She smiled at me. It completely transformed her face. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” I stammered. I hadn’t realised how much I’d forgotten after the brief course at the Academy. “May I ask a question?”
“Of course,” she said. “I may decline to answer.”
“Why did the Captain talk to Engineering instead of me?” I asked. “I don’t mind, but…”
She laughed. “The Engineer would not have started the power-up sequence for anyone less than the lawful Captain,” she explained. “You’ll see more of it when we start you on the drills later this afternoon, but for the moment, only the Captain has the clearance to issue certain orders. You’ll hear more about those later.”
We stopped outside a large hatch. “This is the Political Officer’s quarters,” she said. I felt my insides clench before she issued her warning. “Behave yourselves.”
The hatch slid open, revealing a cabin that was much larger and more luxurious than our shared cabin, or perhaps even the Captain’s cabin. I looked inside and my first thought was wondering just what the Political Officer did with all the space. It was decorated in a fashion that surprised and disgusted me, with a handful of nude images on the bulkheads and a drinks cabinet placed in a prominent position. The Political Officer himself was seated behind a desk that looked rather out of place on the starship, but as we entered he came to his feet and smiled at us. I found myself distrusting the man on sight.
“Enter, enter,” he said, waving us to a comfortable sofa that had seen better days. It looked large enough to hold more than seven Ensigns without difficultly. “No need to stand to attention here, my dears; we’re all friends here. Take a seat, please. Would you like something to drink?”
I shook my head. None of us, even Roger, had the self-confidence to ask for a drink. The Political Officer looked far too well-fed, and polished, to be trusted. He was overweight and surprisingly unkempt, wearing civilian clothes on a very military starship. The string of medals he wore on his jacket clashed oddly with the civilian outfit. I didn’t know what half of the medals were, but I doubted that he had any right to wear them.
“Welcome onboard the UNS Jacques Delors,” he said. His voice was light and effeminate. “I would have greeted you at the hatch, but the Captain insisted on me seeing you after we’d entered the wormhole and shipped out for Terra Nova. I hope that you weren’t too disappointed to miss me there? The Political Officer is quite an important figure on the starship, my dears, even if I am not in the chain of command. You can talk to me about anything, anything at all.”
He took a chair himself and leaned back in it absently. I wasn't sure what to make of the performance – and yes, I was sure that it was a performance – but I saw no reason to change my first impression. He seemed to be trying to be friendly, yet disconcerting, and I had the feeling that telling him anything would be a really bad idea. The Political Officers at the Academy had been boring people with stuffed shirts, testing us endlessly on our political opinions, but this one was different.
“No?” He asked. “Well, we’ll get down to business. I am Jason Montgomerie, Political Officer to this ship. My task is to ensure that you understand the political implications of the work the Peace Force does and assist you to remove any doubts or hesitations you might have. You have to understand the rational behind your work to give your lives meaning, you see, and you have to understand that it is all worthwhile.
“The UN was founded originally to bring peace and tranquillity to the Earth, which was suffering under the endless curse of war spread by rogue nations and societies,” he continued. I’d heard this all before, but I knew better than to be lulled into complacency. “It took years to move from being little more than a talking shop to develop the framework of international law – later interplanetary law – that governs the human race today. The Rules of War, the Code of Behaviour and the various protocols governing interplanetary trade all grew out of those early works. The UN was resisted mightily by nationalists who wanted to reserve the right to butcher thousands with crude weapons and threaten the very future of the human race, but slowly it grew into a mighty edifice.
“And yet, enemies of the UN continued to threaten its existence, to make profits for themselves at the expense of the remainder of the human race,” he said, his voice rising. He believed what he was saying. “The asteroid miners insisted on selling their ore at prices the market would bear, not what the poor could afford to pay, despite the attempts by progressive forces to intervene. The development of the Jump Drive only made those problems worse. The Enemies of Progress took resources that should belong to the entire human race and used them to found new colonies, teaching their children that the UN was evil and its dream of a united humanity nothing, but an attempt to suppress them. Would you believe that many of them banned Free Speech regarding the UN?”
I felt myself shivering slightly and hoped that he couldn’t sense it. I’d seen the UN’s idea of Free Speech before, back when I’d been at school. A young teenage boy - a wiseass, true, but very smart with it – had questioned the UN’s policy on race and racism. His speech had been moving and quite effective, but the day afterwards…he hadn’t shown up at school. If the teachers had known what had happened to him, they never told their pupils…and we all drew the lesson. Free Speech was dangerous to the health. I’d been told that restrictions existed to prevent the spread of racial hatred and bad ideas, but…he’d just been a boy!
“Our task,” Jason Montgomerie continued, lumping himself in with us, “is to prevent the Enemies of Progress from preventing the unification of the human race. We can and will do anything that is required to prevent them from deserting the human race in its hour of greatest need. You will learn, as we go on, that they have sacrificed their rights because of their insistence on placing themselves in front of the rest of humanity…”
He went on for hours. By the time he had finished, we were all headachy and confused. Lieutenant Hatchet, surprisingly, allowed us to go back to our cabin and sleep, instead of taking us to start drilling. We all needed our rest.
