by David Drake
"Fetch her here, will you?" Nessler continued without waiting for an answer. "I think she's in Navigation Two. All the levels check, but there's no damned display!"
Mincio nodded and trotted into the passage, thinking of the curt way she'd acted toward Rovald during the card game. Nessler was focused on putting the Colonel Arabi in fighting trim for perhaps the first time since the vessel was delivered to the Grand Duchy of Melungeon. He didn't have time for what anybody else might want.
Work parties — generally a group of Melungeons under the direction of one or two survivors of L'Imperieuse — were busy all over the ship, readying her for action. Beresford had no naval or technical experience, but he'd proven to be a wonder in these changed circumstances. Not only was he acting as personnel officer, he'd formed unassigned Melungeons into teams to clean up the vessel's squalor.
Rovald's help was even more crucial. Third-rate navies like the Grand Duchy's train their personnel to use their ship's equipment, but they don't as a general rule care whether anybody understands that equipment. First-rate navies like that of the Star Kingdom do train their people to understand it so that they can do more than by-the-book maintenance, but no fleet has time to train its personnel to understand everyone else's equipment. In a ship like the Colonel Arabi, where so much was jury-rigged and none of it was of standard Manticoran design, Rovald's ability to troubleshoot unfamiliar systems was invaluable.
Mincio had no useful skills whatsoever. She'd thought of joining Beresford's custodial teams, but she decided that she wasn't ready to humble herself completely to so little purpose. She couldn't convince herself she'd be much good at wiping oily scum off the walls.
She stepped aside for six spacers grunting under the weight of a three-meter screwjack. All the cruiser's countergrav rings were down at the pylon site. Nessler hadn't sent for them because he didn't want to discuss with Orloff what he knew about the desertion of the entire enlisted complement of the Colonel Arabi and the sabotage of the Melungeon air car.
"Have you seen Ms. Rovald?" she called to the Manticoran rating at the head of the gang.
"Navigation Two!" the man shouted back. "Next compartment to port!"
Which didn't mean "left" as Mincio assumed; it meant "left when you're facing the ship's bow" which she was not, but she found Rovald by a process of elimination. The technician sat crosslegged in front of a bulkhead. Before her an access panel had been removed to display a rack of circuitry. The compartment felt cold and musty; the air was still.
"Good day, Rovald," Mincio said. "Sir Hakon needs you in, ah… I'll lead you."
Rovald didn't stir. Mincio blinked and partly out of curiosity said, "You're fixing the environmental system here?"
"I can't fix that," the technician said in a dead voice. "They used the power cable for the laser, and it's still on the ground at the Six Pylons. Five Pylons."
"Well," Mincio said. "Sir Hakon—"
Rovald sucked in a great gulp of air and began to cry.
Mincio knelt beside the older woman. "Are you…" she said. She didn't know whether to touch Rovald or not. "That is…"
"I'm not a soldier, Ma'am!" Rovald sobbed. "I don't want to die! He doesn't have a right to make me be a soldier!"
"Ah!" said Mincio, glad at least to know what the problem was. "Dear me, Nessler had no intention of taking you with him to Air," she lied brightly. "You'll be landed as soon as he's ready to, ah, proceed. No, no; you're to continue your work on Alphane books. If worse comes to worst, our names as scholars will live through your work, you see?"
"I don't have to come?" Rovald said. Her tears had streaked the dirt inevitable on anybody working aboard the Colonel Arabi. "He just wants me while we're in orbit here?"
"That's right," Mincio said. That would be true as soon as Nessler learned how the technician felt. She stood and gestured Rovald up. "But I think there's some need for haste now."
"Of course," said Rovald as she rose. "They'll be in Generator Control, I suppose."
She stepped briskly off the way Mincio had come to fetch her. Mincio followed, thinking about people. It was easy to understand why Rovald would want to avoid this probable suicide mission. It was much harder to explain why Mincio planned to go along….
* * *
"The pinnace just docked, Sir," Harpe said. "She'll be dogged down in five minutes, and then we're ready."
