Karadon (Fourth Fleet Irregulars)

by S J MacDonald

  “Well, at least some people appreciate what you’re doing,” Quill observed, remembering the people who’d applauded at the reception, and those who’d shown support in the Starlight Lounge. “And you’ve obviously got spacers on-side with you, full on! But are the Fleet treating you right, Alex? Honestly? I mean, they’ve palmed you off with a ship on the verge of being scrapped, and I’ve seen film of that base they gave you. No offence, mate, but that is one bleak, derelict, desolate hole.”

  Alex laughed.

  “Oh, that film,” he said, recalling it to mind. “Some idiot in the Therik PR department allowed a media visit before we arrived,” he explained. “It was still all sealed up – metal shutters over all the windows and doors. It isn’t derelict – it’s been used for all sorts of things over the years, most recently as married quarters. People complained that it was too isolated, though, so it was phased out and put into reserve. It’s still been maintained, with an annual inspection and any repairs needed to keep it ready for use. They didn’t run to the extent of maintaining landscaped grounds, so they were herbiciding the entire complex every year to prevent weed growth. That also destroyed all the plants in the flower beds, gardens and the park which did, yes, give it a pretty bleak appearance when the media went round, especially with all those metal shutters everywhere. But this,” he took out a pocket comp, flipped it open and accessed a file, handing it over with a grin, “is what it looks like now. We got that a couple of days ago on the mail courier.”

  Quill looked at it and his eyes widened with surprise, and then turned to admiration. The Fourth’s base was nestled amongst mountains in the north of Therik’s largest continent. It was the size of a modest town, with several hundred family homes set out in suburban style streets. The streets were now lined with small but leafy trees. There was a green sports field beside the school, a play-park and a strolling park filled with ornamental flower beds. In other areas there was a small spaceport with a hangar and workshops, barracks and office buildings. At the heart of the complex was an impressive three storey building overlooking a parade ground.

  “And this is all yours?” he asked Alex, amazed.

  “It’s way too big for our current needs, of course,” Alex answered the tone rather than the words. “But it is very secure – there’s no public access within three hundred kilometres of it and it has everything we need to provide a safe environment for our crew and their families. Dix Harangay said he believes we’ll grow into it. The transport arrived three weeks ago, anyway, bringing all the families relocating from Chartsey, and judging from the laughter on the ship as people were reading letters from their families there, they’re liking it.”

  “But… this is your base?” Quill was evidently struggling to understand. “I mean, under your command?”

  Alex nodded. “It was a bit tricky, obviously,” he said. “A base of that size would normally be commanded by a captain, of course, but that would then make them the Fourth’s senior officer. We were very lucky with that. Admiral Norris found us a great solution and two brilliant officers to undertake it – Dulk Burnet, Rear Admiral, retired, is honorary base commander, undertaking PR duties and suchlike, while Commander Sally Asket actually runs it for us. I didn’t get to spend much time with her, beyond walking round with her telling her what I’d like to see done, but she’s got just that combination of friendly personality and efficiency I really value in an officer. I couldn’t be more pleased, they’re doing a great job, there. It’ll be nice to have a home base, too, somewhere safe and quiet to head back to and relax.”

  Quill nodded, though looking at his friend with new respect. Knowing that Alex commanded “the Fourth” when the Fourth was actually just one ship was one thing. Seeing that he had a base like that under his command as well made him suddenly seem a whole lot more important.

  “And as for the ship,” Alex added, with a curious look at him, “surely you know about the Seabirds, Quill?”

  “Oh,” Quill groaned, and pleaded, “Don’t do that!” He’d been transported right back to their cadet days with that comment, as Alex had frequently expressed astonishment at the things Quill did not know about the Fleet. “No, I don’t know about the Seabirds!” Quill told him. “Unlike you, I am not fascinated with the minutiae of Fleet ships and can not state from memory every detail of every class of warship that’s ever been built.”

  That was no exaggeration. The cadets had been set to do a time-restricted assessment, researching and presenting a report on the evolution of corvette design through the Fleet’s history. Alex had done his from memory, adding comparisons with the evolution of other types of ship. It was, he’d explained modestly, a personal interest.

  Alex chuckled, shaking his head.

  “The Heron,” he told him, “is only twenty six years old.” Quill’s eyes snapped wide at the idea of a ship that young being retired and scrapped.

  “What’s wrong with it?” he asked at once.

  “Nothing,” Alex assured him. “They’re perfectly good ships, other than for a rather regrettable interior design. The designers went for what they called “exciting multi-levelled geometrics” which means a lot of unnecessary levels, steps, and blocky angular consoles. There was a really stupid skipper’s console on the command deck, too, which we got rid of. Other than that they’re fast for their size, well balanced, good and reliable ships. They’re good for another twenty or thirty years of service, easily.”

  “So why are they being scrapped, then?” Quill asked.

