New Title 2

by S J MacDonald

  Alex would very much have liked to have words with the designers who felt that adding unnecessary platforms and steps to a warship command deck was a good idea, and unnecessarily bulky consoles taking up space and adding some good hard edges to bang into in freefall. He would also have liked to have words with the admiral who’d accepted the design, no doubt after lavish corporate hospitality. It was, in fact, the impractical interior design which had led to so many Seabird 37s ending up in the Reserve, as the newer generation 38s had been rushed out to replace them.

  Captain Durannon, perched behind his mighty console, looked as if he was attempting to out-grand it, and only succeeded in looking constipated. He did dismount from his eyrie, after Alex had been introduced to him, and offered his hand, but with a rather curt bark of welcome.

  ‘We’ll go through to my daycabin,’ he said, then, looking at the Lt, ‘Perhaps you’d take care of, er,’ he looked at Sub-lt Field, and started a little at the glare that he was getting from the junior officer. ‘Um.’

  ‘Sub-lt Field,’ Alex said.

  Captain Durannon mumbled something about offering her the hospitality of the wardroom, and Alex gave her a glance, and a nod. She looked just for a moment as if she might remind him openly that she was there as his bodyguard, but controlled herself in time.

  ‘I’ll wait at the airlock,’ she said. Since the daycabin was just the other side of the airlock, that would keep her in close range.

  Nobody argued with her. Quite apart from the Look, there was a note in her voice that was unnervingly close to a snarl.

  They left her standing by the airlock with the anxious Lt attempting to make peace while Captain Durannon showed Alex into his daycabin.

  It was very different in there from Alex’s office – a blocky desk with a bigger seat for the captain than the three placed for guests, and so much clutter that the cabin seemed much smaller. One wall was covered with holos which were a kind of visual history of Captain Durannon’s career. There was a holo of his graduating class at the Customs Space Academy, holos of the various ships he had served on and holos, with friends, of him at each stage of his progression through the ranks. On another wall there was a display unit containing family holos and trinkets. High security tape safes had been fixed to the wall, too, along with notices reading Authorised Access Only.

  Captain Durannon himself looked just as uncomfortable in private as he had been on the command deck. He was in his forties, long-faced and thin. He had deep set eyes and looked tired, but was keeping up his hostile barking tone.

  ‘Sorry to ask you here at this hour of night, von Strada, but needs must.’ It was, by then, nearly half past two in the morning. Using his surname without rank implied that they were either of equal status or that Durannon believed himself to be senior. His tone suggested the latter. ‘I have a tape for you,’ the Customs officer informed him, and took one from a safe with rather ostentatious use of optic ID and security codes, ‘if you’ll sign for it…’

  Alex did so, without further comment than ‘Thank you.’ His own manner was glacial, though close observation might have detected just a hint of a twinkle in his eyes.

  ‘Our orders are to collaborate with you, of course,’ said Captain Durannon. It is to be hoped, rather more successfully than the DSPV-02 was able to do during the Dortmell operations.’

  Part of the cover created for the Fourth there had been leaks onto the spacer goss of some conflict between the Fourth and the Customs ship on the scene, including a story of a failed rendezvous after which both ships had spent more than a fortnight looking for one another. In the end, it was the Customs ship which had brought in a drug runner, the Fourth being credited with no achievements at all.

  Alex gazed at him. He was aware of what briefing Captain Durannon had had, or should have had, and he was mystified.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ he said, with a questioning note.

  ‘Well, you have to admit that it didn’t go well, did it?’ Captain Durannon said, brusquely. ‘Miscommunications, missed rendezvous, just not very effective teamwork. I’m not pointing the finger, mark you, what’s done is done and I believe we should start afresh, here, not dwell on the past. But let’s be clear from the outset, von Strada, that we do both need to put a great deal of effort into this if we’re to function effectively as a team.’

  Alex rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

  ‘You do know,’ he queried, ‘that we weren’t actually there?’

  There was a silence.

  ‘Well… yes,’ Durannon admitted, looking bewildered, himself. ‘But I thought the idea was that we should pretend that you were.’

  Alex stared at him for four eloquent seconds.

  ‘Not between ourselves, in private,’ he said.

