, or enlisted tech, I’m not asking that anyone follow me into treason or mutiny. But if you feel as I do, that the ALS’s actions betray our oath and the principles of our Alliance, I ask that you allow me and the others affected, those who demand action, to take this ship. My intention is to take the Puller, maintain a front of loyalty until repairs and reload are complete, then depart the fleet and make our way to the Lost Six. There, we will work to free our worlds from Terran aggression and see to our families’ welfare. After that, assuming we survive, I will surrender myself to the Alliance Navy and alone accept responsibility for these acts. If you go back to the Navy, I will swear you were a loyalist, forced to act against your will. And if you want to go home, I will have records made, certifying your deaths in combat.”

  Palmer snarled at the crew on the bridge. “Don’t you fucking believe it! If you join him, you will surely hang! There is no court-martial that will ever believe his word or those records. If you become a traitor, you shall be known Alliance-wide for your cowardice.”

  “We have taken Engineering, Comms Central, the hangar, the armory, CSMC, and CIC. The network is ours. The Puller is ours. I ask that you search your hearts and decide if the Alliance, in its current state, is worthy of your blood. Or, do you believe the Alliance is more than its current misguided policies and illegal orders? Please, lay down your arms and allow us to defend our homes. Even if you won’t fight for us, please don’t fight against us. Don’t fight your own shipmates and countrymen, not over honor versus duty, when the path of neither is clear. Please.”

  The announcing circuit cut off, followed immediately by a pounding on the door from the outside. Palmer whirled around to face the door, his pistol sweeping over them. “Who is it? Who’s out there, Ensign?”

  The OOD carefully moved to the door, wary of the CO’s wild aim. She looked through the porthole, but someone had blocked the view. All she could do was look back at the CO and shrug.

  Palmer’s face grew red. He screamed, “You’ll never take this ship! The fleet will figure out what you’ve done, and they’ll blow her to atoms!”

  Benno’s voice sounded, muffled, from the other side. If he was in CIC before, he must have made his announcement on the general announcing circuit from his personal comm on his way up. “None of us wants anyone to die, Captain. There have been some deaths and injuries on both sides, but very few. It’s almost a bloodless coup, because nearly everyone but you has figured out the Navy is wrong on this one. Please, sir, surrender and unseal the bridge. If we have to, we’ll cut off your air, then cut off the door. Don’t make us.”

  Palmer looked around wildly and even took a step away from the XO. “Not a chance! You take our air away, and you risk murdering your compatriots.”

  “I don’t have anyone on the bridge, sir. Please. Those people are innocent.”

  Palmer laughed. “I haven’t taken you for a fool, Sanchez. Don’t assume I’m one! You wouldn’t kick off a mutiny without a contact on the bridge. Which of these worthless traitors is yours?”

  “No one. This was far more by-the-seat-of-our-pants than you might think. Time was of the essence. There’s a great deal of discontent aboard, sir, or we wouldn’t have made it this far, but that doesn’t mean traitors fill your ship. If anything, it’s just the opposite. I’d say this crew is filled with patriots; patriots pushed too far, asked to accept too much. Your crew only needed a bit of convincing to do the unthinkable in the face of illegal orders and an indifferent chain of command.” Sanchez’s voice was louder now, as if he was right up against the door. The captain’s aim settled on it, and his trigger finger twitched. If a ship-safe round could have penetrated the armored hatch, Ashton guessed the CO might have tried for a shot.

  “You tell yourself whatever you damn well please, whatever your conscience requires. But I’ll be damned if I’ll let you and your rabble take this bridge!”

  Instead of wasting a round on the bridge door, CDR Palmer swept his gun to the opposite side where he had corralled the crew against the bulkhead. He settled the pistol on the cowering, young form of the helmsman, Petty Officer Third Class Kassem. “When you know what’s right and wrong, all you need is the courage to act.”

  He pulled the trigger. The crack of the pistol rendered everything else into a shocked silence, broken only when Malik Kassem sputtered blood and spasmed up off the deck. He thrashed in midair, spewing blood outward in a dozen lazy arcs toward the bulkheads.

  No longer caring about their own safety, several of the crew acted. Those closest grabbed Kassem to stabilize him and assess the wet hole in his chest.

  Palmer’s eyes and his aim were wild, switching from target to target with no discrimination. “Let him go! Let that little pleb traitor die! You help him, and you’ll be ne—”

  His voice cut off mid-rant as Amanda Ashton grabbed the wrist of his hand holding the pistol and jerked it toward the deck. Palmer grappled with her, but neither had any leverage in the low spin. They left the deck and bounced about the bridge.

