Midshipman's Hope (The Seafort Saga Book 1)

by David Feintuch

  “Everyone here, toward the ladder!” Vishinsky’s breath came in spurts, as if he’d been running. “Captain, we’re herding a group of passengers into nine. Ms. Edwards is with them. All right, they’re clear.”

  “Hostiles?”

  “We zapped two, sir. Haven’t found any more.”

  “Right.” I closed the hatch between eight and nine. As soon as the console light blinked green I began pumping air from ten back into nine.

  Alexi’s voice cut in. “Mr. Vishinsky, get your men ready to attack section seven.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Be careful, there’s an open airlock in seven,” I reminded them. It was a long way down to Miningcamp.

  “Open the hatch, sir!” Alexi’s nerves were frayed. It sounded like an order. I hit the corridor hatch control.

  “Oh, God, Tinnik’s hit!”

  “Get down, you fool!” A thud. The confused sounds of attack and rescue. Vishinsky ordered passengers out of their cabins to section eight. A maddening delay. Calls of warning, flurries of shots.

  The speaker rustled. A distorted voice, from a ship’s caller held against a spacesuit visor in vacuum. “Call them off, Captain!”

  “Surrender,” I said. “You won’t be shot.”

  “Call them off.” It was a snarl “We’re in a cabin, and we’ve got five lasers aimed at the rear bulkhead. If we cut through we’ll decompress your whole disk!”

  I blanched. “Wait!” Could we have lost, after all?

  “Now!”

  “You’ll have my answer in a moment.”

  “We want passage from Miningcamp, mister. You give us that, you get your ship back.”

  “Wait,” I said again. I switched off the caller. “God damn them!” For a moment I savored the blasphemy. “Pilot?”

  “Work it out with them, sir! Don’t let them cut through the ship, we’ll end up like Celestina!

  Vax swore. “Sir, if—”

  “Be silent. Chief, did you hear?”

  “Yes, sir.” A hesitation, then his reluctant response. “They can do a lot of damage, Captain.” Aiming inward from section seven, the invaders could cut through to section three on the opposite side of the disk. From there, they could cut into two and four. In addition, they could aim their lasers up and down to Levels 1 and 3. In half an hour they could render my ship uninhabitable. Except for the fortified bridge.

  “I know, Chief. Vax?”

  “Offer to return them to the station, sir. It’s the best they can get, now. They’ll go for it.”

  I thumbed the caller to the dining hall. “Mr. Carr!”

  My midshipman answered in a moment. “Yes, sir?”

  “Get everybody back onto suit air, flank,” I said. “Break out the oxygen stores. Expect decompression at any moment!”

  “Aye aye, sir,” he said. “We’ll handle it. Don’t worry about the passengers.” Though his violation of form was scandalous, I was grateful for the reassurance.

  “Vax, get on the other caller. Make sure everyone throughout the ship is suited.” I thumbed the caller so that it could be heard by our attack party as well as the boarders. “Mister, this is the Captain.”

  “Yes?” The hint of a sneer.

  “No deals. We’re ready for decompression. Surrender now or we’ll kill every one of you. Mr. Tamarov, burn through the cabin hatches one by one until you find them, then kill them!”

  “Aye aye, sir!”

  “You’ll lose your ship, damn you!”

  “You won’t be alive to know.” I clicked off my caller.

  The Pilot jumped to his feet. “Don’t! If they cut through to the mess there’ll be a bloodbath. They’ll kill the passengers.”

  I said, “The mess is halfway around the disk on the outer side of the circumference corridor. They’ll never reach it. I won’t bargain with mutineers.”

  “Captain, I’m warning you! Call them off!” The voice from section seven.

  The Pilot was in a frenzy. “Sir, don’t make them decompress the ship, or we’ll relieve you!”

  I turned. “We? Vax?”

  “We’ll blow your ship!” I ignored the speaker; I had more immediate problems.

  Vax fingered his laser. “No, sir. I’m under your orders. Pilot Haynes, sir, you’re distracting the Captain.” A nice touch, that.

  “They won’t do anything we can’t repair, Mr. Haynes. We’re suited and ready for decompression. As soon as they start cutting we’ll know exactly where they are. We can—”

  “What good is that?” The Pilot’s face was purple. “We’ll lose all our air!”

