The Oncoming Storm

by Christopher Nuttall

  Kat fought down the urge to start screaming. The Shore Patrol was universally loathed among spacers, being neither spacers themselves nor civilian law enforcement. Their normal role was nothing more than patrolling spaceports, pulling drunken spacers out of bars, and providing first responders for certain emergencies. It was far from uncommon for isolated Shore Patrolmen to be beaten by drunken spacers, who would then slip away to their starships and swear innocence when the senior chiefs demanded answers. If Shore Patrolmen were providing boarding parties . . .

  She shook her head in disbelief. Boarding a starship, even if the crew had surrendered, was a tricky job at the best of times. The Shore Patrol weren’t even trained as junior crewmen, let along experienced spacers. There was a reason such tasks were normally left to the Marines.

  “I think that’s something that should be relayed to my father,” she said, although she wasn’t sure what—if anything—could be done with it. Any half-decent PR flack could come up with a dozen excuses that would sound plausible, at least to a civilian. “But . . .”

  She looked up, meeting his gray eyes. “I don’t think my XO trusts me.”

  “So you said,” Davidson replied. “You must be rattled. It’s not like you to jump around.”

  Kat nodded wordlessly. He knew her well.

  Davidson placed his hands on her table, then leaned forward. “You are too young and too inexperienced to be formally assigned command of this ship,” he said. “Your XO—and your other officers—will be aware of it. As your family name is rather well known . . .”

  Kat snorted, rudely. There wasn’t a person in the Commonwealth who hadn’t heard of the Falcone family.

  “. . . they will suspect that strings were pulled to get you command,” Davidson continued. He paused, significantly. “No. They will know that strings were pulled to get you command—a command you didn’t earn. They will be very worried about your competence and well they should be. For all they know, your previous successes came about because of your family name too.”

  “They should have seen me at Piker’s Peak,” Kat said ruefully. “I didn’t flunk out, but . . . I didn’t exactly win any awards.”

  “I don’t think that would reassure them,” Davidson said. “Whenever someone new takes command, even in the Marines, there is a period when everything is out of shape and nothing feels quite right. No one quite trusts the newcomer, particularly if they haven’t served with her or him before. Hell, things change even when the new CO is promoted from the ranks of those already serving within the unit. In your case, it’s worse because you have far less experience than anyone else.”

  Kat nodded. “Even a marine who was promoted as soon as it was legally possible would have the experience of being an infantryman,” she mused. “I didn’t come up from the ranks.”

  “No, you didn’t,” Davidson said. “And your XO did. I don’t blame him for having a chip on his shoulder.”

  “I know,” Kat said. She’d reviewed personnel files until she’d felt her eyes glazing over, starting with William McElney. “He wasn’t even born as a Commonwealth citizen.”

  “That’s a problem that will probably come back to bite us,” Davidson said. “We treat people like him as second-class citizens, no matter their competence.”

  Kat sighed, remembering lessons from a series of tutors. The idea of creating the Commonwealth had caused an almighty struggle in the houses of Parliament, with some families contemplating a whole new series of markets for their goods while others feared the dilution of their power base in the wake of an influx of newcomers. In the end, a compromise had been hammered out, ensuring the current balance of power was maintained while the newcomers were allowed to enter the aristocracy. Given time, the projections had maintained, the newcomers would become part of High Society.

  They might be right, she thought. But that does no good for anyone born before their world joined the Commonwealth. They’ll never rise as high as they could.

  “My advice,” Davidson said, “is to be the best captain you can be.”

  Kat glowered at him. “And I couldn’t have thought of that for myself?”

  “Sometimes the only way out is through,” Davidson said, unabashed. “You will have to work hard to convince them that you deserved to be promoted. Think of yourself as a version of Labelle Jones.”

  “Oh,” Kat said. Her lips twitched, humorlessly. “That isn’t the most reassuring thing you could say.”

  She remembered. The story had been taught at Piker’s Peak as a cautionary tale, although no one had been quite sure if it was a warning about the dangers of favoritism or how people could jump to the wrong conclusions. A young officer, assigned to a remote station, had been promoted several times, simply because the bureaucracy insisted that someone higher in rank had to be in command. But when the screwup had finally been noticed by the Inspectorate General, no one had been willing to believe it was just a clerical error. The poor officer’s next set of superiors had assumed the worst, that she’d been the beneficiary of an absurd degree of favoritism and piled work on her until she’d nearly collapsed.

  “I’m not trying to be reassuring,” Davidson said. “I’m trying to tell you that earning the respect and trust of your subordinates isn’t going to be easy.”

  “I know,” Kat said. She looked down at her hands for a long moment and then looked up. “And how are your marines?”

  “Settling in,” Davidson said. “We would like the use of the main corridor, if you don’t mind.”

  “Once it’s clear of junk,” Kat said. At least the crew was making rapid progress now. “And . . .”

  She shook her head, dismissing the thought. Part of her had wanted to ask if he was seeing someone. His file had said he wasn’t married, but marines rarely married until they left the service or became combat lifers. But he might still have a girlfriend on Tyre or one of the other ships . . . God knew she hadn’t exactly been chaste since they’d split up and gone their separate ways.