  ‘Oh.’

  They looked at one another again.

  ‘And it might be an idea,’ Alex suggested, ‘to dial down the hostility…’ he mimed turning down a control, ‘quite considerably. That really will make it difficult to work together effectively, after all. And it isn’t, I have to tell you, plausible. We have had an occasional spat with Customs, to be sure, but whoever organised the cover at Dortmell over-egged the rivalry to quite unbelievable levels. Perhaps I should mention that I met Captain Odama at Karadon, that we got along extremely well and parted as friends. If we had been at Dortmell, I assure you, we would have worked together very effectively and on the best possible terms both professionally and personally.’

  Captain Durannon looked embarrassed.

  ‘She did say that,’ he admitted. ‘But other people… well, you hear such things. And all this top secret undercover stuff, well, frankly, is rather outside my experience. We’re used to getting confidential tips from the police and sometimes from spacers, of course, but this is just a whole other world. My apologies if I’ve, er, over-egged it, myself.’

  Alex relaxed enough to smile, an indication in itself that he was now regarding Durannon as a colleague.

  ‘Not a problem,’ he said, and held out his hand. ‘So, let’s start again, shall we? Do, call me Alex.’

  ‘Wal,’ The Customs officer reciprocated as they shook hands, looking relieved to find that von Strada was actually quite human. ‘Would you like something to drink?’ he offered, as if anxious to make up for his previous antagonism, even though they both knew it had been feigned. ‘Some tea? Oh – no, you’re coffee drinkers on the Heron, aren’t you? Coffee, then?’

  Alex accepted, and Walthorn Durannon buzzed through to ask the duty rigger to bring them some coffee. While they were waiting for it to arrive, Alex plugged the security tape into his pocket comp and read the information on it.

  It confirmed that the Sixer, as Customs would refer to it informally, was on assignment to assist the Fourth in providing cover for their operations here, and while not under their orders, as such, would give their full cooperation.

  ‘Excellent,’ he said, and then saw the perturbed look on the other captain’s face as he slipped the tape into his pocket.

  ‘Pardon me, but shouldn’t you keep that in a security clip?’ Captain Durannon seemed quite shocked by Alex’s casual handling of the tape, which proclaimed its status with fluorescent lime colouring and Top Secret codes all over it. He had handled it, himself, as if it was radioactive.

  ‘There’s a security clip built into my pocket,’ Alex said. ‘All our uniforms have that as routine.’

  As he spoke, there was a rapid knock at the door, a wiry little man scuttled in with a tray, and they were served with drinks in freefall cups. Alex knew even before he sipped it that it was the vile powdery microtab kind, but he drank some without so much as a flicker of reaction. ‘It’s difficult for you, I’m sure,’ Alex observed. ‘I’ve been told that nobody else on your ship has been given nine ack alpha clearance, is that right?’

  ‘Not even my second,’ the captain confirmed. ‘It’s all ‘captain’s eyes only’.’

  ‘Well, that isn’t good,’ Alex said. ‘Things are difficult enough
without being so isolated you can’t even talk things through with your exec. So just in case that was true, I’ve taken the liberty…’ he took another tape from his pocket, and handed it over. ‘Nine ack alpha clearance for Commander Chen,’ he said.

  ‘Oh,’ said Wal Durannon, and then as he realised what that meant, a flood of relief came over his face. ‘Thank you!’ he said, and Alex knew that he could have given him no better welcoming gift than that, lifting the awful burden of not being able to talk to even his second in command about their orders. ‘That’ll make things so much easier!’

  ‘Pleasure,’ said Alex, and took another drink of his coffee. He had to steel himself to do so, with the thought that this really was front line inter-service relationship building, drinking that stuff without a grimace or a shudder. ‘And my compliments, too, on the Billy Bob rescue – pretty close call, by the look of it.’

  Captain Durannon shook his head.