The day afterwards, we began drilling in earnest.
Chapter Three
The UN would prefer to deny it, but there are far more complicated issues regarding pirates and piracy than it allows its people to recognise. The pirates that appeared in the wake of the UN’s first attempt to assert its authority over the outer worlds were driven by a mixture of motivations, ranging from revenge to greed and the desire to set up new independent colonies. Despite the UN’s claims, there are hundreds of pirates known to be at large…and, owing to the difficulties of intercepting them, they may be at large for years to come.
-Thomas Anderson. An Unbiased Look at the UNPF. Baen Historical Press, 2500.
“Ensign,” the Captain said, “prepare to take us out of the wormhole.”
I found myself tensing, again. I had practiced the manoeuvre endlessly in the simulators, under far worse conditions, but this was real. The memory of some of the more spectacular failures, where a single moment of inattention had cost me the simulated ship, lingered in my mind. I couldn’t help, but be aware that the Captain probably remembered them too. I had earned those demerits the hard way.
“Yes, sir,” I said, running my hand over the console. In theory, there’s no point in manning the bridge while the starship is in the wormhole, but the Captain insisted on having all stations manned at all times. We’d learned quickly that there was no such thing as enough practice and simulations. The First Lieutenant had drummed it into our heads often enough. “I have the Jump Drive online and ready to open the terminus.”
I didn’t understand the theory behind the Jump Drive – few people did, according to Lieutenant Hatchet – but we had practised enough so that I understood the practicalities of the wormhole it generated. It formed a link between our departure point and arrival point, but it also created a whole separate universe, containing nothing, but the starship. We had to open the wormhole terminus at the far end
to escape. No one was quite sure what would happen if we didn’t, but no one felt that it was worth the risk of trying to find out.
“Excellent,” the Captain said, leaning back in his chair. I wasn’t fooled. I had respected the Captain from the start and the month since we had joined his crew hadn’t altered that opinion. He was watching me like a hawk. “Confirm arrival point.”
I winced inwardly. This was the tricky part. “Arrival point…confirmed,” I said, carefully. The Jump Drive was many things, but accurate it was not. “Terminus point confirmed as preset destination to within seven million kilometres.”
“Let’s see, shall we?” The Captain said. “Helm, take us out of Jump Drive.”
My display altered slightly as the wormhole terminus blossomed open in front of us, revealing stars for the first time in a week. The Captain’s course had given us four chances to practice egress from the wormhole, but this was the first time we had opened a wormhole in an inhabited star system. The UN safety regulations insisted that all wormholes had to be preset to locations within range of explored stars, but the stars we had used as waypoints were uninhabited. If something had gone wrong, we would have been stranded light years from any possible rescue.
“Sensors, confirm clear space,” the Captain ordered. The odds were astronomically against us coming out near another starship, or a planet, but he wanted to be sure. “Communications, transmit our IFF to System Command and inform them that we require a local space information download.”
“All sensors read clear, sir,” Muna said, from her position. “No contacts within active sensor range.”
The Captain keyed his armrest console. “All stations, stand down from emergence alert,” he ordered, calmly. There was no need, in theory, to go to emergence alert either, but the Captain ran a tight ship. The last week had included hundreds of drills, ranging from standard hull breach drills to counter-boarding drills. “Communications?”
“Signal sent, sir,” Roger said. We were several light minutes from the planet, so there wouldn’t be a reply quickly unless there was a starship or sublight spacecraft closer to our position. “No response as yet.”
“I thought not,” the Captain said, dryly. Roger flushed, slightly. The Captain didn’t shout, or lose his temper, but his tone spoke volumes. Roger had pointed out something that Captain had known for longer than Roger been alive. “Engineering?”
“Jump Drive powering down now,” Engineer Ivan Druzhkov said, his faint Russian accent echoing through the communications link. He was a gloomy fellow most of the time, except when he was working with his beloved engines. He also had a surprisingly large collection of model railway locomotives he’d built himself in his spare time. “The drive field is online and ready.”
“Good,” the Captain said. “Ensign Walker; plot us a course to Terra Nova and take us there, standard speed.”
“Aye, sir,” I said. I had already plotted out the course while Muna and Roger were going through their own motions, knowing that the Captain would ask for it. I hoped – prayed – that he was keeping a careful eye on it. I’d once accidentally rammed a planet during the simulations. Lieutenant Hatchet had been scathing. “Course laid in.”
