The Devil and Deep Space

by Susan R. Matthews

  “If we have to. If you’re sure.”

  Yes, they’d pushed the propulsion systems hard from the moment they’d cleared the Ragnarok’s maintenance atmosphere. But that was what the ship’s engines were there for. Motive power. Maneuverability. Lek knew his ship. The Wolnadi would do it.

  “If I take a sub on target minus–two, can you pick off target minus–three on the way?” Lek asked Smish, just to let the weaponer know what he was doing. Because he already knew that she could do it. If she couldn’t do it, he wouldn’t be asking.

  “We’re already good on time, Lek, why push it? Yes.”

  She was frustrated with him, because he was pushing her hard, as well. It was an unusual position to be in, a bond–involuntary telling un–bonded troops what to do; but the Ragnarok didn’t have enough bond–involuntaries assigned to make up a second full team after 5.3, so there they were.

  Security 5.1, Lek’s team, did have an un–bonded navigator assigned; but Eady was on fifth–week rotation this cycle. And Lek was better than Eady was. “On target. Fire through.”

  If she couldn’t make the target minus–two kill before they hit target minus–three, they’d lose points on execution. The flight sphere was set up to maximize the challenge, and the targets were to be taken in order. The targets — the little remote decoys — were moving; Lek just had to move faster. That was all.

  “Confirmed,” Murat said approvingly, from his post on observation scan. Lek didn’t have time to congratulate Smish on her marksmanship, though, because she had mere fractions of an eighth to refocus her considerable prey instinct on the next target.

  “Minus–two on monitor. Please confirm target acquisition.”

  Lek shoved the linear propulsion feeds to the maximum, firing his laterals as he went to spin the ship and finesse its trajectory. The next target was well below the arena’s theoretical floor axis, and fast approaching the boundary, but he could fly through the center of the arena, and that saved time. Nothing to go around.

  “Target minus–one within six degrees of escape,” Murat warned. Lek checked his stats. Fleet really did want them to fail the exercise. There was no way to get from one target to the other in time. Was there?

  He could do a fly–through, maybe, if Taller could give him a pulse to shield their forward path, and clear the debris from the target so that he could take a direct line on the next without fear of hulling out on some piece of scrap metal —

  “I confirm target minus–two. Targeting. Firing.”

  Smish was too busy concentrating on her own task to yell at him. Lek was just as glad. He knew what he was doing, and they knew that he knew what he was doing, but his governor would not let him take chances with the ship if he made the mistake of letting himself become nervous about his margins. So he had to avoid getting nervous; or else his governor would conclude that he had destruction of Jurisdiction property in mind, and shut him down.

  The sensor screen lit up with the impact report from the target’s remains. The kill was good. “Blow me a hole, Taller,” Lek suggested. “We can still catch the last one.”

  Taller sent a plasma burst out ahead of the fighter’s path, shaking his head as he did so. “Whatever you say. But we’re already ahead, Lek, you don’t have to prove anything.”

  Lek threaded the Wolnadi through the narrow passageway that the plasma bolt cleared through the debris of target minus-two. “Ahead isn’t good enough. We’re maximizing. Smish. Target acquisition?”

  Nobody flattened the line. Nobody had hit all the targets in sequence and on time in the weeks they’d been here. He had a chance. With Smish’s eye for her targets and his feel for his navs, they could do it.

  The last target was on–screen. Lek could see it; they were heading straight on, and the subtle blue sheen of the flight sphere’s containment field glowed dimly against the backdrop of black Space and distant star–fields. It was going to be close; their quarry was doing everything it could to escape.

  “Targeting,” Smish said.

  Lek eased the propulsion up just a hair, one eye to his return trajectory. He needed power in reserve to return to base. “Firing. Confirm kill on three. Two. One.”

  The forward display screens blossomed, then blanked as ship’s on–board display recalibrated itself. Explosion; good. That was it for the last of the targets, then.

