Renegade

by Joel Shepherd

  Most Worlders accepted this state of affairs — most did sympathise with Fleet, and most were not so naive as to think that pacifist isolation would ever work in a galaxy that contained assorted krim, sard and tavalai. But as the latest war had dragged on, against a race that most acknowledged were not krim-like in their goals and psychology, the disquiet had begun to grow.

  “That has to be it,” Erik muttered, picking at his salad. They looked at him. “It has to be something to do with the Captain’s Worlder ties. He should be an admiral by now, we all know why he’s not.”

  “Lieutenant Commander,” Sudip cautioned with a careful glance around. “That’s really some very heavy speculation. Accusing your seniors of corruption really isn’t helpful at this time, and could be very dangerous for you personally.”

  “It’s not corruption, Captain, it’s politics. Fleet runs this war on its own, there is no civilian oversight from Spacer Congress, just a rubber stamp. Nearly half of Spacer Congress are retired Fleet. Those are just facts, they’re not accusations of anything.”

  Sudip took a deep breath. “Look. As your attorney advisor in this, it’s my responsibility to advise you not to repeat those allegations too loudly. That’s all. Besides which, there’s no proof here of corruption that I can see — these kinds of crossed-wires allegations come out of post-combat reviews all the time. Another captain sees Captain Pantillo doing something that he doesn’t understand, and reports it as such, in isolation. Further review usually clears it up, presuming the Captain does have good reasons for having done what he did, which to judge from what you’ve told me, it seems he does.”

  “Fleet Admiral Anjo paid the Lieutenant Commander a visit this morning,” said Thakur around a mouthful of steak. “At his home. Offered him a promotion to colonial administrator in the new order.”

  Sudip blinked at her. Then at Erik. He opened his mouth to speak. Then shut it again, looking confounded. “Well that’s… that’s highly irregular.”

  “It’s corrupt,” Dale muttered. “But that’s the system.” His stare shifted to Erik, accusingly. He’d said yes. Erik looked down at his salad.

  “And he said nothing about the court-martial?” Sudip pressed Erik.

  Erik shook his head. “No,” he murmured. “I think the conclusion’s pretty obvious. They offered me a big promotion to shut me up when they court-martialled the Captain.”

  Sudip shook his head. “Well, if we are going to entertain this line of thinking…” He took a deep breath. He was a lawyer, after all, trained to argue cases from multiple angles. “Then there’s an even more obvious conclusion. They offered you a big promotion to shut your family up. You’re nothing special…” and he held up his hands, “… no offence Lieutenant Commander.”

  “None taken,” Erik said drily.

  “But Captain Pantillo isn’t the only one with known Worlder sympathies.” With a meaningful look at Erik. Erik grimaced.

  “I’m sorry,” Thakur interjected. “I’m a little out of touch with this politics?”

  “My mother has supported the idea of a constitutional convention before,” Erik explained. “To reshape human politics. Give Worlders a bigger say.”

  “Are you guys even Spacer or Worlder?” Dale asked.

  “Spacer,” said Erik. “Debogandes have life citizenship. It’s not subject to review based on current living conditions, like most Spacers. We can live anywhere and still be Spacer citizens. I grew up on Homeworld.”

  “The war’s been winding down,” Dale observed. “If either side was gonna try something, now’d be the time to try it. Because when peace is declared, logically, everything changes.”

  “And certain Spacer interests,” Thakur added slowly, “with a lot of power to lose, start getting nervous.”

  The constitutional convention, Erik thought. Shit. Had his mother been pushing that, behind the scenes? Had her Worlder friends? Had Fleet noticed, and gotten worried? Had their Spacer Congress allies?

  “Erik,” said Thakur, observing his disquiet. “What is it?”

  “Something Fleet Admiral Anjo told me,” said Erik. “I asked him if I was receiving special treatment because of my name. He denied it. Because even people on Phoenix have wondered.” Thakur and Dale said nothing. “But Anjo said that Captain Pantillo asked for me himself. That that’s why I got the Phoenix. That Fleet Command had nothing to do with it.”

