New Title 2

by S J MacDonald

  The display concluded with the destruction of the target ships, also accomplished as part of the choreography. The music concluded with a very well-known sequence – an emphatic high pitched chord followed by busy staccato, repeated twice before the ‘big boom’ finish with trumpets blaring and percussion going berserk.

  At the first chord, the Whisker fired a broadside which utterly obliterated the first starseeker in one great blinding flash.

  During the first staccato, their fighters tore the second starseeker to bits with blip-fire which went off like fireworks. As chunks of starseeker fell sublight, they too detonated with the force of missiles, flaring into star-like bursts.

  At the second chord, the Minnow wiped out what was left of the starseeker with a sustained burst from their own big guns.

  Nothing happened during the eight seconds of the next staccato sequence, but expectation was building to the point where people were holding their breath. Eyes flicked back and forth between the Heron and the damaged Billy Bob. It was three times the size of a starseeker so this was going to be big. Even if they just released it from the drone tug which was hauling it, the crash back sublight would reduce it to tachyons and create a brief but astonishing flare. Everyone knew that the Fourth would not do anything so tame, though. This was going to be good.

  What actually happened took everyone by surprise. Everyone was watching the Heron, but it was the Customs ship which fired. Captain Durannon, perfectly on cue, fired just one missile. It shot straight at the Billy Bob – perfect targeting, not a hairsbreadth of course correction needed by the on-board systems. Precisely at the height of the music crescendo the yacht flared into a nova, brilliantly intense for a moment and then spreading into a glowing cloud in which swirls of green, blue and orange created petals of light.

  Everyone on the watching ships was yelling and cheering, other than on the media craft of course as the journalists were busy describing what they saw. Even as the light-flare faded they were commenting on how controversial it was that a Customs ship had destroyed a yacht themselves.

  ‘The normal procedure would be for a ship written off like the Billy Bob to be handed over to a scrapyard,’ one of the journalists explained. ‘There have been instances where Customs have destroyed ships which are a danger to navigation, but I can’t find any precedent for them blowing up a ship like this, either for target practice or as part of a display. It’s possible that this is meant as some kind of statement, demonstrating that Customs and the Fourth are working together very closely on this law enforcement operation, and perhaps, too, making the statement that they are going into it ready to kick some serious backside.’

  Actually, Alex had done it for fun. He could justify it operationally as a team building exercise with the Excorps and Customs ships but he’d really done it because it was great fun and a grand flourish with which to welcome Silvie aboard.

  And with that, then, they set off for Telathor. There had been a minor contretemps with the Telathoran presidential transport over the convoy formation they would adopt for that trip. The Fourth had signalled a flight plan in which they would take up honour-escort positions around the presidential ship, along with the Fleet patrol ship, Customs and Excorps. Any other ships which wanted to tag on to the convoy would then be allowed to do so – not that the Fourth could stop them anyway so long as they could keep up. But making it a matter of invitation with a declared flight plan would bring them into the convoy and allow the Fourth some measure of control.

  The Telathoran Vice President, however, had objected to the proposed formation.

  ‘We’re here to escort you,’ she pointed out. ‘And our exo-visitors, so the Heron should be in lead position and us in starboard wing.’

  ‘Uh,’ said Alex, and then pointed out, cautiously, ‘I’m afraid that would look very odd, ma’am, and would inevitably be commented on by the media – even Excorps and Customs would be bewildered, since neither of them know that we have exo-visitors aboard.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter,’ the Vice President said, pleasant but adamant. ‘Even if it wasn’t for the exo-visitors we would still consider it appropriate to escort you in, Captain. You have held Presidential Envoy status twice, and while we’re aware you’re not carrying that right now you are still the most important VIP we’ve had visit Telathor for decades. Our culture, our beliefs about hospitality, absolutely require us to show you to our world with all honour.’

  After some polite debate about the relative priorities of Telathoran culture versus Fleet regulations, though, a compromise was agreed in which the two ships would take up side-by-side stations with all the others in honour escort formation around them.