  “Not all.” I turned to the caller. “Get on with it, Mr. Tamarov! Blow any hatches that remain shut!”

  “Captain, wait!” The voice on the speaker held a timbre of fear.

  “We’re not waiting. Try cabin two eighteen, Mr. Tamarov.”

  “All we want is to get off that place! No supplies, no new air, it’s a death trap! Just take us with you!”

  I got unsteadily to my feet. “God damn you! Surrender before I count to fifteen, or we’ll shoot you dead the moment we find you, whether you’re trying to surrender or not! One! ... Two!”

  “Send us back to the station,” he said quickly. “Just let us off!”

  “Three! ... Four! ... Five!”

  “We found their cabin, sir! Two twenty!”

  “Six! ... Seven! ... Eight! Kill them on sight, Mr. Tamarov!”

  “Aye aye, sir!”

  The Pilot’s voice was urgent. “If they’ve got nothing to lose they’ll try to take us with them! They still have time to cut through the bulkheads!”

  “Nine! ... Ten! ... Eleven!”

  “Mister, we don’t have to kill each other! Just let us off!”

  “Three seconds left. Mr. Tamarov, blow the hatch on my mark. Twelve! ... Thirteen! ... Fourteen!”

  “ALL RIGHT!” A scream.

  I sagged into my chair, limbs trembling. I tried to keep my voice steady. “Mr. Tamarov, hold your fire. You men, put your lasers on the deck and unlock your hatch. Stand in the center of the cabin with your hands raised.”

  “All right! You won’t shoot?”

  “No, we won’t shoot you. Not now, not ever. You have my word. Mr. Tamarov, weapons ready, but hold fire.”

  “Aye aye, sir. The hatch is opening, sir. I’m going to—”

  “Let me, sir.” Vishinsky. I smiled; no midshipman would be shot down in Mr. Vishinsky’s care. Alexi was in good hands.

  The master’s growl was ominous. “Face the bulkhead, you scum!”

  In a moment the attackers were brought under control and hustled to section eight. Vishinsky’s party checked the remaining section seven cabins and found no more invaders. Alexi and two seamen removed the bars blocking the airlock hatches, while Vishinsky moved on to section six, the only zone still not in our hands.

  One miner surrendered immediately as soon as the hatch to six was opened. Two others were found cowering in passenger cabins, using terrified passengers as shields. They surrendered the moment Vishinsky’s men arrived.

  When our last hatch indicator flashed to green I breathed a sigh of relief. I lay back, my head throbbing. “Re-air all sections.” Vax hit the switches on my console. No alarms sounded; Hibernia was again airtight. Reserve oxygen from our recycling chamber brought all sections back to full pressure. I ordered our prisoners hauled to the brig.

  “Darla, any damage?”

  “Some of my corridor wiring is burnt out, Captain.” She hesitated. “I have backup channels for all circuits. Air reserves diminished by eleven percent. No other functional damage.”

  It was over. “Thank God.” I slumped in my chair.

  “Do you know how lucky we were?” The Pilot lurched to his feet. “You could have killed every man, woman, and child aboard! If they’d blown our air we’d be dead long before we reached Hope Nation. We didn’t have enough reserves!”

  “Is that your opinion, Pilot?” Lethargic, I was sustained onl
y by a cold knot of anger in my stomach.

  “You endangered the entire ship! I insist that my protest be entered in the Log! I demand it, Captain!”

  I snapped on the Log and spun it to face him. “Request granted. Enter your protest with your accompanying arguments.”

  “Aye aye—sir!” He wrote savagely on the holovid screen. I said nothing until he was finished. In a fury he dropped the holovid into my lap.

  I read it through. “Do I understand that you protest my reckless disregard of the risk of losing our air, with the consequence of suffocating everybody aboard?”

  “Yes! You could have repaired the holes they made, even to the outer hull. But you can’t manufacture air!”

  “I want your protest made clear. Amend it, to say exactly that.”

  “Fine with me!” He did so.

  “Very well. The time of your protest is entered, along with the date and time of my response.” I began to write. “Cargo area forty-one B, east hold. Contents: 795 oxygen and nitrogen cylinders. Destination: Miningcamp.”