  Lek heeled the ship into its return arc and brought its speed up as quickly as he dared. All he had to do now was get back to the Ragnarok on time, and they would have beaten Pesadie for good and all. After years of being mocked by their Fleet counterparts as idle vacationers on an experimental test bed — if not worse — the crew of the Ragnarok had shown Fleet that they could obtain and execute with the best of them.

  Pesadie Training Command had done everything it could to discredit the technical and fighting abilities of the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok, under cover of capability evaluation. But the Ragnarok had accomplished every task, exceeded every benchmark Pesadie had set against them; and defended its honor, to the last.

  ###

  Jennet ap Rhiannon stood on the observation deck of the Engineering bridge with her arms braced stiff against the waist–high railing, looking down through the soundproof clear–wall into the well of Engineering’s command and control center, where the Ragnarok’s last battle exercise was displayed on ship’s primary screens.

  It was a pleasure to watch the Wolnadi fight. None of the crews had embarrassed the ship, but this one seemed to be particularly aggressive, and Jennet sent a question back over her shoulder to Ralph Mendez while she watched. “Security 5.1, First Officer?”

  The Wolnadi took its target on a high hard oblique roll, clearly planning on blasting through its own debris field on its way to the end of the set. She could see the final target start to move toward the perimeter; someone in Pesadie Training Command had noticed the Wolnadi’s successful attack as well, and was taking measures to challenge their final approach — to make it as difficult as possible to get the final kill.

  “That’s them, Lieutenant,” Mendez replied, Santone dialect still flavoring his syntax even after all of his years in Fleet. “Look at him go. Would you have thought a bond–involuntary could show so much ginger, and get away with it?”

  No, she wouldn’t. Bond–involuntaries were much more likely to be characterized by an aggressively — or defensively — conservative approach to life, for their own protection.

  “Kerenko, I think,” Lieutenant Seascape said, from the shadows behind Jennet. “I thought Koscuisko was taking his Bonds home?”

  “Andrej’s taking Security 5.3, Lieutenant,” Mendez corrected. “Kerenko’s on 5.1. He wanted to take all six of them home, but he can’t take St. Clare anyway, no new governor yet. And Fleet would only authorize one Security team.”

  That was right. There were only six bond–involuntary troops assigned to the Ragnarok right now, well short of the hypothetical full complement of twenty–five. Nor were bond–involuntaries the only troops the Ragnarok was shorted; there were only three Command Branch officers left on board, since murder in Burkhayden had removed both Captain Lowden and Lieutenant Wyrlann from the chain of command several months ago. Acting Captain Brem, acting First Lieutenant ap Rhiannon, acting Second Lieutenant Seascape, and that was it.

  “That ship sure doesn’t move like a failed technology,” Jennet said, though she knew there was no sense in being bitter about it. The Ragnarok was shorted Command Branch and bond–involuntaries alike because everybody expected the ship to be scrapped as soon as the new First Judge was seated. Such was the future that awaited the pet research projects of dead First Judges. “Whoever gets that team will get quality.”

  “Son of a bitch,” Wheatfields growled from his post in the pit of the Engineering bridge below, his voice projected into the observation deck from the station’s pickups. “Be careful with those vectors, damn it, that’s an expensive piece of machinery.”

  The Wolnadi’s weaponer hit the
target solid and true, and the starburst blossom on–screen was familiar and beautiful in its way. A pulse from the Wolnadi’s forward jets cored the debris field and the Wolnadi dove through close behind it, only just trailing the newly emptied space. Jennet could appreciate Wheatfields’s nervousness: if the navigator misjudged his speed, he could hull the fighter. But it was all part of the age–old conflict between Engineers and pilots, after all.

  “He’ll be careful, Serge,” Mendez assured Wheatfields. Wheatfields looked up toward them resentfully — so he was on return feed, listening as well as sending. “Or you can take it out of his hide. If there’s any hide left.” After Mendez himself was finished with Kerenko, should Kerenko make a mistake. Wheatfields did not seem to be impressed, turning back to watch the screens without comment.