Mincio completed the statement in her mind: Ready to depart. Ready to voyage to Air. Ready to die, it seemed likely. She couldn't get her mind around the last concept, but it didn't seem as frightening as she'd have assumed it would.
"Thank you, Bosun," Nessler said. "I'll hold a christening ceremony, then we'll set off."
As if he'd read her thoughts, Nessler turned to Mincio and said, "I don't think we'll have a great deal of difficulty with the drive and astrogation equipment. Orloff managed a much more difficult voyage than this little hop to Air, after all. The problem is that the closest thing to an offensive weapon aboard is a broken-down cutter that we've re-engined and hope will look like a missile to the Peeps."
"But there are missiles," Mincio said in puzzlement. "Two of them, at least."
"Ah, yes, there were," Nessler said. "But those we've converted to decoys since there weren't any decoys aboard. Have to think of our own survival first, you know."
He smiled.
If we were thinking of our own survival, we wouldn't any of us be aboard, Mincio thought; but perhaps that wasn't true. History was simpler to study than to live.
Beresford trotted through the armored bridge hatch, holding a suit bag high in his left hand. "Rovald's all happy and digging into them crystals with deKyper," he said cheerfully. "And the folks in Kuepersburg, they sent these up for you and Ms. Mincio. All the ladies in town worked on them with their own hands."
"You were supposed to stay on Hope too, Beresford," Nessler said in a thin voice.
"Was I, Sir?" said the servant as he opened the bag's zip closure. "Guess I musta misheard." He looked at his master. "Anyhow, I want to make sure these Navy types treat my wogs right. Since I recruited them, I figure they're my responsibility."
Mincio winced to hear the Melungeon spacers called wogs; but on the other hand, it was hard to fault the sentiment.
Beresford flicked the bag away from the garments within. "For you, Sir," he said, handing one of the hangers to Nessler. "They worked from pictures of you when you was a midshipman."
"Good God!" Nessler said. "Royal Manticoran Navy dress blacks!"
"Close enough, Captain Nessler Sir," Beresford said with a smirk. He turned to Mincio. "And for you—"
"I'm not a naval officer," she protested.
"You are now, Commander Mincio," Beresford said as he handed over the second uniform. "What's a ship as don't have a second in command, I say?"
Mincio rubbed a sleeve of her uniform between thumb and forefinger. The cloth was of off-planet weave but clearly hand-sewn as Beresford said. Nessler stared at his collar insignia.
"Those started out as Gendarmerie rank tabs," the servant explained. "A little chat with a barracks servant and a little work with a file, that's all it took."
A three-note signal pinged from the command console. "All systems ready, Sir," Harpe said.
"Then I'll have my little ceremony," Nessler said. He started to drape his uniform over the back of a seat; Beresford took it from his hand instead.
Nessler rang a double chime, then touched a large yellow switch. Mincio heard carrier hum from the intercom speaker above the hatch.
"This is the Captain speaking," Nessler said. His voice boomed from the intercom but it didn't cause feedback. The Colonel Arabi 's internal communications system worked flawlessly again. "In a moment we'll get under way, but first I wish to take formal possession of this vessel for the Star Kingdom of Manticore."
He took a 100-milliliter bottle from the breast pocket of the jacket he was wearing. "With this bottle of wine from the Greatgap Winery," he said, "I christen thee
Her Majesty's Starship Ajax. "
He flung the bottle to smash on the steel deck. The intercom managed to pick up the clink of glass.
"May she wear the name with honor!" Harpe cried.
There was frenzied cheering from neighboring compartments. From the volume, most of it must be coming from the Melungeons.
"The course is loaded," Nessler said. "Get us underway, Bosun."
Nessler looked a little embarrassed as he walked over to Mincio at the rear bulkhead. There should probably be a squad of officers at the empty consoles; instead the two of them, Beresford, and Harpe with a pair of Melungeons were the entire bridge crew. In a dozen other compartments enlisted personnel did work that officers would normally have overseen….
Though on the Colonel Arabi, perhaps not overseen as closely as all that. The present crew was up to the job, of that Mincio was sure. A Melungeon had already sponged up the splash of wine and thin glass without being told to.
"I was never much of an astrogator," Nessler muttered.
