The packet made fast to Shrewsbury’s starboard side, matched docking tubes, and passed along its messages.
Eades quickly closeted himself with Courtemanche; there’d apparently been some last minute priority instructions for him aboard the packet.
All through Shrewsbury’s wardroom, the officers’ tablets pinged as messages were processed through Shrewsbury’s system and delivered. Alexis felt a moment’s anxiety, as she had ever since her time on Hermione.
On that ship one of the midshipmen had placed a filter in the messaging system that had prevented any of her messages from being sent or delivered. She knew that Shrewsbury — that most ships, even — was far different than Hermione had been, but the experience had still left her with scars.
Scars on mind and body, she thought, as her own tablet pinged and she felt her body release the tension.
She worried every time Shrewsbury’s messages caught up with them that hers were going astray again. Sometimes, not always, certainly, but sometimes, when Captain Euell ordered a change in Shrewsbury’s sails, she would tense, waiting to hear the echo of Hermione’s captain call out, “And flog the last man down from the yards!”
The scars on her back, where that same Captain Neals had ordered her flogged, had healed well. Shrewsbury’s surgeon had even performed some work on them that had eased the tightness when she stretched too far. They were still visible — thin, white traces across her skin, some of them raised — but bothered her little.
I could wish my mind had healed so completely. Living in constant fear for near six months leaves a mark as deep as any lash.
She scanned through her messages quickly. There were several from her grandfather back on Dalthus and she opened the last of these, relieved to read his first words assuring her that everyone was well.
That was the most important thing, and she’d read them in detail at her leisure. She hoped there might be word of his attempts to gain support for changing Dalthus’ inheritance laws to allow her to inherit his lands, but the situation was unlikely to have changed from the last she’d heard. It was a slow process, trying to garner support first to place an amendment to the colony’s charter on the ballot for the next conclave of the settlers, then trying to get enough votes to pass it.
There was a message from Mister Grandy, the solicitor she’d consulted with in the Penduli system about Isom’s situation. Isom had been a legal clerk and was taken up by the Impress Service. Thrown aboard ship with no knowledge of the Navy and with a still-bleeding tattoo to “prove” he was a spacer. With Shrewsbury not only away from Penduli but about to leave New London space entirely, there was little Grandy could do about the matter, though he was still trying to get Isom’s impressment records sent to him.
Alexis was somewhat surprised at Isom’s attitude toward the whole matter. He seemed to have given up on any hope of challenging his impressment and become resigned to being aboard Shrewsbury.
“Passing the word for Lieutenant Carew,” Midshipman Slayden called from the wardroom hatch. “Lieutenant Carew, sir?”
Alexis looked up from her tablet and realized that she’d been lost in thought for some time and not looking at her messages at all. In fact, she’d not fully read a single one.
“Yes, Mister Slayden?”
“That Mister Eades is asking for you, sir,” Slayden said.
Alexis sighed. “Of course he is. Thank you, Slayden.”
She made her way to Eades’ cabin and knocked, entering at Eades’ shout of acknowledgment from within.
“Come in, come in,” Eades called.
He and Courtemanche were hunched over the table in their day cabin. The table’s surface displayed a star map and several messages. Courtemanche was frowning and running his fingers over several systems, measuring distances.
“Come over here, Carew,” Eades said, not taking his eyes from the table. “Look here, we’ve just received word of the forces being assembled for our efforts.”
Alexis approached the table. She could make out the worlds of the Berry March highlighted on the starmap. Eades tapped a system quite near the border.
“Here at Alchiba,” he said. “A fleet of forty warships and over a hundred transports.”
“Sixty thousands of men,” Courtemanche said, grinning widely, “cavalry, air … all that will be needed.”
Alexis frowned. “Should you be telling me this, sirs?”
Eades waved his hand in the air. “It isn’t as though the Hanoverese could have a spy aboard this ship, Carew. Just don’t you go blabbing it about.”