  The last target was running for the perimeter of the exercise field as fast as it could; if the target escaped from the containment field, the kill wouldn’t count. Pesadie didn’t expect them to perform well. Pesadie had made that perfectly clear, and it wasn’t supposed to be easy — but Pesadie’s aggressive tests had gone well past fair challenge.

  Jennet knew that Pesadie had expected them to play along, and queer their own performance. She wanted the kill all the more badly for that. The fighter gained on the target moment by moment; there was the shot, but was the kill good?

  Explosion. Dead target. Jennet tightened her grip on the railing with satisfaction, tracking the fighter’s progress on–screen. Beautiful.

  It had been close, though, so close that the containment field itself showed signs of reaction to the impact. The faintly glowing blue sphere that delineated the flight sphere was distorted, wavering, pulsing from dim to bright and back to dim again as it absorbed the kinetic energy from the particles of debris that the explosion had sent right up against its borders.

  The containment field’s boundary belled outward for a moment or two, just touching the tiny blip of an observation station hung clear of the flight sphere to track the execution of the exercise. Jennet shook her head.

  “Anybody on that watch–ball’s going to get vertigo.” Because the containment field’s energy had set the station into a perturbation wobble. In her student days it’d been a standard prank — getting as close to the containment field as she could, in order to destabilize the containment barrier and rattle any rank that was observing in the backwash.

  There was another explosion. Jennet stared. The observation station? But how? The fighter was well on its way back to base, there had been no round fired . . . and if she was right — she hoped she was wrong —

  Jennet turned her back on the Engineering bridge to face Ship’s Intelligence Officer, who was hanging from the ceiling at the back of the dimly lit observation deck with her great leathery wings folded demurely around her. “Two?”

  First Officer was staring at the screen as well. So he had the same concern. “Yes, your Excellency,” Two said, her mechanically translated voice calm and cheerful, as it was programmed to be.

  Jennet sank back against the railing, stunned. She wasn’t an Excellency. The only Command Branch officer who rated “Excellency” was the senior officer assigned, and that was the acting Captain, Cowil Brem. So Brem had been on that observation station. And he was dead. What had gone wrong?

  “They’re going to want to interrogate the crew.” Mendez had straightened up to his full height, folding his arms across his chest. He didn’t sound happy; she didn’t blame him, because he was right. Fleet would want to talk to the crew of the Wolnadi to explain their role in the explosion.

  The Wolnadi’s crew had no possible role in the explosion that she’d seen — they’d been heading back to the Ragnarok before it had happened — but they’d been closest, and it was the obvious explanation, wasn’t it? Training exercise, live fire, death of the commanding officer. Worse than that, this was the third Command Branch officer assigned to the Jurisdiction Fleet Ship Ragnarok to die by violence within the past few months.

  Someone was sure to see conspiracy at work. There were two problems that faced them, then, and the fact that no one deserved to be threatened with the penalty for killing a Command Branch officer when it had been an accident was only the first. The second problem was that once Fleet started asking questions, it almost never stopped with only three or four confessions.

  “Seascape. Go and get Koscuisko. Tell him he’s leaving now, right now, Captain’s orders.” She knew what she had to do. Fleet would want to test for Free Government plots, or maybe even mutiny. They’d start with the crew of the Wolnadi and go on from there.

  Mendez was looking at her, somewhat skeptically, and Seascape hadn’t moved yet, waiting for a cue. Jennet didn’t blame her. But she didn’t have time to stop and give a speech about how unsuited she was for Command, unexpected responsibility, the help she’d need from more experienced officers if she was to hope to avoid discrediting her Command. Brem was dead; she was the senior Command Branch officer on site, and that made her the acting Captain of the Ragnarok.

  “First Officer, please go and get that crew to the courier as soon as they dock. I’ll meet you there. I’ll explain to 5.3. I want those people out of here.”

  Fleet couldn’t ask them questions if Fleet couldn’t lay hands on them. Let Koscuisko take 5.1 home with him on leave, not 5.3. By the time Koscuisko was back Fleet would have straightened everything out, so long as she could ensure that they didn’t just take the path of least resistance at the expense of the crew of the Ragnarok.