  ‘The Dominica saved them,’ he said. ‘Though we were able to give them better medical treatment, if the Dominica hadn’t picked them up, two of them would have been dead within hours and the others within a couple of days. System diving, of course. Utterly insane. I’m told they all have some degree of brain damage from the two weeks they’ve spent at minimal atmosphere, but the question that has to be asked, really, is how could you tell? They could hardly have had full brain function in the first place, to my mind, to go off doing such suicidal stunts. And the worst of it is the idiots think that they’re heroes. Even after everything that happened, because of everything that happened, they’re talking about it as ‘an epic’ and can’t wait to put the movie together for Divers Anonymous. Bet you anything you like they’ll be giving media interviews the moment they can get onto comms.’

  ‘No bet,’ said Alex, with genuine sympathy. ‘But what are you intending to do with the yacht, Wal?’

  ‘Well, it has to be surveyed before it can be disposed of,’ Captain Durannon said, as if this was entirely obvious. ‘We’ve asked for a structural engineer to come over from the station and they’ve said they’ll have someone over for us by 0900, but it’ll take three or four hours before we get the results of that.’

  Alex raised his eyebrows slightly.

  ‘The airlock splintering,’ he pointed out, ‘indicates that the skeleton has taken a lateral wrench, which puts it beyond salvage.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ said Captain Durannon, with a slightly acerbic edge. ‘I do know what the splintering means. But I can’t just log it as beyond salvage on the basis of my opinion that the airlock is splintered so the skeleton is shot. I need a proper independent structural survey, for that. You may have authorisation to blow ships up whenever you want, but Customs policies are rather more restrictive.’

  Alex gave a little grin. ‘I don’t, actually, have any more authority to blow up unsafe ships than any other Fleet warship,’ he said. ‘People just think we do, because there’s almost always an operational imperative which justifies immediate disposal. In your place, for instance, I’d have used the fact that you were expected for a rendezvous here to justify scuttling the yacht.’

  ‘Yes, well, I could have done that, I suppose,’ Captain Durannon said, slightly nettled. ‘But since I couldn’t actually tell any of my officers that we were expected for a rendezvous, they’d have thought I’d gone mad! I thought it was better to maintain cover. And I didn’t think a few hours would make all that much difference.’

  That was the kind of thinking which could make collaborative efforts between the Fleet and Customs so problematical. Alex just smiled, finishing his coffee in a couple of swallows to get it over with, and setting the empty cup down with a feeling of achievement.

  ‘Well, no harm done,’ he said, ‘though on principle, we should get it sorted out as quickly as possible, just in case we have to leave in a hurry. So with your agreement, of course, I’ll have a team go over to the Billy Bob and we’ll give you the documentation in about half an hour, all right?’

  ‘Well… if you’re sure it’s no trouble…’

  ‘None at all – our tech teams are always keen to get hands on,’ Alex said, using his wristcom to transmit a message to Buzz, asking him to send a survey team aboard the Billy Bob and certify it as beyond repair. ‘Which reminds me – if there is any upgrade work we can carry out for you, at our expense, of course, we’ll be delighted to help out.’

  Durannon looked tempted, but doubtful.

  ‘I have been told that I can accept offers of upgrades, at my discretion,’ he admitted. ‘But it seems a little…’ he fumbled for a word and abandoned the sentence, leaving it hanging, ‘I wouldn’t want to be…’

  ‘Believe me,’ said Alex, with total conviction, ‘the favour would be on your side. I have sixty eight members of my crew currently doing tech courses which require practical experience. I can provide that through make-work, of course, stripping out and refitting systems which are already perfectly functional, but it is far more satisfying and beneficial, all round, if the work people are doing is real. That’s why we offer checks and upgrades to any ship we’re in company with – we cost the labour to our training budgets and any parts required are charged to public relations. We’ve already done all the work that can be done on our own ships, so do, please, provide us with a wish list and we’ll be more than happy to work through it.’

  Durannon grinned at that.

  ‘Well, if you’re absolutely sure…’

  It was apparent that he already had a wish-list, and with only a little more reassurance he produced it. Alex laughed when he saw that the very first item on it was a refit of the command deck.

  ‘If it isn’t asking too much,’ Durannon said. ‘The first two DSPVs have already been modernised in line with the refit specs the Fleet provided, but that is, obviously, a cosmetic refit which Customs won’t prioritise, so it’ll be three or four years before our turn comes for that. I’d strip out the command deck myself, frankly, but I don’t have anything like your crew either in terms of numbers or qualifications, and nothing like the resources of your artificer workshop, either.’