  “Because they’re part of one of those multi-generational orders the Fleet used to do,” Alex explained. “The Fleet signed a three-generation contract with Delcorps Shipyards at Mandram, eighty six years back, giving them the right to design and build the next three generations of Seabird frigates, starting the next generations every twenty five to thirty years. The Fleet’s tried everything they can to get out of it. I mean, for one thing, we don’t need that many Seabird frigates in service, and the ones we do have are perfectly good. The contract is lockdown, however, and Delcorps won’t back down on it, so we’re getting a new generation of Seabirds whether we want them or not. At a cost, by the way, of 19.6 billion. And then people say they think I was over the top describing corporate consultancies as “tantamount to corruption”.”

  “All right, all right,” Quill said hastily, knowing how long Alex might ride that particular hobby horse once he got started. He had, famously, made that statement whilst giving evidence to a Senate Sub-Committee enquiring into the practice of senior Fleet officers having highly paid consultancies within corporations involved in shipbuilding and Fleet supplies. It was unlikely that Third Lord Admiral Jennar and others stripped of such consultancies by a change of regulations would ever forgive him for it, though Alex’s testimony had been only a tiny factor in that decision. “They’ve given you a decent ship, that’s all that matters. But you’re here for lunch, so…” he called up a holo-menu on the table and gestured to it invitingly. “What would you like to eat?”

  That was quickly decided, though Quill made Alex laugh again by apologising for the “restricted” choice on the menu.

  “We’ve cut it by a third, to cater for all the extra passengers,” he explained. Liners carried ingredients rather than prepacked meals, with chefs who prepared the food from scratch. They also had extensive biovats producing fresh salad and fruits.

  “It still looks good to me,” Alex said. In truth, he was perfectly happy with the standard of catering aboard his own ship, but he knew how important it was to Quill to feel that he was giving him a treat. He ordered a steak with a salad and blue cheese sauce, and Quill beamed, saying he’d have the same. While they were waiting for it to be delivered, he asked Alex how he’d managed to get his ship refitted and operational so fast.

  “Tell me the truth, now,” he pressed, because Alex had refused to discuss that over a comline. “Did the Second swing in and do it for you?”

  “Is that what people are saying?” Alex
queried, surprised.

  “That, or that the Fleet had a thousand people working round the clock on it while you drilled your people twenty hours a day,” Quill informed him. “So come on, Alex, give! How did you do it?”

  “There’s no great thing about it, really,” Alex assured him. “We did it ourselves. The refit, I mean. Obviously we were working with the Second in installing some new gear, and the LPA was in on it too, helping to build the brig, but most of it was done by our own crew. There wasn’t actually all that much to be done, just some building work on the carrier decks, the new tech installations, changing the skipper’s console on the command deck for a table, and full strip down diagnostics.”

  “Just!” Quill exclaimed, knowing how much work was involved in that.

  “We do a full diagnostics strip every time we’re in port, anyway, pre-launch,” Alex told him, casually, and grinned at Quill’s stunned look. “We did not get our “crack ship” rating on the Minnow by having polished cutlery in the wardroom,” he teased, reminding Quill of an answer he’d given in an exam question about how an officer might improve a case-study ship’s performance at inspection. “My crew are trained to do a strip-down checklist. They enjoy doing it, too. There’s nothing they like better than a challenge.”

  Quill laughed. He was familiar with Alex’s belief that the real problem bullocks had was that they were bored and frustrated. A bullock, by definition, was someone of high potential who was underachieving. Alex’s view was that ninety nine times out of a hundred that was the fault of the officers who’d worked with them, holding them back and failing to give them the stimulus and challenge they needed to succeed.

  The real key to his success, though, was that everyone on his ship was there because they wanted to be. It was often reported in the media that people were sent to serve in the Fourth on “disciplinary transfer”, as if it was some kind of punishment. The truth was that people had to apply to serve on Alex’s ship, supported by a special recommendation letter from their previous skipper. They fought for places there, recognising that it was a last chance to turn their careers around, so they were already fully committed to making the most of their opportunities there when they came aboard.

  “And no problems with all the new guys coming in?” Quill asked. There had been much discussion about that in the spacer community. It was well known that Alex’s crew on the Minnow were mostly bullocks. It was also known that many high achievers in the Fleet were getting increasingly resentful of what they saw as unfair opportunities being given to failing personnel.

  They had a point, at that. Training opportunities were restricted in the regular Fleet and someone who’d applied for a course several times and been turned down for it might well resent knowing that training opportunities on Alex’s ship were unlimited. There was even a joke going around about an unnamed crewman having an interview with his exec. The exec told the crewman that since he’d already done a piloting and gunnery course he’d been turned down again for the engineering course he’d applied for. When the crewman pointed out that he’d be accepted on the course if he was serving on the Minnow, the exec replied that that was for failing crew. According to the story, the crewman looked the exec right in the eye and asked, “So, what do I have to do to fail, sir?”