  “. . . I’ll expect you to handle your men,” she said, instead. Their relationship could never be the same, no matter what she wanted. And she was being stupid even considering the possibility, not when she was his commanding officer. “And I’ll see you at dinner tonight.”

  Davidson lifted an eyebrow. “Dinner?”

  Kat smirked but then tried to hide it. Perhaps he’d had the same thought too.

  “You’re the last officer to board the ship,” she said, instead. “I was waiting for you before hosting a formal dinner.”

  “I look forward to it,” Davidson said stiffly. He rose to his feet. “With your permission, Captain, I will return to Marine Country. I have training exercises to plan.”

  “Me too,” Kat said. They couldn’t fly into battle, not yet, but they could run exercises to make sure they made all the obvious mistakes before actually facing a real enemy. “I’ll see you tonight.”

  She watched him go, then turned back to her terminal, feeling an odd tinge of regret. She missed what they’d shared, more than she cared to admit . . .

  But at least, she told herself firmly, there was one person she could trust on her ship.

  Chapter Five

  All things considered, Commander William McElney conceded reluctantly, it could have been worse.

  The captain was inexperienced, at least when it came to being a commanding officer. She had a tendency to do too much of the work that should have been left to her XO, a common trait in newly promoted captains. But at least she wasn’t a tyrant or a whiny brat in a naval uniform. He’d served under both kinds of commanding officers in his long career. But he was still worried about the first time Lightning went into battle. Who knew how the captain would react?

  He pushed the thought to one side as he stepped into the conference room and glanced around the table, silently gratified to note that all of the senior officers had made it. They’d spent the last two days finalizing preparations for departure, something that had worn them out and made
him urge the captain to ensure they had a day or two of rest before they actually departed the system. There was no time for shore leave, even to the orbital Intercourse and Intoxication station, but at least they could have stood down for a day. But the captain had warned that it would depend on their orders from the Admiralty.

  The conference room seemed smaller than he remembered, now that it was actually serving its designated role. A large holographic image of the starship hung over the table, which was surrounded by comfortable chairs and a handful of consoles. A coffee maker sat against one bulkhead, with several officers glancing wistfully towards the machine. William sighed and then motioned for the steward to begin serving coffee. There were days when he knew the Navy practically ran on coffee. He took his seat, beside the captain’s chair at the head of the table, and waited. Captain Falcone entered the compartment moments later.

  She looked tired but happy, he noted as he rose to his feet in greeting. Somehow, actually working so closely with her made it easier to ignore the fact she looked too young to be on a starship, let alone sitting in the command chair. He had a feeling, judging from her expression, that the Admiralty had finally gotten around to cutting the starship her orders. No captain, not even the most rule-abiding commanding officer, would be entirely happy drifting in orbit near Tyre. It would be far too easy for the Admiralty to interfere with the smooth running of their starship.

  He sighed at the thought. The new crewmen had arrived, as promised, and some of them were going to be trouble. He would have rejected them, if there had been time, but the missives from the Admiralty insisting that they move up their departure date had grown more frequent and more ominous. Instead, all he could do was ride herd on the potential troublemakers and make sure the senior chiefs did the same. It was possible that careful supervision would turn them into valuable crewmen. Or at least keep them out of trouble.

  “Please be seated,” the captain said as she took her seat at the end of the table. There was a rustle as the officers sat down, then a pause as the steward served the captain a mug of coffee. “I would like to start by saying that you have all worked very hard to prepare this ship for departure and I am very proud of you.”

  You would like to say? William thought, dryly.

  He dismissed the thought a moment later; he’d had some commanding officers who indulged themselves with word games, but Captain Falcone didn’t seem to be one of them. Instead, it was just a clumsy choice of words.

  “We have finally received our orders from the Admiralty,” Captain Falcone continued. “We will be departing for Cadiz in two days. Unfortunately, we will also be escorting a convoy of nine civilian merchantmen. It will not be an easy task.”

  That was an understatement, William knew. Merchantmen didn’t tend to have the inherent flexibility of military starships, not when their contracts specified that deliveries had to be made by a specific date or penalty clauses would come into effect. One of the bigger shipping firms would hardly be inconvenienced by having to pay out compensation for late delivery, but it could literally ruin a smaller firm—or an independent shipper. Indeed, he would have expected the latter to run through hyperspace on their own, relying on the energy storms to cloak their presence.

  The holographic image changed. This time it showed nine bulk freighters, all Rhesus-class. The Rhesus was an old design, dating all the way back to the era before the Breakaway Wars, but it was known for being reliable and—more importantly—easy to refurbish as technology grew more advanced. William would have bet half his monthly paycheck that none of the freighters in the convoy still had anything from their original configuration, apart from their hulls. Even civilian-grade sensors had advanced immensely since the days of the UN.

  “It’s four weeks to Cadiz,” the captain continued. “During that time, we will both be handling escort duties and running constant exercises. It is my intention to have this ship ready for battle by the time we arrive at Cadiz. We do not know when war will break out, but it will. We have to be ready.”