"If Orloff can find Hope," Mincio said, "then you can find Air. You've got proper spacers aboard, besides. A few of them."
"You know," said Nessler, "that's an odd thing. The Melungeons are working harder than I've ever seen spacers do. I think they're trying to prove to the fancy folk from Manticore that they're really good for something. And our people are working doubly hard to prove they are fancy folk from Manticore, of course."
The Ajax shuddered as systems came on line. An occasional drifting curse, and clangs that might be hammers on balky housings, indicated that not every piece of equipment was being cooperative. Nevertheless, a panel of lights on the main console was turning green bit by bit.
Beresford walked over to them. "Shall I hang the Captain's uniform in the Captain's cabin?" he said.
"I… yes, that would be a good idea," Nessler said. To Mincio he added, "We should probably sit down. This may be a bit rough. That—" He gestured at the console across the bridge. "—is the First Officer's station while cruising. Though I don't suppose it matters."
"Of course," Mincio said. She wondered what a First Officer did. Wear a black uniform, at any rate.
"I was wondering, Nessler," she said aloud. "How did you happen to pick that name for the ship? Ajax, I mean."
"Well, actually, I'd been given orders to take up the sixth lieutenancy aboard Ajax when I got word of my father and sister," Nessler said without meeting her eyes. "Instead I resigned my commission, of course."
He cleared his throat. Still looking at the deck he continued, "Three weeks later Ajax was lost with all hands. Funny how things work out, isn't it?"
A bell rang three slow peals. Mincio strode to what was apparently her station, the new uniform in her hands. "Yes, isn't it?" she said.
And wondered if Fate was planning to pick up the last of the former Ajax 's crew, along with all his present associates.
* * *
The Plot Position Indicator showed the Ajax in close conjunction with Air, at least if Mincio understood the scale correctly. Harpe and her Melungeon aides muttered cheerfully as they adjusted controls on a console with a curved bench seat holding three, and Nessler himself was whistling as he eyed the various displays with his hands in his pockets.
In theory the crew of the Ajax was at battle stations, but ever since the vessel entered the Air system Beresford had been leading a stream of Melungeons through the bridge to gape at the optical screen. Mincio knew she was of less use in a battle than the Melungeons were, so she felt free to stroll over to Nessler and say, "I'm not an expert, but it seemed to me to be a nice piece of astrogation."
"Yes, it rather was," Nessler said, beaming. "I'm leaving the pilotage to Harpe and her team, though. The largest craft I've piloted was a pinnace, and my deficiencies then didn't encourage me to try my luck with a cruiser."
He chuckled, embarrassed at being so proud of the dead-on positioning he'd achieved as the Ajax reentered normal-space. "It may have been luck, my failures cancelling out those of the equipment, of course."
"Stop that, Mr. Nessler!" Mincio said. "You'll find no lack of people to criticize your performance unjustly. You should not be one of them."
Nessler straightened and smiled faintly. "Yes, tutor," he said.
A large warship filled the main optical display. Even Mincio could identify the ominous row of gunports and extrapolate from them to the serious weaponry within the hull. The Melungeon crewmen continued to babble to one another at the clarity of the image even as Beresford shooed them out to make room for another group of sightseers.
"Have they never seen a ship?" Mincio said. Surely they'd at least have seen the Colonel Arabi from the lighters that ferried them aboard….
"The software for this screen was misinstalled," Nessler explained with a grin. "It had never worked until Rovald fixed it — in about three minutes. The equipment is actually brand new and very good, though not of quite the most current design."
He cleared his throat and added, "I hope Rovald's having equal fortune with the artifacts. That's really more important, of course. I've made arrangements for our findings to be returned with her in the event…"
Mincio nodded to the optical screen. "I gather we're still out of range?" she said.
"Oh, goodness no!" Nessler said. "But we can't attack them within the Air System — that's League sovereign space and would be an act of war against the League."
"But they attacked L'Imperieuse here!"
