Dark Running (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 4)

by S J MacDonald

  ‘Not now, sweetheart,’ Rangi said, and scooped up the lizard with a practised hand, giving it a tickle and slipping it into a tank. Then, with a look of quick apology at Alex, he moved over to open the other door. ‘Remember, they’re not feeling anything,’ he advised.

  Alex stood in the doorway, looking. The locker was too small to allow for horizontal storage, so the stasis bags were hung on rails like clothing in a wardrobe. They were like outsize vacuum-packed figures, encased in black plastic. They were horribly eloquent as to the nature of the injuries beneath. The stasis bag clamped down tight around the patient to act as a whole-body tourniquet. Ali Jezno’s head was not the right shape and Banno Triesse’s left leg ended mid-thigh.

  ‘Hold on,’ Alex said, though he knew they could not hear him. He needed to say it. ‘We’re doing everything we can for you.’

  They certainly could not be doing any more. Later that morning, when Alex was able to call the command team together, he had immediate agreement to release the blind-recording file, from Buzz and from Martine. Jonas was the only one who hesitated, and then only because he was going through the paperwork, confirming it was all in order. The request was for all blind-recorded footage in which Ali Jezno appeared to be released, generated to a high security tape on the format of ‘from his perspective’ as Simon had requested. That tape would then be used for medical purposes only and its contents wiped as soon as the procedure was complete.

  ‘I have no issue with that, under regulation and established policy,’ Jonas confirmed. ‘And I would have no issue, either, with the ship’s company being asked to volunteer any personal footage they may have which includes Mr Jezno, taken on or off the ship.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Alex said, and there was a moment, just a fractional hesitation, as if he was expecting something more but Jonas had finished all that he intended to say.

  ‘I do feel, skipper,’ Martine stepped in, her manner thoughtful, ‘that it would be fair, in the circumstances, to make a formal statement about this and allow reasonable time for any member of the crew to register concerns if they have issues with violation of their privacy.’

  She had worked with Alex for a lot longer than Jonas, and knew what he wanted – he wanted that point to be raised by somebody else so that it could be established in discussion, not just dictated by him.

  ‘Do you think that is likely to be an issue?’ Alex queried, as if he didn’t already know. It would not have been surprising if people did feel that it was an invasion of their privacy, really. Unlike the comms-cams which only operated in public, working areas of the ship, blind cameras worked everywhere, even in lavatories, even in bunks and showers, everywhere around the ship, around the clock, recording to a sealed file that could only be accessed for genuine, justified reasons.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Martine said. ‘Some people might have concerns about their own right to privacy being over-ruled without their consent. I know we have the right and authority to do that, on medical grounds, but we should at least give people the opportunity to express any concerns they may have. And I do feel it would be a good idea, in that, to issue an amnesty of some kind, so that if any misconduct does come to light through the disclosure which we wouldn’t otherwise have known about, no action will be taken on it.’

  ‘I have no problem with that, either,’ Jonas said, as Alex looked to him for a response. ‘Legally, if footage is released for a specified and limited purpose, you cannot then use it as evidence for something else.’

  ‘Okay – amnesty then,’ Alex said. ‘And nobody, not even the medics, will be accessing the data to view the contents. The only person who will view it is Mr Jezno. So, we’ll put it on the board and leave it for half an hour before we sign off on it, all right?’

  They agreed that they would do that, but it was only a few minutes after the announcement had appeared on the notice board that a deputation came to the command deck. Alex was not the slightest bit surprised. He had heard the buzz of debate around the ship and seen the huddles on the mess decks, the rapid process of shipboard democracy. Or at least, the nearest the Fleet would countenance to democracy aboard a warship.

  That meant it was two petty officers sent to the command deck as the crew’s representatives – Hali Burdon and CPO Martin, rather consciously formal as they addressed the captain.