  ‘Not many ships do,’ said Alex, since several bits of equipment in their workshop were actually themselves hot tech in final space trials, classified even to the regular Fleet. ‘But we can certainly do this, no problem. And thank you. The one problem I have with a very able, energetic and ambitious crew is keeping them occupied with genuinely challenging, productive work, so letting us work on your ship is much appreciated. Just don’t let them decorate.’ He gave a little chuckle as Durannon looked puzzled. ‘We have some new high-tech painting gear our riggers are keen to play with, but they get bored spraying everything battleship grey,’ he explained, ‘so they’re keen to persuade other ships to let them do a paint job, and given a free hand the results can be…’ he paused momentarily, trying to find the most appropriate adjective, ‘colourful.’

  They parted on the best of terms, Durannon seeing Alex to the airlock in person and shaking hands with him under Sub-lt Field’s rather suspicious glare.

  ‘I’ll see you for breakfast,’ Alex said, and Captain Durannon smiled back happily.

  ‘Look forward to it.’

  Seven

  They were actually both guests of the Telathoran Vice President for breakfast, an invitation which took priority over any other arrangements they had made. Shion was the guest of honour, welcomed more like a goddess than mere royalty, though the Vice President kept saying that they knew she preferred to be regarded as an ordinary Fourth’s officer and assuring her that they would respect her wishes. That did not prevent them gazing reverently at her and listening to her breakfast-table small talk as if it was the wisdom of ages.

  Afterwards, the Vice President came to the Heron for a tour and a private meeting with Alex.

  ‘You will do your absolute best to bring the quarian ambassador for a visit, won’t you?’ she asked.

  ‘I will, ma’am,’ Alex assured her. ‘Though – I do have to ask, give
n the incidents on Chartsey, if you are fully prepared for the chaos and disruption that such a visit will entail.’

  The Telethoran Vice President was a mature lady. She had adopted a dark green central-worlds style business suit, as was her habit when travelling offworld, and looked very much the part of the conventional distinguished stateswoman. At that, though, she grinned, giving a response that gave some insight into the culture of her people.

  ‘Oh, we’re good with chaos,’ she told him happily. ‘Bring it on. And we will, believe me, do whatever is needed to make her welcome on our world.’

  Alex did believe her, and smiled, feeling some of the burden lifted from his shoulders. The visit would still be difficult, but with that kind of attitude and support from the Telathoran authorities, it wouldn’t be impossible.

  ‘Well, we have to ask her first,’ he observed. ‘But if, as we all hope, she does agree to come to Telathor, we’ll find out what she wants to get from that visit and work out the best way to provide it.’

  They didn’t have to wait long to find out – Alex was still in his sleeping cabin changing back into shipboard rig after the Vice President’s departure when he was called by the watch officer to tell him that the Stepeasy was coming into port.

  Davie called him immediately the superyacht came into comms range, startling Alex since Davie was normally punctilious in the etiquette of allowing half an hour between arrival and starting to make calls. As he took the hololink Alex was immediately struck by how exhausted Davie looked. He had seen Davie work flat out for days at a time without losing his cheerful energetic fizz, but he looked pale, now, his eyes like sooty smudges.

  ‘We’re on our way,’ he said, without preamble, and Alex could see that he was on the move and boarding a shuttle even as he called. ‘Okay?’

  ‘Fine,’ said Alex, and seeing that they had less than a minute before the shuttle arrived, called the ship to exodiplomacy stations.

  This was something they had already practiced extensively on the way out from Therik, so even the new members of crew went straight to their stations and got to work prepping the ship for an exo-visitor. A decontamination blast was sweeping through the whole ship, and anyone who hadn’t showered in the last couple of hours was diving for the nearest lavatory to shower and flash-launder their clothes. The ship was being rigged, too, as if for inspection, with coffee mugs and any other clutter whisked away. There wasn’t time to sparkle the ship by polishing everything that would take a shine, but they knew exactly what to polish to give the ship a look of gleaming cleanliness, and they were hard at work across the ship even as the shuttle came in to dock.