Liam nodded his thanks to the brow’s mate and then stepped clear to take in the stores situation again. The forklift was shunting crates from the mountain to the three cargo doors, and the crew worked diligently to shuttle packages through the hull. But Liam had seen this process enough times to know that it was going to take more time than they had. Not a good way to bring a new crew together, he thought, missing their departure time. He watched as Sublieutenant Brown barked orders at her team of loaders, while Sublieutenant Templegrey simply stood and watched. Cadet Highcastle seemed to think it was a game he needed to win, and he shouted encouragement in that royal accent. Chief Sky simply stood back and watched, frowning over crossed arms. And Petty Officer Virtue ran between the crates on the jetty, scribbling marks on each one. None of them seemed in a hurry to take charge of the situation. So that left Liam.
Down the jetty, the first of the battleships was already departing. She released locks and drifted silently clear of the structure. A pair of tugs came alongside her smooth, massive form and nudged her up and away from the spar. A flash of thrust from her ion engines sent her gliding free into orbital space, and the first of her great masts—the top mast—began to unfold from the hull. It was a leisurely, elegant transformation—one that sailors rarely had the chance to see with the unaided eye. Liam stared, transfixed, as the bottom mast began to extend as well.
Standard Navy tactics were to deploy a squadron of ships whenever a Sectoid presence was detected, but the sheer number of vessels spotted by scouts had sent a ripple of concern through the admiralty. No one knew what the bugs were planning—when had Humans ever understood the motivations of this mysterious race?—but having Daring depart quietly as part of a group of much larger vessels was the perfect cover for her to slip away into the blackness unnoticed. They couldn’t afford to miss this window.
But more importantly, he thought as he stepped forward, this ship was not ever going to slip her berth late. Not while he was in charge. He stalked over to where Brown was still shouting orders at her surly crew, gripping her arm to silence her.
“Save your voice, Sublieutenant,” he said quietly to her, before grabbing the next sack and throwing it at the crewman who waited just inside the hold. The sack slammed into surprised arms, but Liam was already lifting the next box and heaving it across the open space. The sailors stared at him.
“That’s the sort of effort I want to see,” he said, loud enough for both Brown’s and Templegrey’s teams to hear. He picked up another sack and flung it at the now-ready sailor. “We have to slip this berth along with all our sister ships, and no one is going to wait for us. Now move!”
Behind him, Brown grabbed another sack and heaved it with all her might. It didn’t go as far as Liam’s toss, but another sailor stepped in to catch it and pass it along. Liam approached Templegrey’s team and watched as they leaped into motion. The highborn officer raised a delicate eyebrow to him, but he had no patience for courtly charms right now.
“Break a sweat,” he whispered to her, “or as many nails as you have to, but get this pile loaded.”
Real offense darkened her well-bred features, but she grabbed a metal box and tossed it to the nearest sailor.
“I have medical supplies in here,” she snapped to her crew, “so watch how we load them.”
Liam lingered for a moment, to ensure that she continued her work, then made his way aft to Highcastle. The cadet was smart enough to have already followed the example, his exquisite tunic cast aside and his long arms in constant motion as he helped load crates. But he was frowning darkly as he did it.
“I say,” Liam called out to this third team, “does anyone know any good working songs?”
Quietly, amid the clatter of moving stores, one of the sailors started to sing an old ditty about a gunner’s lover. Liam knew it well and he took up the strain as he settled next to Highcastle and started flinging boxes. It was a lower-deck favorite, and it had the perfect cadence for guiding the steady heave of gear. All around him, the sailors warmed to it and started to sing, their movements settling into the rhythm of the song.
Behind him, Liam heard Templegrey’s soprano voice suddenly ring out in the opening lines of a particularly bawdy song about a tavern wench. Her team took up the tune immediately, grins splitting their faces as they roared out the old classic with their classically trained officer.