  I tossed the holovid to the console. “We had enough oxygen in the holds to re-air the ship seven times over.” Ashen, the Pilot stared at the Log and his damning protest.

  “Pilot Haynes, I adjudge you unfit to serve as an officer on Hibernia. I relieve you of all duties until such time as my opinion changes. Your rank is suspended. You now travel as supercargo. Until further notice you are confined to quarters except to use the officers’ head. Dismissed. Vax, escort him off the bridge.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “You can’t!”

  “I just did. Out!” I thumbed the caller. “Infirmary, have Dr. Uburu stop at the bridge after she attends to the other wounded.”

  20

  WORK PARTIES WERE ALREADY measuring burned-out hatches for repair and replacement, while others swept debris flung about the Level 2 circumference corridor. On my growled, “As you were,” they ignored me.

  The savagery of the battle and the vacuum in which it was fought had left few injured. Men were either well, or dead. Bodies lay about, many in the unfamiliar white suits of the U.N.A.F. military. Three of our sailors were among them.

  Sandy Wilsky’s charred corpse lay in the corridor near the airlock, mouth stretched wide in the rictus of death. His sightless eyes stared mute reproach. I made a sound. Closing my eyes, I recalled my billet at Academy on Luna, tried to transport myself there.

  “Come with me, sir.” Vax Holser, quiet, solicitous. He touched my arm gently, then more firmly, led me away from the body. He put himself between me and the work parties to shield me from their view. “You’re all right, Captain.”

  “No.” My eyes burned; my cheeks were wet. “I’m not. I never will be. If I weren’t so stupid none of this would have happened. I killed him.”

  Glancing about, to make sure no one saw, he brushed my forehead lightly with his open palm. “You’re all right, Captain,” he repeated gently.

  I shivered. After a moment I drew myself together. “Come with me.” Unsteadily, I walked to the ladder, then down to the brig on Level 3. Mr. Vishinsky himself stood guard over the several small cells. “How many?” My tone was sharp.

  “Seven, sir.”

  “Is Mr. Herney in there?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Bring him out.” The machinist’s mate darted from his opened cell, hands twisting his shirt in anxiety. He stiffened to attention when he saw me. “Mr. Herney, you don’t belong in a brig with such as these. Your sentence is commuted. Back to your berth. Behave yourself.”

  He searched my face, weak with relief. “Aye aye, sir!” He scurried off with the miracle of his deliverance.

  “Where is the ringleader?” I asked, in a voice I didn’t recognize as my own.

  Vishinsky gestured. “In cell one, by himself.”

  “Unlock it. Both of you, follow me.” I entered the tiny cell. The prisoner sat on the deck, hands locked behind him, legs cuffed together. “Cut his clothes off.”

  Vishinsky glanced at me in surprise but recovered quickly. “Aye aye, sir.” He pulled a folding knife from his pocket. The prisoner’s eyes widened, but the man said nothing as Vishinsky slashed the seams of his clothing. A moment later the prisoner was hunched naked.

  “Stand him up.” Vax and the master-at-arms hauled the unnerved man to his feet.

  “Mr. Vishinsky, go to cell two. Prepare the next man in exactly the same way and wait there.”

  “Aye aye, sir.”

  “Vax, take this.” I handed Vax my laser pistol. I stood with my back to the bulkhead, my hand half open in front of my chest. “Mr. Holser, watch my hand. When this man lies, I will move my little finger. Like this. You will immediately shoot him in the face and follow me to the next cell. Say nothing and ask no questions. Simply watch my finger and shoot if it moves. Acknowledge, Mr. Holser.”

  Vax swallowed. He was silent a long moment.

  “Acknowledge your orders!” My tone was savage.

  He hesitated for barely a second. “Orders received and understood, Captain Seafort. I will shoot him in the face when your finger moves, sir.”

  I swung to the prisoner. “You’re the one who said he was General Kall?”

  “Yes.” The man swallowed, his eyes darting between my hand and Vax’s pistol.

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Kerwin Jones.”

  “Where is General Kall?”

  “On the station. Please don’t shoot, I’m telling the truth. Please.”

  “He’s alive?”

  “Yes, sir. He’s locked in a suiting room. Some of the joes are holding him with the other officers.”

  I twitched my hand the tiniest fraction. The man blanched. “You rebelled?”