The starship seemed to shiver slightly as she built up speed, heading towards the planet. It would take hours to reach Terra Nova in normal space, unless the Captain decided to open a wormhole to reach the planet quicker, but he didn’t seem to mind. There was no rush, apparently. The display was filling up now as passive sensors started to pick up hundreds of beacons right across the solar system, from small mining craft to massive bridge ships linking Terra Nova with the handful of colonies on the other worlds in the system. I had to remind myself that there was a time-delay in all of the reports. A spaceship could be light minutes from where the display insisted it was. The planet itself, of course, was surrounded with enough icons to form a small galaxy. Any colony world would have a growing space industry…
I frowned as some of the beacons resolved into IFF signals. There were a handful of other starships in the system, along with sublight gunboats and support craft, and most of them were hanging in orbit around Terra Nova. I couldn’t understand what I was seeing. I’d heard from Lieutenant Hatchet and the Senior Chief how desperately short of starships we were, so why were so many on station around Terra Nova? The mystery only deepened when I realised that the space stations were largely UN-built, instead of local construction…and that the Peace Force seemed to be controlling them. It was odd. Terra Nova didn’t even have a space cable, let alone an orbital tower. If was as if they didn’t want any connection with space at all.
Muna’s console bleeped an alarm. “Captain,” she said, “I’m picking up a distress signal, from the freighter Diamond’s Revenge.”
I looked up at the main display. A new icon had flashed into existence. “They’re reporting that they are under attack,” she said. “They’re requesting help.”
“Ensign Walker, bring up the Jump Drive and take us there,” the Captain ordered. I’d been caught by surprise and found myself struggling to plot out the course. The computers are supposed to assist us in working out the wormhole coordinates, but I’d already discovered that their help was strictly limited. “Open the wormhole.”
“Yes, sir,” I said, bracing for the inevitable reprimand. We’d all had a shot at being First Ensign since we’d boarded the starship, as we’d earned reprimands and demerits from the senior crew. I wasn't going to be wearing the silver star again anytime soon. “Wormhole opening…now.”
This time, there was no point in standing down from Jump Alert. “All hands, this is the Captain,” the Captain said, as the wormhole closed behind us. It would be mere seconds before we reached my destination coordinates. I desperately hoped that they were close enough to the pirate ship to bring it to battle. If we were unlucky, they might not even be in the same star system. “All hands to battle stations, I repeat, all hands to battle stations.”
I found myself tensing again as the alarm sounded through the ship. “Wormhole opening now, sir,” I said, as the wormhole loomed open in front of us. I stared at the display, willing the numbers to match up. “Emerging…”
“Bring up the drive field and plot an intercept course,” the Captain said, as if he didn’t have the slightest doubt of my ability to do as he wanted. I watched the display and tried not to sigh too heavily in relief when I realised that the numbers matched up, if not quite perfectly. “All weapons crews to their stations; load missile and torpedo tubes.”
The pirate ship and its prey blinked into existence on my display and I angled the starship’s course towards them. The pirate had clearly been planning on subduing and boarding his prey before its distress call could reach Terra Nova and the starships orbiting the planet. They hadn’t expected us to arrive in the system – from what the Senior Chief had said, that might have been because most starships arrived overdue as a matter of routine – in time to intervene either. It had been sheer luck.
“Steady as you bear,” the Captain ordered, calmly. I half-expected him to order me to give up the helm to the Pilot, who had just arrived on the bridge, but the Captain seemed quite happy with the situation. I hoped his faith in me wasn't misplaced. “Ensign Mohammad, open up a direct communications link, if you please.”
“Link open, standard intership communications frequency,” Muna said. She sounded briskly competent, at least. I felt as if I were a steaming puddle of sweat. “Sir?”
“This is Captain Harriman of the Jacques Delors,” the Captain said. His voice was so firm and intimidating that I would have surrendered on the spot, had I been the pirate. “You are ordered to halt your assault on the Diamond’s Revenge and prepare to be boarded. If you refuse to follow orders, we will engage with deadly force.”
There was no reply. I opened another window on my display and followed the action carefully. The pirate was being careful not to damage his prey too much – it would have destroyed his target – but he didn’t se
em to be retreating from the engagement. He could have opened a wormhole and escaped – he had to have a proper starship, or the UN starships in the system would have hunted him down by now – but instead he seemed to hesitate. I pulled open the starship’s database, searching for a match, but only found a handful of details. The starship’s origin was unknown.
Perhaps its an alien ship, I thought, before realising that I was being silly. The UN hadn’t encountered any form of intelligent alien life since mankind’s first steps into space. The Senior Chief had taken a gruesome delight in telling us some of the wilder spacer stories, but none of us believed them. Alien contact would have been the sensation of the millennium.
“No response, sir,” Muna said. She seemed to hesitate. “I’m sure they can hear us, sir; they’re just choosing not to reply.”
“Understood,” the Captain said. “Attempt to raise the freighter and assess their situation.” He looked over at the tactical console. “Lieutenant Hatchet, fire a warning shot.”
“Aye, sir,” Lieutenant Hatchet said. It hadn’t surprised us to discover that she was the ranking tactical officer as well as the First Lieutenant. Mere Ensigns were not allowed to touch the tactical console except under strict supervision. “Missile away, sir.”
Martial Law 1: Patriotic Treason Page 3