  It was a “friend of a friend” story doing the rounds, but it had some basis in the way that people in the Fleet were feeling. Dix Harangay had, therefore, approved a scheme whereby skippers could send their high-flying personnel on seconded service to the Fourth, to take advantage of the greater training opportunities there and benefit from the experience of serving aboard a crack ship. This had solved one problem only to generate another. It had been obvious to everyone that there was a potential there for a massive divide aboard ship between the bullocks and the incoming high-flyer secondees, particularly since most of the bullocks had been with Alex on the Minnow and were already a tight, cohesive crew.

  “No, none at all,” Alex said, cheerfully. “I made it clear to everyone that I wouldn’t stand for any cliques or discrimination. Then we mixed them all up and threw everyone into the challenge of getting the Heron operational. There’s no better way to train a crew in a ship’s tech than by doing a full strip down on it. Actually we did eight strips on it, giving everyone the training they needed and bringing up our time – we can do a full strip in under two days now” He smiled at Quill’s soundless whistle. “We were doing response drills at the same time, working them up. By the time we launched they were already a team. The experience of being inspected by Terrible Tennet provided all the welding needed, too, as they united in the face of adversity.”

  Quill cracked up laughing, but the door chimed then so he opened it. A steward wheeled in a little hospitality trolley, then left them to serve themselves. By the time the food had been served and Alex had made suitably appreciative noises, conversation had moved on to Quill attempting to get Alex to tell him something, anything, about the tech the Second was trialling aboard his ship.

  Alex, however, was immovable on that. He wouldn’t be budged when Quill tried to talk to him about his love life, either.

  “Please,” he said, holding up a hand. “Spare me the introduction to a nice single lady who just happens to have tickets to something.”

  Quill grinned, but his eyes were troubled.

  “Obviously, it’s not a good time,” he conceded. “You’ve got a lot going on. But… still, Alex?”

  Alex gave a light shrug.

  “I told you, I’m done with all that.” As Quill would have protested, Alex went on, “Two things, okay? First, as I told you last time we talked about this, I come with too much baggage now. I could never really trust another partner again, and that would be an intolerable burden to put on any relationship.”

  Quill couldn’t really argue with that. Your wife being responsible for the death of your child was awful enough. For Alex, though, there was a double betrayal of trust. He had found his wife allowing their daughter to ride unrestrained in the aircar. She had promised him on her word of honour that she would never do so again. A month later three year old Etta had been flung around the interior of the car with such force that it had killed her instantly. If she had been in her child safety seat she wouldn’t even have been bruised. Quill, a sentimental soul, kept hoping that Alex would emerge from his grief and be ready to start dating again. Clearly, this wasn’t happening yet.

  “And second,” Alex continued, matter of factly, “even if I was interested in dating again, which I’m not, I do not consider that it would be fair to ask any woman to put herself in the firing line, either in the hassle she’d get from the media or in security risks through being in a relationship with me. Every member of my crew has had to think about this seriously and discuss it with their families, because we are tackling some very ruthless people here. Speaking personally, I don’t feel I could give my full commitment to the job, without fear or reservations, if I had a wife and children to consider. I just don’t want to offer any more hostages to fortune. So as much as I appreciate your intentions, just don’t go there, Quill, okay?”

  Quill looked at him with troubled eyes, but Alex gave him a reassuring grin.

  “I’m fine,” he promised. “So, come on, what about your love life? Did you ever get together with that purser’s assistant you fancied?”

  Quill looked sideways at the bunk that was fixed up to the wall, unused, and grinned, waggling his eyebrows. Alex laughed.

  “Maxi,” Quill told him. “We’ve been dating four months now. He’s just so gorgeous.”

  They finished their lunch talking about Quill. When the time came for Alex to leave, though, Quill called the captain and she came to the airlock herself to see him off the ship, presenting him with a half-crate full of fruit and vegetables for his crew.

  “How very kind,” Alex said, “Thank you.” Then, with a final handshake for the captain and a nod to his friend, he was able to head back to the Heron.

  Chapter Six
teen

  Chok hesitated, then touched his hand lightly to the door panel and waited.

  It wasn’t yet five in the morning, but Chok had not been able to bear the turmoil of his own thoughts another minute. He was standing outside Leo Arad’s apartment.

  The things that Zelda had said, so easily dismissed the previous morning, had been seeping through his mind all day. They had come back to haunt him in yet another sleepless night. Terrible doubts had surfaced and formed into questions. He had to know, to be sure that he was right.

  The only person involved in this he hadn’t spoken with yet was Leo Arad. That had struck him as very strange during the night. With all the allegations centering around Leo Arad, why hadn’t he spoken with him?

  The answer was that Durb Jorgensen had been speaking for him. Chok just hadn’t wanted to antagonise Durb or appear to insult him by asking to speak with Leo Arad himself. Now he realised that he had to.

  “Who is it?” Leo Arad’s voice was understandably anxious. He too must be fearing the arrival of cyber-suited figures storming the station in the night to arrest him. He would be able to see Durb on the door-cam, but clearly he wanted more reassurance than that before he’d open it.

  “Just me – Mr Dayfield,” Chok said, just in case the trader didn’t recognise him. “I’m sorry to call at this hour, Mr Arad, but may I have a few minutes of your time?”