Beyond, Liam could just make out Brown’s team breaking into steady song. The words were different at each cargo opening, but the cadence was identical and the old work songs did their magic. Stores flew through the bays. Liam stalked up to Chief Sky, who was still hanging back. Her expression had lightened, though, and she nodded approvingly at the XO.
“Nice work, sir.”
“I didn’t do it to impress you, Chief,” Liam growled. “Your job is to help out whichever team is falling behind. And by help out I actually mean fling stores, not just look mean.”
“Yes, sir,” she said quietly. He wondered if she was actually capable of not looking mean, but she moved to help shift a new pile of boxes that the forklift had just dumped next to Templegrey.
No, Liam thought to himself, taking a moment to survey the scene. We shall not fail. Not while I’m in charge.
Then, with a final glance to ensure Virtue had everything under control with her assignments, he moved to help Brown’s team.
Chapter 5
“This isn’t the way it’s done, sir.”
Liam smiled at the remark as he offered a glass of wine to Daring’s coxn. The ship had slipped her berth on time, and it had been an exhausted, sweaty, but happy crew who had cast off all lines and raised the masts of His Majesty’s Sailing Ship Daring for her new adventure. There were more surprises to come, Liam knew, but it was an excellent way to start.
Chief Petty Officer Butcher accepted the drink, but his expression remained uneasy. He glanced around the wardroom with a mixture of curiosity and distaste.
“Thirty years in space, sir, and I’ve never heard of this before.”
“We’ve never served on a ship quite like this one,” Liam replied as he handed the next glass to Chief Sky, “and we have to make a few adjustments.”
Butcher sipped his wine, his grim expression softening at the taste. “It’s just damned odd, sir.”
Throughout her years as a trials ship, Daring had undergone multiple reconfigurations, and it seemed little regard had been given to the demands of daily life in space for a regular ship of the fleet. Her propulsion space was larger than that of a normal frigate, with numerous direct access tunnels carved to weapons systems and storage bays from there. Several sections of the interior layout had simply been removed to accommodate these changes, one of which was the senior-hands mess. Which meant the room where the senior sailors might once have gone to relax and take their meals simply didn’t exist. The only alternatives were the wardroom, where the officers ate, or the junior-hands mess.
“I suspect that this will be preferable to having you dine with the crew.”
“Yes, sir. But I understand that everyone is on a first-name basis in here . . .”
“We’ll suspend that custom, Coxn. Working titles are fine.”
Chief Sky tugged at her starched, high collar. Her dress uniform looked about as pristine as Butcher’s did. “And dressing for parade every evening, sir?” she asked.
“Once a week only, Chief. Otherwise duty uniforms.”
Daring’s two senior sailors glanced at each other and a silent communication seemed to pass between them. Chief Butcher turned back to Liam.
“Thank you for making us welcome in your mess, sir.”
“It’s our mess, Coxn, officers and senior hands. The wardroom will now be known as the senior mess.” He indicated for them to begin mingling.
Sublieutenants Brown and Templegrey had already been briefed to be on their best behavior, and they greeted the approaching sailors with welcoming smiles. Templegrey even held up her hands for Liam’s inspection.
<
br /> “Not a single nail broken, sir,” she said, a mischievous smile playing across her lips.
Liam took her hand and kissed it in the courtly manner. He nodded to both her and Brown. “Fine work today, both of you.”
“All just a bunch of lollygagging,” Lieutenant Swift drawled as he joined them, “while we did the real work.”
A chorus of good-natured protests from the sublieutenants was met by an expression of supreme indifference. Lieutenant Swift wasn’t quite as refined as some, but Liam was confident that his chief propulsor’s grounded, no-nonsense style would play well in this crowd.
Standing stiffly on the far side of the room, Cadet Highcastle watched the interactions with a mixture of curiosity and distaste. His own dress uniform was impeccably tailored and he seemed perfectly at ease with the formality, but applying the practical niceties of hospitality seemed quite foreign to him. Liam turned to the steward manning the bar and told him to refresh Highcastle’s drink. Liam knew from long experience that alcohol was an excellent lubricator in any social situation, and he suspected that this evening would require a fair amount all around.