  This was achieved with remarkably little fuss, even amongst the gaggle of ships which tagged onto the convoy rather than turning to head back to the station. These included the Stepeasy, of course, the Fleet Intel ship Calliope and the LIA’s Comrade Foretold. There were four fast freighters, too, able to keep up with the cruising speed the Fourth had stated. And then there were two media ships, one from Telathor and the other owned by a news gathering agency which supplied footage to networks right across the League.

  The difference in the behaviour of the two ships was striking – the Telathoran ship asked for an assigned place in the convoy and took up the station they were directed to. This not only enabled them to lock autopilot on to follow the lead ships and maintain safe distances from the others in the squadron, but brought them into the comms network which enabled any ship to signal any other by transferring signals around. That made them part of the group, able to read not only the official convoy signals but to be part of the chat which would pass between ships.

  The Newsgen ship, however, opted to hang back out of the formation, within scanner range but pointedly not asking for a station in the convoy. This meant that they were out of the comms loop, too, holding themselves aloof as if fearing some kind of contamination. Even so, they settled into a discreet following position and the convoy cruised off towards Telathor with every appearance of calm routine.

  Eight

  By the time Davie came back aboard the Heron they were nearly three hours on their way to Telathor. He had slept a long time by his standards, and enjoyed an unhurried lunch before he’d come over, too.

  ‘I did wake up for a moment,’ he said, ‘when I felt the ship leave orbit, but I saw we were heading for Telathor so I went back to sleep.’ He gave Alex a playful salute, though the feeling that went with it was deep and sincere. ‘Good work, Boss.’

  He already knew that bringing Silvie out here had been a good decision. He could see on the command deck screens that she was currently having lunch on mess deck four. There was a cheerful clamour of conversation around her and a lot of laughter, the crew there clearly delighted to be getting to know their new shipmate. She was just as clearly at her ease with them, looking far more at home there already than she ever had aboard the superyacht.

  ‘Well – a good start, anyway,’ Alex replied, with a smile. There was no hint of chagrin in Davie, no resentment of the fact that Silvie was responding so much better to the Fourth than she had to his own increasingly desperate efforts. The only thing that mattered to Davie, the only thing, was that the relationship was going well.

  Which was, ironically enough, actually the cause of some of the problems he’d been having. Seeing that he was on the command deck, Silvie came up to say hi once she’d finished her meal.

  ‘You were right,’ she beamed at him, joining them at the command table. ‘Thank you, Davie, this really is a lovely ship, and great people. And Alex and Shion are wonderful.’ She smiled from one to the other of them and then back at him. ‘They don’t want anything from me,’ she explained. ‘And you do, all the time – I know you can’t help it, it’s just who you are, but it is really hard to live with your expectations. You want so much, always. You want the diplomatic thing to work out so badly that it’s like the whole fate of humanity is hanging on it, which is big pressure, l
et me tell you. And you want so much from me, too, to make up for all the years of loneliness when you were the only one of your kind. I can’t do all that, be all that. Alex and Shion, all they want, all they want in the whole wide universe, is to take care of me, and that just feels so nice. So thanks, I know, you’ve tried and tried and worked so hard, but I’d like Alex and Shion to look after me now. And you and me…’ she gestured between the two of them and grinned, ‘I’ll always be your Sis, right?’

  Davie took it very well – the blunt disclosure that she found it hard to deal with his desperation to make this work hardly came as a surprise, as she’d been telling him all along that she found him emotionally loud and even sometimes stressful. And, having seen her at her ease on the frigate, he recognised that, too. He felt really sorry, knowing that he had not done nearly as well on this assignment as he’d wanted to. But at the same time he could feel the familial bond between them, and that moment of, ‘I’ll always be your Sis, right?’ would stay with him the rest of his life. So he smiled, knowing he did not need to tell her how he felt. And then she shattered the sentimental moment, breaking into a grin and indicating Alex.