  Behind them, the crew not seeing to Kassem scrambled. If they had been uncertain about which side they stood on in the mutiny, the captain’s executive action had decided for them. They rushed OPS and the OOD. Fighting in low-g was a different sort of exercise than what instinct advised, and none but Marines and Masters at Arms received more than a smattering of training. But it was still four on two, and only Johnson honestly resisted. They had the pair of them secured in less than a minute, then turned their attention to the scramble between the CO and XO.

  Amanda had Palmer’s arm pinned behind his back and her legs braced between a seat and the bulkhead. Palmer could only flail though he was stronger than her. The pistol bounced freely through the middle of the space.

  They all felt a short pulse of pressure as someone unsealed the hatch and swung it open. Benno Sanchez led a team of six chiefs and petty officers—all armed with ship-safe carbines—onto the bridge. Benno’s rifle was slung across his shoulders, and a pistol rested in a holster on his hip. He looked around the space, nodding at the sailors holding the hatch, those who had secured Ensign Csubak and LCDR Johnson, and those who labored in vain to save the doomed Petty Officer Kassem. Benno finally looked at Ashton and Palmer.

  He pushed fur
ther into the space and jumped directly at the captain’s pistol, snatching it from midair. He looked at the XO, holding the CO down and assisting their mutiny, whether that had been her intent or not. His expression inscrutable, Benno turned his gaze and attention to Palmer.

  The CO sputtered. “Give up! End this mutiny before it goes too far, and I promise you you’ll only receive life in prison. None of your compatriots need to die. None of your families need to suffer for your mistakes. I give you my word!”

  Benno’s face turned bright red. “Your word? Is that the same word the Alliance gave me when I joined? The one that said it valued me and mine? The one that said we were citizens just like any other, not just cannon fodder for aristos? The same one that gave up on our families and told us to ‘suck it up’ when we took issue with it?”

  Palmer said nothing.

  “Commander Palmer, you are at this moment relieved of your command for violations of articles 81, 88, 93, 118, 133, and 134 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.”

  “You dare quote statutes at me, you mutineering piece of shit!”

  “We are taking this vessel in honor of all the abandoned souls on the Lost Six. I’m taking your ship in my daughter’s name, for Mio Elizabeta Sanchez, and you deserve all hell holds for you.” Benno brought the pistol to bear and—with no pause whatsoever—shot Palmer in the chest. The captain spasmed and stilled after a few weak jerks. Amanda Ashton stared at the body in her hands, not feeling the blood that now spattered her face and arms.

  OPS cried out. “Damn you, you pleb bas—”

  Benno turned and shot Craig Johnson in the head. The three technicians holding him in place jumped back, shocked and worried.

  Benno looked back at CDR Ashton, his face no more troubled than if he had squashed a pair of bugs. Out-of-touch aristos or not, assholes or not, the XO didn’t think they’d deserved to die. She wondered what that meant for her and the rest of the wardroom.

  She took a deep, cleansing breath, just in case it was her last. “Well, Benno, the Puller is yours, if you can keep her. What next?”

  The look of cold resolution on Benno’s face remained, but she could see hints of uncertainty and incipient panic cast the first shadows of doubt.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Eight: Mio

  “Hey Mio,” Dan said as he passed by, “there’s going to be a meeting of everyone in the assembly area. Finish what you’re doing there and come on over.”

  Mio looked down at the soapy water in distaste. Since she’d joined up, her only contributions to the cause had been washing dishes and toting water. While the older men and women planned, she washed dishes. When they went on reconnaissance missions, she hauled water from the nearby stream.

  She was completely unenthused with her lot in life.

  It was the Rogers’ house all over again. She wanted to help and knew she could do more than she was allowed, but she was never given the chance because she was ‘just a girl.’ While Jimmy had operated the tractors, she did dishes. When will someone take me seriously?

  She hurriedly dried off the last knife and went to join the group. Although she had met everyone, it was the first time she had seen them all in one place, and it gave her hope—they had almost 100 people; they ought to be able to do something big to the Terrans with that many folks.

  The same five people who had interviewed her when she was brought to camp were talking in a knot at the center of the group. Although she saw most of the resistance people daily, she realized she hadn’t seen any of them since the day she arrived.

  “Who are those people in the center?” Mio whispered to Dan.

  “They are our leadership council,” Dan whispered back. “The man in the center and the tall woman are from First Landing; that’s all I know about them. The others are local farmers.”

  Before he could say any more, the man in the center stepped toward the assembled group and raised his voice. “If I could have everyone’s attention!” he yelled.

  The condescending tone of voice and accent confirmed what Mio already knew. Aristo.

  “I don’t have a lot of time here today,” the man continued, pitching his voice so the crowd could hear him. “My name is Fernando Garcia, and I am from First Landing.”

  “Big surprise,” Mio heard someone mutter. Apparently, she wasn’t the only person who didn’t like aristos.

  “With me today are Tim Miller, Ben Santiago, Ashley Beaufort, and Louisa Decker. Together, we are your ruling council.”