  ‘Sir,’ Hali said, ‘we have been requested by the ship’s company to offer our respects and full, unanimous support for the proposal to release blind-camera footage for Ali Jezno’s treatment. Furthermore, the ship’s company has asked that we be allowed to contribute whatever footage and holos we may have in our private files, from shoreleave and the like, which may include Mr Jezno. And to make that as easy as possible, we are asked, on behalf of the ship’s company, to request that you authorise a scan of all personal files to pull up any relevant footage.’

  ‘And that is unanimous?’ Alex asked, purely as a matter of form.

  ‘It is, sir,’ the two of them said together.

  ‘Thank you,’ Alex said, with an appreciative smile. ‘We’ll proceed on that basis, then.’ He looked at Tina Lucas. ‘Carry on with that, will you?’

  ‘Skipper,’ Tina acknowledged. They were doing their best to give her the same experience she would have had in her first posting as Sub-lt on the tagged and flagged programme, which meant that she sat in on command meetings and was liable to be given additional tasks like this. It was not much different, really, from the role she’d had as a cadet, but that said more about how talented she’d been as a cadet than her capability as a junior officer. Alex wasn’t giving her that task to keep her busy, either – she too had had a hug from Uncle Buzz and a lot of support from her friends, topped off with a good night’s sleep. She would never forget what had happened, but she was coping well, staunchly cheerful again. Alex merely asked her to do it because it was technically challenging and would require a good deal of unusual procedures which would in itself be good experience for her.

  So Tina got to work, scouring files and running the perspective filter on them, duly presenting Simon with a security tape containing more than two thousand hours of footage, including all the holos obtained from Ali’s own file and those of his friends. At 1500, sickbay went back into lockdown, with a ‘Surgery in progress’ alert on the board.

  And there was nothing any of them could do, then, but wait.

  Eighteen

  They did a lot of waiting over the next four days. Once repairs were complete, there was nothing to do but maintain stand by status, watching and waiting, waiting and watching. The news from sickbay was encouraging – Ali Jezno’s surgery lasted twenty seven hours, after which he was placed in a life support tank. Simon said that he was stable and making good progress, but he’d allow no visitors. It would just upset his friends to see him in that state, submerged in gunk and cocooned in wires and tubes. The hyper-stimulation of his brain was also disturbing for a lay person – for much of the time his eyes were flicking behind his eyelids as if he was dreaming, and he would occasionally give a convulsive jerk.

  Banno Triesse, in contrast, was completely inert. It had taken Simon and Rangi only six hours to attach his cloned leg, though they’d spent nine hours repairing his internal injuries, too. He too had been placed in a life support tank while that and the surgery to his internal injuries ‘bedded in’, as Simon put it. He would need to spend ten hours in the tank, then would be moved to a bunk and his sedation level raised so that he could wake up naturally.

  Alex began to understand, with that, why other doctors did not come up to Simon’s perfectionist standards. He had spent the last four days operating on just two patients, with another doctor assisting. In any normal hospital environment, that demand both on their time and on operating room resources would have been extremely unproductive. Simon himself admitted that it wasn’t fair, really, to judge others by his standards, as ordinary neurosurgeons might be expected to do four or five limb reattachments a day. But that, he said, was becau
se they put up with it, compromising care for their patients under managerial pressure to rush bodies through beds.

  Looking at the two full life support tanks, knowing that even a well-equipped city hospital would be lucky to have ten of them, Alex knew that Rangi had done them proud, when he had the sickbay fitted out. There had been some fuss at the time, he remembered, with some query from Fleet Medical at the frigate having two tanks, when it was apparently standard practice for a ship of that size to only have one. Rangi had stuck to his guns, though, and Alex had backed him. He was very glad he had, now, seeing that both patients were getting the very best possible care.