Alexis ignored that, concentrating instead on what Eades had said of the forces being assembled. “Did you say only a hundred transports?” The transports would be smaller than Shrewsbury and, though they’d have a smaller crew as well, wouldn’t be able to transport nearly as many men. She thought the usual number was to place three hundred men aboard a troop transport and had no idea how much space these cavalry or air forces would require.
“I’m assured its enough. Possibly more than one round-trip required,” Eades said. “Top men were involved in this planning. Top men. In any case —”
He was interrupted by the sound of bosun’s pipes over the ship’s speakers, followed quickly by the drum signaling that they beat to quarters.
Eades frowned. “Isn’t that what they played just before we attacked the Hanoverese frigate?”
“It is,” Alexis said, “but this will be only a drill. Captain Euell said that he wished to exercise the guns as soon as that packet was off with our dispatches.”
“Hmph. And I suppose you must join the rest of the crew for this nonsense?”
Alexis tried to keep her face impassive and not smile. In truth the opportunity to exercise the guns again thrilled her and that it interrupted more of Eades’ company was a pleasant bonus.
“I’m afraid so, sir,” she said. “If you’ll excuse me?”
Chapter 7
“Ready forward!”
Alexis peered through the nearest gunport at the short tube of hull material Shrewsbury would use as a target for gunnery drill. It was being towed on a long line by the captured Hanoverese frigate. As she waited for the aft guns to be ready, bolts of light flew toward the target from the main gundeck, blasting great holes in the target.
“Read … ready aft!”
“Fire!” Alexis called almost immediately.
Captain Euell had set the decks in competition against each other for this drill, and they weren’t so far behind that they couldn’t catch up, if only Artley and his teams would speed things along a bit.
Alexis stepped back and watched the teams working to reload. Forward the work went as efficiently as she could hope, but the aft guncrews were frequently in disarray. Loaders found themselves having to check their pace on the way to the breech, gun captains found access to their gun’s breech blocked, men examining the barrels were jostled out of position and forced to begin again, and all, as nearly as Alexis could tell, a result of Midshipman Artley placing himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.
How on earth can a single boy find himself under so many feet?
“Mister Artley!” she called. “Stand clear of the guns unless your assistance is required!”
She turned to the fore guns as Artley’s “Aye, sir!” crackled over her suit radio. Walborn’s crews were moving with the smooth motions she’d come to expect. The more senior midshipman stayed out of his crews’ way, stepping in only when needed and knowing where to stand so that he’d not impede their work.
Captain Euell had taken advantage of the last merchantmen departing to exercise Shrewsbury’s guns on a daily basis, and Artley should have gained the knack of at least staying out of the way by now.
“Ready forward!”
Alexis peered out through the nearest port. Shot flashed from the main gundeck below to strike the target.
“Ready a-aft!”
“Fire!”
Her deck was a full ten or more seconds behind
the others now. She had a sudden urge to rub her forehead at the frustration of it, stopped only by the helmet of her vacsuit.
Shouts of alarm sounded over the radio. Alexis drew back from the port and looked around, then rushed aft as she saw the crowd of spacers around the eleven gun struggling with something. She couldn’t make out what was wrong until she got there; the shouts ran over each other.
She shoved her way through the crowd of men from the other guns and found Artley. The eleven gun’s captain and crew were struggling to free the gun’s breech where the sleeve of Artley’s vacsuit was caught. A jet of vapor streamed from his suit where the breech torn it, and Artley was struggling to pull himself free. As she watched, his struggles lessened and the jet of vapor trailed off. At first, Alexis thought that his suit had finally sealed against the tear and he had calmed as his suit reaired, but then saw his right hand go to his helmet’s collar.
“No!” Alexis leapt forward and grabbed his arm before he could release his helmet.
Something must have gone wrong with his suit and it hadn’t sealed. Artley was out of air and trying to remove the helmet, not caring in his desperation that the entire deck was in vacuum. One of the spacers grasped Artley’s upper arm and pressed tightly, trying to keep any remaining air in the suit. Artley’s struggles against Alexis’ grip on his arm continued.