  ‘And you don’t need to worry,’ she told Davie, breezily. ‘He thinks you’re a hero too.’

  There was a moment in which Davie and Alex very deliberately did not look at one another, and Silvie gave a peal of laughter.

  ‘All right, I’m going!’ she got to her feet, giving the two of them a merry look and then heading off the command deck with Shion following.

  Davie and Alex both took a breath, then after a moment of exquisite embarrassment, resolutely pretended that that had not just happened.

  ‘Coffee, Mr North?’ Asked Alex, casually hospitable.

  ‘Thanks,’ Davie agreed, and as Alex nodded to the grinning rigger, ‘I’m happy to hand over primary responsibility for Silvie to you, but I do still want to be involved.’

  ‘Naturally,’ Alex said, and there was a slight but detectable relaxation between them as they started to talk normally again. ‘Shall we work on the same basis as at Samart?’

  Davie looked relieved. He’d been a diplomatic consultant on that mission, with a place in the command team by right, and an active role in operations. He had no issue with Alex having ultimate authority in that relationship – someone had to have that leading, decisive role in any mission, and of the two of them, that was never going to be Davie.

  He smiled, taking a coffee and a plate of doughnuts from the rigger with a nod of thanks. There was a lovely sense of slipping back into an environment, and a role, which was both familiar and comfortable.

  That was all the time they had to talk, though, that day – within minutes, the Heron was hosting a visit from the Telathoran Vice President who was coming aboard to meet Silvie.

  And that, at least, was a successful meeting. The Vice President was so amazed that she could barely speak for the first few minutes, but once she did find words they poured forth in a torrent of delighted welcome.

  ‘And if you feel inclined to upgrade our traffic control network or any other system that catches your eye,’ she told Silvie, ‘by all means, feel free!’

  Word had evidently got to Telathor by then, not only that Silvie had reprogrammed the traffic control system at Chartsey but also that it had noticeably improved traffic flow around the system. Traffic Control there was still trying to work out how, but they had had to admit that whatever she’d done, it had, so far at least, apparently been beneficial.

  ‘Sweet!’ Silvie said, and turned with a grin for Shion. ‘Is this what you mean by the ‘alien goddess’ thing?’

  Shion nodded, grinning back, and as the Vice President started to laugh, so did they. Things could not, Alex felt, have gone very much better.

  This was more than could be said for the Minnow. Harry Alington had asked if Alex could do him the favour of going over there for a private meeting. He had not yet met Silvie and evidently wasn’t keen to do so, either, even willing to go so far as to breach protocol in asking the senior officer to come to him in order to avoid the risk of meeting her.

  Once he’d seen the Vice President off the ship and changed back into shipboard uniform, therefore, Alex headed over to the corvette.

  It felt very strange to be back in his cabin there. The corvette did not run to separate daycabin and sleeping quarters for its skipper, so the cabin did double duty with the sofa flipping over into a bunk as required. It was in daycabin mode just then, and seemed a lot smaller even than Alex remembered it. Harry had transformed it, pretty much obliterating all the available wall space with the traditional holos of all the ships he had served on along with group holos – all of them including him – charting his career from cadet to command. There was a faux leather cover over the sofa, too, and plump cushions. Harry had also changed the fold-out chair behind the tiny desk for one considerably larger and more luxurious.

  Alex accepted the offer of a seat on the sofa – it would have been awkward for Harry to sit in his big chair with Alex in the smaller visitor’s chair, and even more awkward if he’d offered his skipper’s chair to the captain. A well-primed rigger pretty much followed them in, with coffee for Alex just as he liked it.

  ‘So…’ said Alex, once the door had closed behind the rigger and the social niceties had been observed.

  Harry Alington swallowed. Alex looked at him calmly.

  There was no book running on the Stepeasy on what would happen when Harry Alington met Silvie. There was no point; the odds were just too short.