  “He could be lying,” Dale said helpfully. Thakur gave him a frown. ‘What?’ Dale said with his eyes, defiantly.

  “Which would mean the Captain might have seen this coming.” And would also mean that he hadn’t been selected for this duty purely on merit. That scared him nearly as badly as the Captain’s court-martial. These last three years on Phoenix had been hard, but they’d come to mean more to him than anything else in his life. He thought he’d done a good job, and earned the respect of his peers. Surely he deserved to be here?

  Across the table, Lieutenant Dale was all skepticism.

  “I have to talk to the Captain,” said Erik.

  “Well you can’t,” Sudip replied. “No one can.”

  “Then that’s the first thing you have to work on. There’s got to be some legal angle on this. Get us some access to him, find a way.”

  Sudip nodded nervously. Worried, but thinking hard. Professionally a case like this could see him crash and burn… or skyrocket into high orbit. If Sudip was the kind of person who thought about such things. In all his time in Fleet, Erik had only known two people who weren’t — one was currently in isolation awaiting court-martial, and the other was munching a steak at Erik’s side in the booth.

  “I’ll get on it,” said Sudip. “No promises. But I’ll see what I can do.”

  “Make a lot of calls,” Thakur suggested, with a sip of water. “You’re not breaking secrecy provisions, you’re a lawyer doing your job.” Sudip nodded warily. Spread it around, she meant. Get everyone talking, the only way they legally could.

  “And I’ll talk to my mother,” said Erik. “She doesn’t like talking politics at home. This time I’ll insist.”

  * * *

  Lieutenant Commander Debogande called on uplink just after dinner. Trace Thakur sat in cross-legged meditation before her view of the beach, and listened. He said that his mother denied pushing any particular support for the constitutional convention, or that she supported the Worlders’ cause in general. Yes she had friends there, but Debogande Incorporated was huge, and a well-maintained network of political friends was essential for good business.

  Beyond that, she sounded a little vague. Or he did. Trace didn’t know which. She’d served with Debogande for three years, but didn’t know him that well. It wasn’t his fault, or hers — as Phoenix’s marine commander, she timed her onboard shifts to Captain Pantillo’s, which meant that unless they were on combat alert, she was usually asleep when the Lieutenant Commander sat the command chair. He was the night shift, she the day, and despite the close proximity of Phoenix’s bowels, marines and spacers ran vastly different routines. Usually she saw him at command meetings, which happened on average every few days, but there Debogande would listen and say little, as befitted the junior command officer.

  Fleet Admiral Anjo might have been lying when he’d said the Captain had picked Debogande personally for Phoenix command, or he might have been telling the truth — it did not particularly matter to Trace. She might not have known Debogande, but she knew the Captain, and the Captain would never have selected an officer for third-shift command if he wasn’t qualified. And properly qualified too, on all the indices that actually mattered, rather than just having shiny boots and pleasing instructors at the Academy. Debogande had very shiny boots. Among Phoenix’s marines, whose boots were rarely shiny, it had only increased skepticism of how Debogande got the post. Phoenix spacers were less skeptical, particularly the officers on bridge third-shift with him. Several times in the past three years, Phoenix had run into trouble so fast the Captain had not been able to assume the ch
air, leaving Debogande in charge in combat conditions. He’d done fine, though again the skeptics had muttered that any dozens of other young officers could have done as well, but they weren’t given the Phoenix. Trace had shut it down on several occasions — all soldiers liked to bitch about their commanders, and needed enough space so they could do that and let off steam, but it was her job to recognise when that bitching crossed the line from harmless to harmful.

  She wasn’t about to tell Debogande that she did not actually doubt his ability, however. If she knew anything from her meditations and teachings, she knew that all people needed to find and draw their strength from within. Relying on the praise of others could become a habit, and those in the habit would seek that praise like an addict and his drug. Strength came through self-belief, and the belief of others without belief in yourself was useless. Chalk was still chalk, even surrounded by granite.