The gun captain grabbed a discarded shot canister and slammed it against the breech, which moved just enough to free Artley’s suit.
As he was freed, the surrounding spacers grabbed his limp form and rushed him to the aft companionway’s airlock. One of them had a roll of vacsuit repair tape out and was winding it around Artley’s arm, but Alexis could see that it would do no good — the rest of Artley’s suit was limp and unaired.
Alexis rose and rushed after them, sliding inside just as the hatch shut and keying her radio.
“We’ve a decompression on the upper gundeck! Mister Castell to the aft companionway!”
She clenched her teeth as she waited for the lock to cycle. Surely the boy would be all right. She tried to think of how long it had been since the last of the air jetted from Artley’s suit and how long it had taken to get him to the airlock. It couldn’t have been more than thirty seconds in total that he’d been in vacuum.
Castell, Shrewsbury’s surgeon, met them as they descended the ladder to the orlop deck and his surgery. Alexis followed, but once on the orlop Castell’s mates rushed Artley into a compartment and shut the door behind. Alexis and the men from the gundeck were left standing outside.
Alexis pulled Caris, the gun crew’s captain aside.
“Did you see how this happened?”
“Saw the what, not sure as to how,” Caris said. “We was rushin’ and the breech stuck some. That gun does a’times. Have to slam it, forceful like. So we slams it shut and Mister Artley he goes to stand, but he jerks halfway up. Like he’s held down, you see? But then he throws his other arm and shouts ‘Ready aft’, only stuttering as the lad’s wont to do when he’s nervous. So then you yells fire an’ he yells fire an’ it’s only then that I sees his suit’s all caught in the breech, but it’s too late, you understand, a’cause of I’ve already slammed down on the button and all.”
Alexis winced. Artley must have known his suit was caught in the breech and called ready regardless. She shook her head. There was a constant demand for faster and faster broadsides in gun drills in preparation for real actions. Two ships might be evenly matched in their number and weight of guns, but the one that could fire faster and more accurately had the decided advantage. A smaller, even much smaller, ship could defeat a larger one if her gunnery was sufficiently better. Still, Artley should not have taken the risk — perhaps in a real action it might have been worth the chance that his suit wouldn’t be damaged, but certainly not in a drill.
“You did well getting him down here so quickly, Caris.” Alexis squeezed his shoulder. “You and the lads go on up and help set things right after the drill. I’ll wait here and send you word as soon as there is any.”
“Aye sir.” He gestured to the others of the guncrew who’d gathered. “He’s a … well, he’s a likable enough lad, he is.”
Alexis watched the men file out of the sick berth.
Aye, ‘likeable’. Not ‘a good lad’, nor a ‘promising’ one, nor even ‘likely’, which says much about how the crew sees him — and I can’t much argue myself.
Chapter 8
“A bad bit of business, Carew. Will the boy be all right?”
Alexis joined Nesbit at the wardroom table and nodded thanks as Isom set a glass of bourbon before her without her having to ask — he must have suspected that she’d want more than wine. She took a sip and rubbed her forehead.
“Castell says he will be,” she said. “I’ve just been to see the captain and report. Artley’s resting now, but should be up and about by the end of the watch. He started breathing on his own before we’d even got him to the orlop and Castell says that’s a good sign. He’s dreadfully swollen, though that should be gone by the end of the watch as well.”
“Swollen?” Nesbit asked. “How so?”
Alexis grimaced. A vacsuit’s liner was designed to fit snugly, keeping everything but one’s face safe from swelling in the event of decompression.
“His suit liner was as ill-fitting as the suit itself.” Alexis took another drink. “All but useless. Whoever fitted him out for his kit did a criminal job of it. Aside from the size, the suit itself is substandard. It’s naught but what one would expect in some ferry’s emergency locker, there for show and good for little else.”