  Harry, however, skirted that issue for now.

  ‘I’ve been approached by a number of the ship’s company,’ he told the captain, ‘expressing concern about the invasion of their privacy inherent in contact with Ambassador Silver. They are asking – with all due respect, naturally – to be excused such contact, specifically to be excused duties or training on the Heron while she is aboard, and should she visit the Minnow, the opportunity to absent themselves from the ship for the duration of her visit.’

  He stopped, waiting for Alex’s response, and the captain sipped his coffee, allowing the silence to develop.

  ‘Certainly,’ said Alex, and then as Harry’s expression brightened, went on, ‘Any personnel who feel themselves unable to take an active part in exodiplomatic duties may of course absent themselves. And they will be transferred into on-station duties as soon as we arrive at Telathor.’ He looked at Harry with cool, immovable resolve. ‘I have no use for anyone,’ he said, with just the slightest possible emphasis on the anyone, ‘who isn’t prepared to give every mission we are undertaking one hundred per cent of their very best effort. Every member of the Fourth, after all, knew upon signing aboard that they were committing themselves to exodiplomacy assignments which might well be either dangerous or traumatic. Meeting other species can be an overwhelming, even terrifying experience, which is why we make sure that everyone understands that before they sign up. And on a scale of one to ten of how high impact it can be, believe me, personal embarrassment barely rates a two.’

  He spoke with the voice of personal experience in that, and Harry, knowing what Alex had been through himself in the course of first contact operations, could only concede the point. He did so, with a reluctant nod.

  ‘I will pass that on,’ he said, ‘to the personnel concerned. But – may I speak entirely frankly, sir? Personally, I mean?’

  ‘By all means,’ said Alex, and took pity on him, seeing that the skipper was really agonising over this. ‘You’re concerned, I daresay,’ he commented, ‘what Silvie might say about our feelings towards one another.’

  ‘Sir,’ Harry acknowledged, with a wry grimace.

  ‘Well, you needn’t be,’ Alex assured him. ‘Every member of the Fourth already knows perfectly well how we feel about one another, and I guess most of the Fleet and a fair chunk of the spacer community in general, too. It’s no secret that we’ve never got along, is it? And given our history and very different beliefs and priori
ties, hardly surprising that we have something of a personality clash. But I believe, myself, that that will be a very useful thing for Silvie to see – that even people with very different values and who frankly don’t even like each other very much can still work together effectively and with mutual respect at a professional level.’

  Harry stared at him. ‘Mutual…’ he echoed involuntarily, and then caught himself up, ‘uh…’

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Alex, pretending not to understand. ‘Well,’ he went on philosophically, ‘she can see that I have respect for you, at least.’

  ‘Uh?’ said Harry, reduced to speechless incredulity by this.

  ‘Of course!’ Alex said, as if he didn’t understand at all how Harry could ever have doubted it. ‘I know how difficult this has been for you, Harry – what a nightmare you went through at Karadon and how humiliating it had to be to be assigned to serve with me. The easy thing to do and the thing I think most officers in your position would have done would have been to quit and walk away. You didn’t. And you didn’t come at it with any confrontational attitude, either, but have been making every effort to learn how to do things the Fourth’s way even when it doesn’t make any sense to you and even when it crosses your personal beliefs about how Fleet ships ought to be run. I respect that commitment, that effort,’ he grinned suddenly, ‘even when you’re getting on my nerves with your constant questioning, just as I know I get on your nerves behaving in ways you feel are beneath the dignity of a flag officer. We are, let’s face it, never going to be best mates. But we do work together effectively – I’ve actually come to value your questioning attitude because it does make me think about what I’m doing and why. And I do have the highest respect for your social and PR abilities – mine are, as you know, deep in a negative index, and you are a great asset to us in that role. But I appreciate I shouldn’t have assumed that that respect was mutual, and if Silvie comments on the fact that you have no respect for me I assure you, I’ll take it in good part.’