  “Vector transit is logged, Lieutenant,” Wheatfields said, his voice calm and matter–of–fact over the station pickup. Turning around, Jennet gave the Engineer a crisp nod that was equal portions of acknowledgment and thanks.

  “Never mind explaining to 5.3,” Mendez said. “Explaining to Andrej. That’ll be the test, Lieutenant. I’ll be waiting to see you do that. Coming, Seascape?” He would go along with it. He agreed with her. So he knew she was right about Fleet.

  “I’ll talk to Pesadie once Koscuisko is on vector,” Jennet said to Two, who was just hanging there, taking it all in. “Did we even know where the observers were? I know the fighter didn’t.” Most observation stations were unmanned. But it wasn’t because they were dangerous, in any way. What had caused that explosion?

  “We had no idea.” Two’s translator was permanently set on “chipper,” no matter the seriousness of the situation. “Were it not for the deviousness of your Intelligence Officer you still would not know. Please be careful, Captain. We have had very bad luck with our Command Branch lately.”

  Yes, Two was brilliant; but the joke was still in poor taste. If it had been a joke. Did Desmodontae joke? Was there a concept of humor in the Desmodontae worldview? Who knew? Two was a bat. Hominids were her natural prey. A much less intellectually sophisticated hominid species, perhaps, but Jennet knew quite well that on a certain level she looked like lunch to Ship’s Intelligence.

  “I’ll keep it in mind. Keep Fleet off if you can, please.”

  She had to get out to the courier bay in the maintenance atmosphere, where Security 5.3 was only waiting for their officer of assignment to leave his going–away party before departing on home leave for Azanry in Koscuisko’s system of origin, the Dolgorukij Combine. They had probably been looking forward to the vacation. And she was going to deny them the treat at the last possible moment.

  It was ugly, but it had to be done. She had to get that fighter crew out of the way before Fleet could start talking about Protocols.

  ###

  Surveying the scene in his office with satisfaction Andrej Koscuisko — Ship’s Surgeon, Chief Medical Officer, Ship’s Inquisitor — drained his cup and lofted it high over the heads of three intervening revelers to where his chief of dermatology sat tending the dispenser of punch. “How does this happen?” he called, with challenge and confusion in his voice. “There is a cup, and it is empty.”

  And only then did it occur to him to hope that Barille would not try to
toss it back to him, once refilled. There was already enough of a mess on the floor: snack wrappers escaped from the waste container, bits of paper garlands.

  Barille bowed cheerfully from his post. “The situation shall be speedily amended. Sir.”

  Andrej Koscuisko was not exactly drunk. But he was unquestionably in such a very good mood that not even the unexpected appearance of the Ship’s Second Lieutenant — Renata Seascape — could perturb his genial humor. He was on holiday. He was going home. He was taking his people with him, or at least some of his people.

  “Lieutenant. A surprise.” She stood in the doorway to his office, which was full of people and decorated for the occasion with colorful garlands of fish tails and fins and cheerful smiling fish–faces. Andrej had at first tried to believe that they could have no idea how rude it all was; but there was no real use trying to pretend that Infirmary had not in all this time learned that Dolgorukij men customarily thought of their genitals in piscine terms, so it was a mark of affection, really. “Come in, sit down, have a drink. Have several. There’s plenty.”

  And it all had to be gone before the next shift came on, because one really did not party in Infirmary, not even in the Ship’s Surgeon’s private office. Which Mahaffie would be sharing with Colloy and Hoff during his absence, and Andrej wished them all joy of the documentation, with a full heart.

  Seascape smiled and bowed. “Thank you, your Excellency, no thank you.” She had to raise her voice to make herself heard; Volens had started to sing. Something about a river, Andrej thought. “Sir. Your presence very urgently requested in courier bay. Time to go, sir. Please come with me.”

  Time to go? Rising from his desk Andrej squinted at his timepiece. Surely not. Someone threw a fish–fin at Seascape and it stuck in her hair, but she was otherwise unmoved. Well. Perhaps it was time. Because he was tipsy, and could have mistaken the schedule.