Nesbit frowned. “Why would his family send him off so ill-equipped?”
“I’ve no idea, but the suit failed to seal at all — neither at the tear nor the emergency seals farther up his arm — and so all of his air simply vented.”
“Why was he near the gun’s breech to begin with?”
“Who knows?” Alexis sighed and drained her glass. “Perhaps he thought the shot was misaligned? I despair of understanding what that boy is thinking at times. One might as well tie a note to a rock and throw it to another ship when he’s on the signals console and he’s forever underfoot of the gun crews. I fear the lad will never make a spacer and, worse, that he or someone else will die of it before he’s done.”
There was a strangled sound from the wardroom’s hatch and Alexis turned to see Artley there with Caris, the eleven gun’s captain. Artley was still in the sweat-soaked underthings he’d worn under his vacsuit, his hair disheveled, hands and feet swollen and painful-looking, with red-rimmed, bloodshot eyes.
Alexis’ heart fell as she took in the look on his face and realized that he’d heard her every word.
“Artley —”
The boy sobbed again, turned, and fled.
Caris cleared his throat and looked down at the deck, scratching the back of his head.
“Was helping the lad back to his berth to rest,” he said, “but he’d not go until he’d seen you, sir. Said he wanted to apologize for disappointing you.”
Chapter 9
Shrewsbury’s hold was well-lit but still full of the nooks and crannies a twelve-year old boy would find useful as a hiding place. Alexis had spent a good deal of time in such places aboard her last ship, Hermione, and so had begun searching the hold after seeing that Artley wasn’t in his own berth.
She wasn’t at all certain what she’d say when she did find him, though. She regretted that he’d heard her intemperate words, but that made her evaluation of him no less true, and it was past time someone had a serious talk with the boy about his place in the Navy.
It was possible he simply wasn’t suited to life aboard ship and should be put ashore. That might be a disappointment to his family if they’d hoped to start a Naval tradition with Artley’s service, but Alexis couldn’t imagine them sending Artley to space so ill-equipped and unprepared if they did. Still, better they were disappointed by his not becoming an officer than by his death.<
br />
Alexis dropped to her knees to crawl through the low space between two towering vats of the weak beer served to the crew in lieu of recycled water. The curving sides of the vats met, but formed a sort of tunnel at the floor. It was a tight squeeze and awkward even for her small frame. Artley could manage it under normal circumstances, she thought, but might have trouble with his current injuries. Still, she knew there’d be an open space at the end where these vats backed against the next row and their curving sides formed a sort of small, low-ceilinged room.
The light back there was dim, as it was blocked from above and only came in through the low tunnels that gave access, but Alexis was still able to see Artley. It seemed she’d found a place he came often, not just today, for he had a ship’s blanket and pillow there with him, as well as a litter of crisps wrappings that spoke to many visits.
He was hunched over, still in his sweat-soaked underthings but wrapped in the blanket, hair disheveled from his suit helmet, and hugging his knees.
Alexis eased herself out of the tunnel and cleared a space amongst the crinkly wrappers. She rested her own back against the vat, knees drawn up so as not to encroach too much on Artley’s space, and was silent for a time.
“Mister Artley,” she prompted finally.
Artley simply hugged his legs to him more firmly and buried his face in his knees.
Alexis frowned. She was sorry for the boy, but this was still the Navy and such behavior wasn’t tolerated. Artley faced a hard decision, and harder work if he chose to stay aboard and not resign his place.
“In another ship, with another officer, Mister Artley, such dumb insolence would find you sent to seek out Mister Huben and put to kissing the gunner’s daughter.”
The ship’s gunner was tasked with discipline of the younger midshipmen. In addition to mastheading, being sent to the very top of the ship’s mast and left there for an entire watch, if the offense were grievous enough, they’d find themselves bent over one of the ship’s guns and thrashed. Nothing like the floggings the crew faced, but threat enough for a young midshipman.
The Little Ships (Alexis Carew Book 3) Page 5