  She sat in her loose pants and shirt long after Debogande’s call had ended, on the small footrest she used as a meditation stool. The sound of waves on the beach was soothing, nothing at all like the sounds of her homeworld, or the sounds of the Phoenix. She’d used to meditate in her small room in The Perch, the Kulina Academy, halfway up a mountain and listening to the howl of freezing wind across the sheer, rocky cliffs. That was a peacefulness too, of a sort. But she had to admit, the beach was nicer.

  Some marine commanders stayed with their troops, on long downworld leave. Most found officers of similar rank to socialise with, to maintain a proper command distance, and to let their men get their kicks free from higher supervision. But both higher and lower ranked marines would then indulge in much the same thing — drinking, fucking, sometimes even fighting… as though they hadn’t had enough of that on deployment. Trace would join with them sometimes for interesting excursions, to see sights, climb mountains or dive reefs. But the rest of it disturbed and depressed her. She could not meditate in such surroundings, and deprived of her outlet for rage, pain and grief, she suffered.

  And so on this momentous leave, she’d sought this place — a small hotel by the beach, well down the coast from Shiwon, to sit with a view and meditate to the sound of waves. And she struggled, as she always had of late, to find any particular peace of mind. But here at least, she found far more than she would have, in other surroundings.

  There was a knock at the door. Trace unfolded herself and went, taking the pistol from the table on the way. An uplink view of the outside balcony showed her marine uniforms at the door, and a familiar face raised to the camera. Trace smiled and unlatched the door, tucking the pistol into her waistband so she could namaste the visitors, both palms together, pointed fingers at her chin. They replied in kind, all three of them.

  “Friends,” she said. “Svagata mitraharula. Please enter.”

  “Bahini,” said marine Colonel Timothy Khola with a smile. “Good to see you. These are Majors Naldo and Kriti, from the warships Glory and FarReach.”

  He entered, presenting the two majors behind him. “Yes I have met Major Naldo,” said Trace with another namaste, “we served at Pacamayana together.”

  “Bahini,” said Major Naldo, “good to see you again.”

  “And Major Kriti, I have not had the honour.”

  “Third class of Capricorn,” said Kriti behind pressed hands. “Fifteen years ahead of you, yet only the same rank.”

  “It is as nothing,” Trace gave the usual reply, with a dismissive wave, welcoming them both inside. “Forgive my informality, I was meditating. Can I make you tea?”

  “Tea would be perfect,” said Colonel Khola, removing his shoes and placing them in the hall, as the majors did likewise. “We shall join you. A pity we do not have time to meditate together, but from what you have told me, we have much to discuss.”

  Trace made her three fellow Kulina tea, while they sat shoeless on chairs that did not make cross-legged sitting easy. The posture was in breach of all marine protocol in uniform, but for Kulina the marines had long ago learned to make allowances. Tea presented, Trace retook her low seat before the windows, and sipped.

  “And how goes the meditation?” Colonel Khola asked her. Khola was pushing eighty, still young and fit. He’d seen more combat in the war than seemed reasonable even for a Kulina legend. These days he taught at Fleet Academy on Homeworld, and had declined further promotion as it would take him too far from his greatest love — the mentoring of marine officers, and Kulina in particular. Of only eight living marines to hold the Liberty Star, half were Kulina, and half of those Kulina, between Trace and the Colonel, were here in the room. Kulina made up barely one percent of total marine officer strength, but no one was surprised that they won nearly half the top combat awards. That too was tradition, nearly a thousand years old.

  “Not so well,” Trace admitted. It was so good to talk with fellow Kulina officers. Here she could be honest, and be sure they would understand and not judge. “It is hard to fight a war without rage or fear. But we strive.”

  Khola smiled. “Bahini, one cannot fight in a war such as this and not expect sleepless nights and peaceless meditations. If our paths were easy, we would not need to meditate at all.”

  “I saw the combat reports of the Moana Junction action,” said Major Kriti. She was tall and lean, hair trimmed short like Trace… fifteen years older, she’d said. That would make her forty-seven. “That was some impressive fighting. Paralim Station is a monster, you took it with minimal damage or losses.”