Only one member of this new, combined mess had yet to arrive. Liam began to wonder if she’d realized that she was invited, or whether long habit had steered her down to the junior mess, to which she would have belonged only days ago.
As if in answer to his thoughts, the wardroom door opened and Petty Officer Virtue slipped in, eyes wide and collar awry. All chatter stopped, and Liam saw every gaze fix on the new arrival. Virtue froze in the doorway, looking for a moment like she might bolt right back out again. Her gaze flicked from one senior person to another. Then, in an impressive effort of will, she stepped forward and spoke in a loud, steady voice.
“Petty Officer Virtue reporting, sir.”
Liam couldn’t contain his chuckle, and he heard the chorus of guffaws behind him, mixed with scattered applause. He took a glass of wine from the steward and walked over to her.
“Welcome, Quartermaster,” he said, offering her the glass.
She took it, clearly unsure at the reaction to her arrival.
“This is your mess now, Amelia,” he said. “This is your home, and you’re always welcome here. No need to report.”
Chief Sky stepped forward, reaching to straighten Virtue’s collar. “We don’t actually bite,” she said. “And in here we don’t even bark that much.”
Virtue’s expression shifted from uncertainty to relief, until a smile finally broke through. Guided by Sky, she walked forward into the welcoming crowd. Liam hung back, amazed at how the ice had been broken. Butcher compared his dress uniform to hers, obviously noting wear and tear. Templegrey made a show of flexing her bicep, no doubt in reference to their conversation on the jetty earlier. Even Highcastle detached himself from the far bulkhead and joined the group.
After another round of drinks and conversation, dinner was served. Liam took the executive officer’s customary seat at the head of the table, and offered the seat at the opposite end to Chief Butcher as a courtesy to the ship’s senior sailor. Highcastle, he noticed, was the first to move after that, securing himself the seat to Liam’s right. Swift, the most senior officer after Liam, took one of the seats nearest the coxn in a good show of welcome. Sky and Virtue took opposite seats at the center of the table. Liam made a subtle gesture for Templegrey to take the seat to his left, opposite Highcastle, leaving Brown to sit with Butcher and Swift.
He hadn’t actually planned it, but Liam admired how the seating had resolved itself. The coxn would feel honored by the senior lieutenant’s presence, but would also have an easier conversation over dinner with the commoners Swift and Brown to chat with. Highcastle was close to hand in case Liam needed to shut him up, and Templegrey was right there to carry on topics of aristocratic interest if the lordling couldn’t debase himself to speak on general topics.
Dinner on the first night out was always a decadent affair. The stewards had arranged the Imperial silver down the center of the table—the ship having been in commission so long that the silver was stamped with the seal of the Emperor’s late father. Full, multicourse place settings crowded the smooth, wooden surface. Liam watched in approval as Swift and Brown subtly indicated to Virtue, Sky, and Butcher which knife, fork, spoon, or glass was required. It even became some sort of game between Brown and Virtue in particular, and by the third course waves of giggles were occasionally erupting from midtable.
With no shortage of fresh food, the cooks were able to indulge; over three courses of excellent fare, and at least as many courses of wine, Liam watched as the senior personnel of the warship Daring began the essential process of bonding into a unit. Indeed, this would be the last time all eight of them would sit at this table together, and the reason for this unusual circumstance kept him watching the time very closely.
Sooner than he would have liked, he rose to his feet and motioned for quiet. All eyes turned to him. Some of those eyes were quite glassy, he noted with satisfaction.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the warship Daring, it is an honor to sail with you. I’m pleased to have this unique opportunity to speak to the entire senior staff while in space—a fact made possible only through the generosity of the captain, who has for the past two hours been acting as officer of the watch on the bridge. Never before have I seen such a gesture, and I think that Her Ladyship Commander Riverton has set through personal example the kind of ship she intends to command. As her senior personnel, we are expected to be selfless, to be tireless, and to put our crew before ourselves.”