  “Yes, sir. It’s the miners, sir. They were going to kill us all. I worked in the comm room, sir. I’m a civilian. When the supply ships didn’t come they got sort of crazy. I had to go along with them, or—”

  “How many officers were killed?”

  “Just two, sir. It happened so fast. We had to find a way off the station, don’t you see?”

  “What’s happened planetside?”

  “The miners took over. They’re holding the U.N.A.F. as prisoners, I think. The committee has control of the shuttle, they come up every day or so to keep an eye on things.” I looked at my finger. “It’s the truth, sir,” he blurted. “I swear by Lord God Himself! Please believe me.” He turned to Vax. “Don’t shoot, for the love of God!”

  “Mr. Vishinsky!” In a moment the master-at-arms came into the cell. “This man may cooperate. Question him. I want to know about the miners’ committee and when they shuttle to the station. Also the station layout. If he lies—if his story is any different from those other three—break off immediately and call me.”

  I left. Vax followed.

  As we walked back to the bridge Vax asked, “Sir, what would you have done if he’d lied?” I stopped, twitched my finger. He shuddered.

  “Take the pistol out of your belt. Aim it at the deck.” Vax complied, troubled. “Burn through the deck plates. That’s an order.”

  “Aye aye, sir.” With a dubious glance Vax tightened his finger on the trigger. The pistol beeped, indicating its empty charge. I held out my hand. He placed the pistol in it. I went to the bridge.

  Hours passed quickly. Crews were busy tracing and splicing electrical connections where lasers had burned our wiring. Derek and Alexi soothed frightened passengers and escorted them back to their cabins, helping with the cleanup.

  Three of our passengers had been killed by the intruders. Two more had died from decompression, unable to get into their suits in time. Among them was Sarah Butler, the pleasant young lady who had shared my table.

  Three of our enlisted men were dead. And one officer.

  All in all, we were lucky it hadn’t been more. Fortunately, the invaders aimed to take over Hibernia, not destroy her. Sandy had tried to slap shut the airlock control; they’d burned him wher
e he stood. If his clothing hadn’t caught in the lock panel, he’d have been swept out in the decompression when I broke the ship free. The other crewmen who’d died were among our fighting parties.

  On the bridge, I sat next to Vax in my soft armchair, trying to come to terms with my folly. It is always too late to do the obvious. Sandy’s accusing, sightless face floated just beyond my reach. I wondered if I would ever be free of it.

  I thumbed the caller. “Mr. Carr, Mr. Tamarov. Report to the bridge.”

  In a few moments the midshipmen strode in, came to attention. I released them. “Plot our course back to the station. A bow-on approach to their upper airlock from two kilometers out. Check your coordinates against Darla’s solution.” They scrambled to work, while I sat brooding. Vax watched with concern from the first officer’s seat.

  A thought surfaced. “Vax, where’s Cadet Fuentes?”

  “In the mess helping Mr. Browning.”

  “How’d he end up there?”

  “He was with me at the forward lock when trouble broke out. I sent him to guard the wardroom.”

  “Ah.” The wardroom on Level 1 didn’t need guarding, and the puny cadet was hardly fit to protect it. Vax had sent Ricky out of harm’s way.

  Vax reddened. “Yes, sir. After things calmed down I called him to help Mr. Browning.”

  “Very well.” I was glad of it. I’d killed enough children this day.

  The midshipmen brought me a course plot; I had Vax check it. This time, for once, I would rely on their calculations. My head ached despite Dr. Uburu’s healing salve, or perhaps because of it.

  We fired bursts of auxiliary engine power to return us to Miningcamp Station. Lethargic, I let Vax take the conn. After an hour we fired our retro thrusters to avoid overshooting.

  It was time. I picked up the caller, feeling foolish. When had the order I was going to give been heard on a U.N. vessel, except in drill?

  “All hands to Battle Stations!” I hit the klaxon; the horn blared insistently.

  Throughout the ship men and women streamed to their duty stations from the crew berths, from the head, from mess hall, from the repair crews. All nonessential systems were abruptly shut down. Hydroponics and recyclers were set to automatic. Every instrument in the engine room was double staffed, as the engine room crew brought the full potential of our fusion engines on-line to power Hibernia’s lasers.