  “That station was defendable,” Trace said sombrely. “If the tavalai had been prepared to booby trap it properly, and lose parts of it to save the whole. They were not. It was an important facility for them, and they do not like to destroy what they have built.”

  “I once saw an infantry squad of tavalai die to defend a temple,” Naldo agreed. “I suppose they did not mean to die, I think they thought they could defend it successfully. But they did not realise we were marines on the ground, not army. And they did not retreat once they realised their mistake.”

  “It is easier fighting sard,” said Trace. “Against sard, one is certain. Against tavalai…” she took a deep breath. “Well. One regrets. Too much, I think.”

  “Never forget that tavalai chose the sard for their allies,” Khola cautioned. “Cultivated them in fact, for many, many centuries, to do all their dirty work. The sard have earned their reputation well, and every time it was a tavalai hand holding their leash.”

  Trace nodded reluctantly. “As you say.”

  “Now tell us about your Captain’s predicament,” said Khola. “We will see what is to be done.”

  Trace told them. That she’d been specifically ordered not to talk about it barely occurred to her. She was Kulina, and these were her people — the elite club within the elite club of marine officers. Theoretically she could have been court-martialled herself for this breach, but if Command were going to start disciplining Kulina for behaving like family, then Kulina everywhere would resent it. For Fleet, that was not a happy prospect. When Trace had finished, all three of her visitors looked concerned.

  “And you are certain that Captain Pantillo did nothing wrong?” Major Kriti pressed in the lengthening silence. At Trace’s back, the sun was setting, turning the ocean sky orange and red.

  Trace felt anger, and emotional certainty, and forced it down. To seek peace was to seek objectivity. She could not allow her attachments to rule her. “I’m a marine commander,” she said. “Space warfare is not my speciality. If the Captain’s accuser is another spacer captain, I would be unlikely to prove a good witness for the defence, as my expertise is infantry combat in space facilities.

  “However, I didn’t see the Captain do anything wrong. On the contrary, I thought his action was exemplary, and contributed greatly to our victory.”

  “Do you consider it possible that another captain may have misinterpreted?” asked Khola.

  “Yes.” Trace nodded. “As I said, we left the battle. Tavalai reinforcements were massing at Dhuvo. If
they’d been allowed to gather unmolested, we’d have been flanked, and taken heavy casualties. Captain Pantillo broke them up before they could hit us. It was unconventional, but that is his style. He’s done the same thing a hundred times before, and been commended for it. Now this.”

  She could not keep the anger and frustration from her voice. It was an effort just to hold her pose on the footstand. Small muscles tensed and twinged, that should have been calm.

  “This is troubling,” Khola admitted. “But misunderstandings do occur in battle. To presume that it is corruption seems a stretch, despite the Lieutenant Commander’s concerns.”

  “Colonel,” said Trace, attempting patience. “Let me be blunt. Command’s actions regarding Captain Pantillo have been unjust. The offer of promotion to the Lieutenant Commander just that morning was highly improper, and beyond suspicious under the circumstances. Now it appears the Captain is even being denied due process, despite all his service to the human cause.”

  “Major.” Colonel Khola held up his hands, calming. “The process has only just begun. Fleet makes mistakes, it’s a big organisation and often a flawed one, run by flawed human beings. Let us await an outcome before judging this or that.”

  “We must assist the Captain in getting a fair hearing,” Trace insisted. “He’s certainly not getting one now.”

  “I’m not sure that’s yet been established,” Major Kriti cautioned.

  “They won’t even tell us what he’s charged with!” Trace retorted. “It’s unheard of, our JAG Captain Sudip says that in every preceding case with a court-martial of this rank and magnitude, they’ve always declared the charge so that the defence could prepare.”

  “Major,” Khola said calmly. “Major you are upset.”

  “Yes I am,” Trace said shortly. She swallowed hard. It would not do to lose her cool completely, and show her comrades just how far her control had slipped. The Captain had entrusted her with things that he had not entrusted to others. She could not let him down. “I owe that man. All humanity owes that man, whether we are aware of it or not.”