"Of course they did." The chill smile Nessler gave her belied the lazy humor of his tone. "But no one knows they did, you see. By now, they have to assume Harpe and all her people are as dead as the rest of L'Imperieuse 's crew. They didn't planet on Air, after all, and their pinnace's life support would be long since exhausted. In fact, that's probably why they massacred the survivors in the first place — to keep them from making any embarrassing allegations about violation of League neutrality. I doubt they'll try anything this close to the planet, though. If they do—" he twitched a shrug "—our defenses are all on line."
Beresford guided what appeared to be the last dozen Melungeons off the bridge. "I hope they are, at any rate," Nessler muttered. In a louder voice he said, "Any sign of life from the Peeps, Harpe?"
"Dead as an asteroid, Sir," the grizzled woman replied. "I'll bet they're all asleep. Or drunk."
She looked up from the console. "You know, Captain," she added diffidently, "what with the condition of our ship, nobody'd be surprised if there was a short-circuit in the fire-control system…?"
"Carry on, Bosun!" Nessler snapped. "If we're not in the plotted orbit in three minutes, I'll want to know the reason why."
He turned. Softly he went on to Mincio. "They may all be asleep, but we can't expect them to have disabled their automatic defense systems. And absolutely nothing that could happen to us would be worth the risk of bringing the League into this conflict on the Peeps' side."
Beresford sauntered over to them, his duties as tour guide completed. "I was wondering, Sir," he asked. "Why did they name the place Air? Did they come from a planet that didn't have any?"
"It was 'Ehre,' Honor, when the Teutonic Order named it," Mincio explained. "The League has a sub-regional headquarters here, so it's probably a little more lively than Hope. For the same reason there's not much in the way of Alphane remains, though."
"I'll go down and give the League commander notice to order all combatant vessels to leave League sovereign territory within forty-eight T-hours," Nessler said. "That's proper under interstellar law, but heaven only knows what'll actually happen. Between the Dole Fleet and the sort of people the League sends to these parts…"
"No," Mincio said. "I'll deliver the notice; I dare say it's my duty as First Officer, isn't it? It'll give me a chance to wear my pretty new uniform."
"Well, if you're sure, Mincio…" Nessler said.
"I'll set it out for you in your cabin, Commander," Beresford said with an obsequiousness she'd never before heard from
the man who was very clearly her employer's servant.
The Ajax shuddered as her impeller wedge went down. "Braking into final orbit, Sir," Harpe called loudly.
"Besides," Mincio said. "If the Peeps react the wrong way, the Ajax can much better spare my expertise than it can yours, Captain Nessler."
* * *
Air's landing field was a little more prepossessing than that of Hope. The vessels sat on ceramacrete hardstands — most of them cracked to little more than gravel, but still better than Hope's dirt — and a solid-looking courtyard building stood on the field's western edge. The town of Dawtry, the planetary capital, lay in the near distance to the north and west. Mincio didn't see any air cars, but there was a respectable amount of motorized transport running on paved — mostly paved — roads.
The pinnace cooled with a chorus of pings, chings, and clanks that might even have been pleasant if Mincio hadn't been so nervous. One of the four Manticoran spacers escorting her muttered, "That cutter's Peep, and that one's Peep, and I figure that big lighter—"
"Belt up, Dismore!" said Petty Officer Kapp, the detachment's leader. She added with a sniff, "And you notice there's not an anchor watch on any of them? That's Peeps for you. Bone idle."
"Right," said Mincio. "Two of you come with me while the others guard the boat."
She strode toward the truck parked beside a cargo shuttle from an intrasystem freighter. A man in greasy coveralls was working on tubing exposed when a panel was removed from the vessel's stern.
"Excuse me, Sir!" Mincio called. If Kapp hadn't spoken she wouldn't have known to leave anyone with the pinnace. Dismore would probably have told her even if the petty officer had been too polite. "Will you drive us to the League Liaison Office? We'll pay well."
The mechanic turned with a puzzled expression. "Why d'ye want to ride there?" he said. He gestured toward the building adjacent to the field. "You could just about spit that far, couldn't you?"
"Ah," said Mincio. "Thank you."
"I figured the damned thing was Port Control," Dismore muttered, immediately making her feel better. "I guess these hicks don't have anything so advanced as that."