  William couldn’t disagree. Scuttlebutt around the fleet suggested the Admiralty expected war to break out within the year, although cynics wondered if the whole collection of rumors was an attempt to justify the latest military budget as it fought its way through Parliament. It was true enough that the Royal Navy had claimed a larger share of the budget ever since the Commonwealth had come into existence, but it didn’t take superdreadnoughts to provide convoy protection and hunt down pirate bases. That was a task for frigates or destroyers.

  “The latest weather report suggests the presence of a storm moving towards us in hyperspace,” Lieutenant Nicola Robertson said. The navigator looked uncommonly nervous, although that wasn’t too surprising. Predicting the course and duration of energy storms in hyperspace was more a matter of lucky guessing and consulting tea leaves rather than good, reliable science. “We may have to add an extra week to our journey to avoid brushing up against its edges.”

  William held his breath, wondering how Kat would respond. Some captains would have understood the point, others would have snapped at the impudent officer who had dared to question their arrangements. Which one, he asked himself, was Captain Falcone?

  “Better to take a week longer to reach our destination than try to fly through a storm,” Captain Falcone said simply. She gave Lieutenant Robertson a reassuring smile. “I would prefer not to test the ship’s hull that violently.”

  Thank God, William thought. In theory, a low-level storm could be navigated through as easily as an aircar would fly through turbulence in a planetary atmosphere. But in practice hardly anyone would take the risk if it could be avoided. And a high-level storm would rip the ship apart so thoroughly that no one would ever find any wreckage, not even a few stray atoms. Captain Falcone, at least, understood the basic realities of travel through hyperspace, unlike some of William’s former commanding officers. They had seemed to think that their will bent the laws of time and space themselves.

  He nodded at Nicola, who looked relieved. She was young—like most navigators, she had learned her trade at Bendix Base, rather than Piker’s Peak—and had little grasp of military formality. Technically, she wasn’t even in the line of command. William had a private suspicion that her informality would get her into trouble one day, although he intended to ensure it didn’t happen on his watch. And she was pretty enough to get into a different kind of trouble on shore leave.

  Lieutenant Commander Roach cleared his throat. “Captain,” he said carefully, “are any other warships being assigned to the convoy?”

  The captain’s face darkened. “No,” she said. “The freighters have a handful of weapons mounts apiece, but we’re the only true warship.”

  William nodded to himself in approval. Captain Falcone understood the implications. Judging from the level of communications traffic between Lightning and Naval HQ, she’d also tried to argue with her superiors, requesting additional support. But she’d clearly failed.

  Roach put it into words. “Captain,” he said, “we can’t guarantee security for nine freighters in hyperspace.”

  “I know,” the captain said. Her mouth twisted, as though she had bitten into a lemon. “We might lose one of our ships in a distortion zone and never realize it.”

  She was right, William knew. Hyperspace played merry hell with sensors, particularly long-range sensors. It was quite possible for a pirate ship to shadow the convoy, satisfy itself that it could pick off one of the freighters, then attack during an energy distortion that would make it impossible to tell that something had gone wrong. It would be hours before the freighter failed to check in, at which point it would be countless light years away, being looted by the pirates. The crew would be in for a fate worse than death.

  He rather doubted their weapons would make any difference. The big corporations could afford weapons licenses, cramming as many armaments into their freighter hulls as they liked, but it wouldn’t make them effective warships. Freighters wallowed like pig
s in mud, their sensors and shields rarely military-grade . . . hell, there were restrictions on selling military-grade technology to civilians, even for the big corporations. There was just too great a chance of it falling into very unfriendly hands.

  And it was starting to look as though someone had set the captain up to fail.

  “We cannot hope to hide the convoy,” Captain Falcone said. “The scheduled departure date cannot be put back any further. Anyone with eyes on the system will be able to track our numbers, course, and speed, then make a rough estimate of our location. And ten ships are easier to locate in hyperspace than one.”

  She took a breath. It was easy to see she was nervous. “I plan to turn our weakness into a strength,” she continued. “Standard doctrine places the escorting warship at the prow of the convoy. I intend to place us at the rear. We will pose as a freighter.”

  There was a long pause. No one spoke.

  William evaluated it rapidly. It was risky, he had to admit; if they ran into an ambush, the first freighters would be hammered before Lightning even realized they were under attack. But few pirates would dare to take on a heavy cruiser, even if they thought they had the firepower advantage—and few pirate groups had anything larger than a frigate under their command. It was much more likely that they would try to pick off the freighter at the rear of the convoy, rather than challenge a warship directly . . .

  And, if the Captain’s plan worked, they would run right into a heavy cruiser instead.

  “Workable,” William said. “Do you intend to use drones to ensure that any observers see us at the prow of the convoy?”

  “One of the freighters carries a modified Electronic Countermeasures package,” the captain said briskly. “Mother’s Milk will pose as Lightning. She wouldn’t fool anyone in normal space, but in hyperspace sensors are unreliable enough to create reasonable doubt.”

  She smiled coldly. “Maybe next time we can have all the freighters posing as warships,” she added. “Make them guess which of us is the real contender.”