  “Rulers, eh?” A man in the back yelled. “Well, I didn’t vote fer you!”

  “No, you did not,” Garcia replied. “Perhaps there will be time in the future for voting, but for now, we are the ones with the talent and resources necessary to lead the resistance. The other members of the council have military service time under their belts, and I bring the connections and financing required to make it happen.” He pointed to the pallets of meal packets. “Do you like eating those military meals?”

  “Hell, no!” the man in the back yelled back, eliciting several chuckles from the group. “That stuff tastes like crap!”

  “Well, it beats an empty stomach,” Garcia replied.

  “Not by much.”

  “Regardless,” Garcia said, his eyes sweeping the group, “it is food, and it is better than having to live off the land, especially after the Terrans laid waste to our crops. I purchased those packets and got them here with my resources. I also made sure the transaction was wiped out of the books, so no one would come looking for them. Because I am providing for the group, I will continue speaking for the group. After our current…situation…has been taken care of, there will be time to do things more democratically.”

  He paused to see if the heckler had anything else to say; when the man was silent, Garcia continued, “We are here today to discuss our goals and plans for the campaign. Ashley Beaufort is our head military planner. Ashley?”

  The tall woman stepped to the front, and Garcia stepped back.

  “Good afternoon,” Beaufort said.

  Mio could hear the same tone and condescending attitude in her voice, but it was less noticeable. She had obviously been off-planet, probably for a long period of time.

  “Guerilla campaigns are some of the hardest ones to wage successfully,” Beaufort said. “Usually, the insurgents are under-equipped or under-manned, which is why they are guerillas in the first place. Our situation is consistent with this in that the Terrans can bring more power to bear on us than we will ever be able to bring on them. Their destroyer in orbit is out of our reach and is a sword of Damocles hanging over our heads.”

  Mio nudged Dan. “Whose sword is hanging over us?”

  “It’s just an expression that means you can’t be happy if there is something you fear always hanging over you. In this case, quite literally.”

  “I’m sure you’re wondering why we should even fight back,” Beaufort continued. “If we can’t get to the destroyer that can obliterate us if we make the Terrans angry, why should we take the chance of being annihilated? There are several reasons I believe this to be the best course of action. First, help will arrive at some point in the future. When it does, we want to be in a position to assist them in retaking our planet, and hopefully we will have weakened the Terran force enough so our forces can be victorious. The only way this will happen is if we continue the struggle against our oppressors.

  “Second, it is possible that if we bleed them enough, we may actually hurt them enough so that they leave on their own. Let’s face it, they only have a destroyer in orbit, so the number of people they have available isn’t overwhelming. If we continue to whittle them down, they may decide it isn’t worthwhile to continue their occupation, and they may leave on their own.”

  “Yeah? And what if they decide to bomb us before they go?” the man in the back shouted.

  “I’m not going to lie to you,” Beaufort replied. “That is always a possibility, as is the chance that if they find out where we are,
they may well start dropping rounds on us. In fact, I can guarantee they will kill every member of the resistance they find.”

  “Kill us?” a woman holding a baby asked. “Don’t you mean capture us?”

  “No, I mean they will kill us. All of us, if they find us.”

  “How do you know that?” the woman asked.

  “It’s what I would do if our roles were reversed,” Beaufort replied. “It’s what I have done.”

  Beaufort gave the statement a moment to sink in, and a hush went over the crowd as the gravity of their situation was brought home to them. Although her time in camp had seemed like a game, even if it wasn’t a very fun one, Mio was forced to consider the seriousness of their venture.

  “Now, having said that,” Beaufort continued, “there’s nothing to say they won’t kill us all when they leave anyway. The longer a war goes on, the worse the atrocities seem to get. That’s why I left the military and came here to retire; I wanted to get away from it.”

  “And now it’s followed you here,” someone up front said.

  “It has,” Beaufort confirmed. “But I, for one, don’t intend to take this lying down. This is my planet we’re talking about. It’s our planet, and I don’t intend to give it up easily. I intend to fight!” Mio could see the woman was breathing hard, her eyes fierce.

  The other woman stepped forward and put a hand on Beaufort’s shoulder. “We’re all here to fight,” she said. “You don’t have to convince us to join; we already have.” She paused a second then continued, “You mentioned three reasons. Why don’t you tell them the third?”

  Beaufort took a deep breath and blew it out. “Right. The third reason is my favorite of all. We have enough talent in the resistance groups that I think it may even be possible to go for the big win.”

  “What’s that?” asked someone in the first row.

  “I’m glad you asked,” Beaufort said. “We’ve got leaders and we’ve got fighters, but better yet, we have several people that can fly shuttles.” A feral grin suffused her face. “If we do this right, maybe we can take the fight to them.”