  It was not all about what was happening in sickbay, though. They were watching the Samartians constantly, too, waiting for any response to their proposals or any sudden change of course. They were also, naturally, watching long range scopes for any signs of Marfikian attack. There was a certain edginess about that – off duty crew keeping an eye on scopes, a little frisson of alarm once when three fuzzy blips appeared. They were Samartians, though, three ships arriving to bring their squadron back up to eight. There was a surge of anticipation after that happened, too, with a feeling that the newly arriving ships might have brought an answer to their proposals or perhaps someone else to negotiate with. Nothing happened, though, and after a few hours they just settled back into watching and waiting again.

  On the evening of the fourth day, the Samartians responded. At the ‘signal incoming’ alert, the mission ops team went racing to stations. Everyone else just got on their toes, ready to cope with whatever this signal might throw at them.

  ‘Ah.’ At first sight, the message looked like excellent news. It answered the second request on their list, confirming that they were willing to exchange basic first contact files. No-one at the command table looked pleased, though. ‘Problem, boss-man,’ Davie said.

  ‘They’ve dodged validation.’ Jermane got in, quickly, and Davie demonstrated what a team player he had become by allowing the linguist to speak. ‘Skipper, we can’t progress without that.’

  ‘Sixships,’ Davie agreed, obscurely.

  Alex knew exactly what he meant, and why Jermane Taerling was looking so worried, but he could also hear the buzz around the ship. He was picking up a definite note of bewilderment from that, many of the crew not understanding what the problem was. So he looked enquiringly at Davie, and Davie, understanding very well why Alex wanted him to elucidate, obliged.

  ‘When we – the League – first went to Sixships in response to rumour of a wild colony having founded there, the skipper of the investigating ship accepted the statement made by the first people who answered their comms, claiming that they were the legitimate government of the colony. The skipper was an idiot, of course, he really should have checked, but by the time the true situation was realised – that six different extremist and entirely incompatible colonies had settled the planet and were now all claiming it for themselves – the League was already perceived to have ‘taken sides.’ We’re still dealing with the fallout from that even now, so it really is vital, vital, to establish from the outset that we are negotiating with someone authorised to speak for the legitimate government of the whole planet. We can’t progress unless we have that assurance. And the fact that they have dodged the question, frankly, is concerning. We have no way to know what form of government they have or how stable it may be, whether we’re dealing with an established global authority or a mish-mash of rival nation states, or what. Until we do know, we can’t make any kind of commitment.’

  ‘Understood,’ Alex said. ‘Thank you. So, we put that question to them again, then, yes?’

  There were nods and murmurs of agreement all round, so they spent a few minutes adding a clarification to the question in case it hadn’t been understood, being very sure this time that it could in no way be misinterpreted as a request for any kind of combat. Then they sent off a probe, and waited.

  The reply came back quickly – in only seven minutes.

  Information prior donated, read the auto-translate. I/we am/are dakaelin. We are authority (untranslatable) World. Think you (untranslatable) primitives?

  ‘We told you this already. We’re dakaelin.’ Davie said, using an irritated tone. ‘And yes, we represent our world. What do you think we are, barbarians?’

  ‘I think ‘peramat’ has root commonality with primatar, so…’ Jermane said, with the tone which made it clear that he was not going to back down on that one.

  ‘Okay, primitives,’ Davie conceded. ‘Though I feel that the sense of it is more about degree of culture so ‘barbarians’ is more…’ he caught Alex’s eye and broke off with a grin. ‘Sorry. Easy to get side-tracked. But no doubt that question has annoyed them. My advice is that you don’t apologise.’ He held up a finger to silence Jermane as the linguist was opening his mouth. ‘Ah!’ he warned, and Jermane, magically, closed his mouth again. ‘This is a forthright culture,’ Davie told Alex. ‘My guess is, as I’ve said before, that they hold truth and honesty in very high honour. In cultures like that, apology tends to be seen as degrading, and the kind of soft-soap dissembling we consider ‘diplomatic’ is downright offensive. So you should answer just as honestly, okay?’

  Alex nodded, looking very thoughtful.

  ‘My instinct,’ he said, ‘is to answer, ‘How would we know? We don’t know enough about you yet.’’