“Hear, hear,” echoed the coxn.
“And before we dispatch Sublieutenant Templegrey to assume the watch from our commanding officer,” Liam continued, “it is my privilege to reveal to all of you the true purpose of Daring’s mission. We are not, as officially announced, conducting routine trials of a new damage-control system. And this ship is not, as officially scribed in Navy records, on reserve duty and designated a noncombatant.”
He let his eyes wander across the seven intent faces staring back up at him. Joviality had been replaced by keen interest. He reached to the shelf behind his chair and recovered a strongbox. Placing it on the table, he removed the paper upon which their orders were written, with the Imperial seal clearly affixed at the bottom.
“Our mission is to search out and destroy the pirate threat in the Silica system. We are to pose as a civilian merchantman in order to gain intelligence, discover how and where the pirates are operating, and terminate those operations.”
He spent the next few minutes providing more specific details of how they were going to conduct the mission, internally delighted by the new life he saw in their faces as he spoke.
“We’re going to be operating outside of the regular Navy,” he finished. “We are, in effect, a one-ship force with a free hand to do what’s necessary to accomplish our mission. If we need supplies, we’ll have to requisition them ourselves, but it also means we get to keep whatever we take. And share it among ourselves.”
The coxn stared back at him. “Does that mean what I think it means, sir? Because I haven’t seen that sort of arrangement since . . . well, not since I was an able rating.”
“Yes. It means prize money. According to the traditional split, that will mean two-eighths to the captain, one-eighth to the XO, two-eighths divided among the commissioned officers, one-eighth divided among the other members of the senior mess”—he indicated Butcher, Sky, Virtue, and Highcastle—“one-eighth divided among the crew, and one-eighth to the senior officer who ordered this mission. We are assuming tremendous risk, and thus the Emperor himself has approved of this method of compensation.”
Before the celebrating began, he continued briskly. “But war with the Sectoids is near, and we need to accomplish our mission and destroy the pirate threat and clear the supply lines for the Navy.” He paused, wanting to convey the importance of his next words: “If we don’t, then our fleet will be unsupported and at risk. And we’ll ev
entually be seen as skulkers who contributed nothing and hid from the fight. If we fail, the Emperor will deny all support to us and we’ll be hunted down by our own Navy.”
Silence fell around the table, each person absorbing these new facts. Among all the commoners—Butcher, Sky, Swift, Brown, and Virtue—he saw a fire of excitement, lit by the possibility of riches they would never have dreamed of. On his left and right, though, the pair of aristocrats looked far more thoughtful.
“This mission is from the Emperor himself,” Templegrey mused as she ran her fingers across the seal on their orders. Her vivid blue eyes lifted to meet Liam’s. “If we succeed, we’re protected from the very top?”
“Yes, we are.”
She nodded, sitting back and folding her arms.
“Well then,” Highcastle suddenly exclaimed with a grin, “let’s hunt down these pirate scum and give them what for!”
His youthful exuberance broke the tension, and the table erupted in laughter again. Liam glanced at the clock again and realized that it was time for Templegrey to relieve the captain on the bridge.
“Ms. Brown,” he said as he retrieved his wineglass, “the toast of the day, if you please.”
Brown rose to her feet, her face alight. Liam didn’t think he’d ever seen her looking so happy.
“On this, our first day in space,” she said, “I offer a toast to the health and long life of His Majesty, the Emperor.”
The officers immediately raised their glasses in return, followed quickly by the senior sailors. Several calls of “the Emperor” echoed around the table.
Templegrey made her exit immediately after the toast, and Butcher and Sky made their farewells shortly after, Virtue following their lead with some obvious reluctance. Brown stayed long enough to finish her drink, but then announced that she had the middle watch and was headed for her rack. Liam reminded Highcastle that he was paired with Brown, and suggested that he would be well served by going to bed as well. Within ten minutes of the toast, it was only Liam and Swift still seated at the table.
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