  Davie gave a hoot of mirth, mostly at how horrified Jermane looked in the moment before he got his face under control.

  ‘Perhaps a little more diplomatically expressed, skipper?’ Jermane suggested, in a slightly shaken tone.

  He got his way, at least, in the formal version which was transmitted, or at least, their best guess at a formal usage.

  Eighteen minutes later another probe ripped past them, flashing code at their array.

  (Untranslatable) it read, with a twenty terabyte data package attached.

  It didn’t take them long to see that this was, indeed, the first contact package they had asked for.

  Then they cheered.

  Nineteen

  ‘There’s enough here to keep an entire exo-team busy for years!’ Jermane was almost in tears of mingled joy and frustration – joy at the incredible wealth of information they had been handed, and frustration because he knew he couldn’t even begin to do it justice.

  Alex sympathised. His brain felt as if it was on hyperdrive even keeping up with the bullet-point data which Davie and Shion were producing. He had never envied them their multi-cognitive intellect before, but he did then. It felt like trying to keep up with olympic athletes while wearing boots full of concrete.

  There was, in fact, no mad urgency about this, and he knew that, really. They had transmitted their own first contact pack, considerably larger than the one the Samartians had provided, and they too would need time to process even the basic information.

  Even so, Alex wanted to know, and he wanted to know everything. It was all the more frustrating because Davie and Shion would occasionally give maddening yelps of joy or crows of triumph at something only apparent to the two of them. They were sitting together, hands flashing across screens which danced with base-four coding. Out of that flashing, tumbling chaos were emerging documents, images, statistics, graphs.

  Everyone aboard the Heron was grabbing them as fast as they hit the operations board. Alex had not limited this to the operations or analysis team. Any member of his crew could read the data at the same time as he was seeing it himself. There was a screen open on the ops board, too, for any member of the crew to draw the team’s attention to data that they thought was significant.

  Naturally enough, the data which got the most excited reaction were the images of Samart and the Samartians themselves. There were only three images of the planet, all high density holographic stills. The first showed a view from space. Davie gave a yell of delight when he saw that it almost exactly matched his own prediction from the data they’d found in the Gide Disclosure, and there was much c
heering around the ship, too. Samart was just under two thirds surface water, with extensive tundra forest over both poles and a broad band of muddy-brown desert around the equator.

  The second image, though, was a revelation. It showed a parade ground surrounded by buildings. The architecture was stark, blocky, basic cuboids with rows of small windows. The sky was cloudy, with just two streams of air-traffic crossing some way behind where the parade was happening. And the parade ground was enormous. Picture analysis was estimating that there were fifty thousand people in the shot, and they still weren’t anything like filling up the space.

  There were about twenty thousand standing in precise blocks in the centre. It was instantly recognisable as a military parade – they were all in uniforms, strikingly similar to the Fleet’s shipboard rig other than in the fact that it was bright, gleaming white. Zooming in on the people revealed that they were men and women, none of them looking any older than about twenty five, and all of the same genome. As Davie had also predicted from the Gide Disclosure information on their DNA, the Samartians were a light-boned people with pale skin, grey hair and blue eyes. Some of them had ashy blond hair and there was an occasional flick of ginger, but almost all of them, young as they were, had pepper-grey hair. All those in uniform had their hair cut short, with longer spikes like angular sideburns just in front of their ears. They were facing a big concrete structure on which a row of people was standing, facing them. Around the edge of the square, and almost as regimented, were rows of observers. They appeared to be civilians, some of them in the same kind of overall-style clothing but in other, muted fabrics while the majority were wearing variations on the theme of basic straight-legged pants and tube-armed tunics. The most noticeable difference was in their hairstyles – many of those watching, men and women both, had short hair other than for ringlets which curled down in front of their ears, often falling past shoulder length. Neither gender, military or civilian, appeared to be wearing make-up. The mood of the image was one of solemn celebration, faces in the parade showing pride, faces in the watchers showing admiration.