Cursed Command (Angel in the Whirlwind Book 3)

by Christopher Nuttall

  He shook his head. “Could it have been deliberate sabotage?”

  “The IG went through everything after the whole incident,” Roach said. “They didn’t find a trace of anything remotely suspicious.”

  William realized the incident could have been an accident. God knew none of Uncanny’s commanding officers had worried—much—about keeping their ship current. Half of the updates had never taken place, and half of the ones that had been installed had never been properly logged. His crew had wound up logging everything as they went along, knowing that trying to get everything logged in less than a week was asking for trouble. Yet, what choice did they have?

  “We’ll run a test link with Lightning before we depart,” he said as they stepped onto the bridge. “We’ll make sure to deactivate the weapons first.”

  “Just in case,” Roach agreed.

  William was relieved to see that the bridge was looking better. His crew had replaced the missing consoles, allowing him to start his officers working on simulations, drilling endlessly in anticipation of trouble. He’d visited the Jorlem Sector several times while working for ONI, but it was evident that conditions in the sector had clearly deteriorated. He knew all too well that the Uncanny was likely to spend most of her time escorting convoys and stalking pirates.

  “I’ll have to visit Lightning at some point in the next couple of days,” he added after a moment. “Do you have any other concerns you want to raise?”

  “Only that the crew doesn’t trust us yet,” Roach said. “And really, who can blame them?”

  William nodded. “Then we keep making a good impression,” he said. “I want you to make sure that everyone’s noses are pushed to the grindstone. No one is to get away with not doing their job.”

  Even leaving the ship for a brief conference would be awkward, but William didn’t see any other choice. Unless he wanted to invite Kat Falcone to dinner on Uncanny . . . he considered it for a long moment, then dismissed the thought. There were too many other matters that needed to be handled before he could hold a formal dinner. Hell, he’d been sleeping in his Ready Room because his cabin was crammed with junk.

  “I understand, sir,” Roach said. “How many of the newcomers are we going to keep?”

  William shrugged. He’d watched a movie, once, where the hero had practically kidnapped dockyard workers to keep his ship running. But trying that in real life would be a good way to get put in front of a court-martial.

  “As many as we can,” he said. “But I don’t know how many of them will be willing to stay.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “Captain Sir William McElney,” Kat said. She gave him a genuine smile of welcome as he was shown into her Ready Room. “Welcome back.”

  “Thank you, Captain,” William said. “It’s good to be back.”

  Kat motioned for him to take a chair, then sat down on the sofa. She hadn’t seen William for a month, but she wasn’t too surprised by the change in him. He was a captain now, master of his own ship . . . she might still be his superior, yet he enjoyed an independence he had never known before. There was a new energy around him that made her smile, even though she had an apology to make. Apparently Uncanny wasn’t wearing him down.

  “Commander Crenshaw is nowhere near your equal,” she said as she poured them both a cup of coffee. “He has to be pushed into doing his job.”

  “It’s bad form to badmouth one’s XO to other captains,” William said mischievously. He winked. “But I saw his record. I don’t understand how he got the job.”

  “My sister decided it was better to promote him and his career than someone who had actual experience,” Kat said irked. “And I had no say in the matter.”

  “You probably need to push back harder,” William said. “Didn’t your sister get you into trouble last time too?”

  “Not quite,” Kat said. Her own big mouth had actually gotten her into trouble when she’d told one of society’s darlings precisely what she thought of him, though she didn’t regret it. Commanding Operation Knife had been an unexpected reward and, best of all, her enemies probably considered it punishment. “Plus, pushing back would require me to spend more time politicking at home.”

  She grinned. “Can we swap XOs?”

  “Not on your life,” William said. “I need a strong right arm on Uncanny.”

  Kat was unsurprised. “Just how bad is she?”

  “Not as bad as the reports and my first impressions made her sound,” William said. “Plenty of cosmetic damage, of course, but the remainder of the ship is in remarkably good condition. A testament to her designers, I suppose.”

  He shook his head. “Crew morale is still in the pits, at least among those who were stuck on the ship before I arrived,” he added. “There’s nothing a successful cruise won’t fix.”

  “True,” Kat agreed. “Did the IG come to any conclusions?”

  “I saw their preliminary report this morning,” William said. “Commander Greenhill sang like a bird. Captain Abraham was apparently the center of a criminal ring. He used a great deal of influence to ensure that his ship was effectively forgotten while he sold pieces of her off to the highest bidders. Heads are rolling, it seems. Uncanny wasn’t heading for the scrapheap when she was recalled back to Tyre.”

  Kat made a face. The idea that someone could drop the ball so badly . . . it wasn’t really a surprise. Uncanny hadn’t been causing trouble, not for the last six months. She’d merely been floating in lunar orbit, out of sight and out of mind, while the IG had been more concerned about news from the war front. They’d probably been glad to forget the unlucky starship.

  “I owe you an apology,” she said, sitting down to face him. “My pushing for you to be given a command might just have sent you to Uncanny.”

  “It’s not a problem,” William assured her. “I spent enough time on Lightning”—he waved a hand at the nearest bulkhead—“to know precisely how a heavy cruiser should function. It’s a remarkable challenge. I’m never bored.”

  “There’s something to be said for boredom,” Kat said dryly. She wouldn’t have cared to sleep on a starship where something could go wrong at any moment. Life support failures were the source of countless horror stories, all of which had been drilled into her head at Piker’s Peak. “Are you taking precautions to ensure your own safety?”

  “Enough, I hope,” William said. He looked hesitant for a long moment. “But I really don’t want to suggest to the crew that I don’t trust them.”

  Kat scowled. The idea that a crew couldn’t be trusted . . . it was terrifying. She’d never served on a ship where she’d doubted the crew’s loyalty. Yet, if the dregs of the service had been steadily assigned to Uncanny, the crew’s competence, let alone their loyalty, had to be in doubt. A single bad apple could do a great deal of damage, but a whole bunch of bad apples could corrupt the good ones too.

  “I suppose,” she said doubtfully. “Did you get a response to your request for marines?”

  “Not a good one,” he said. “It seems I will be playing host to a company of planetary militia.”

  “Madness,” Kat said. “They’re not trained to serve as starship marines.”

  “Apparently, they’ve been run through a shorter version of boot camp,” William assured her. “But you’re right, they don’t have the same training.”

  Kat made a mental note to find out if she could detach a platoon of marines from Lightning and assign them to Uncanny. She had nothing against the planetary militias; some of them were very well trained for operations on the ground, but they weren’t trained for service in deep space. And yet she knew, all too well, that marines were thin on the ground. The demands of the war front came first, always.

  We’re supposed to be raising new regiments, she reminded herself. But keeping standards high is a pain in the ass.

  She cleared her throat. “If you need assistance, just ask,” she said. She understood how hard it would be for William to ask for help, but if he did, it would b
e a clear sign of trouble. “But we need to discuss our operational planning now.”

  William nodded, taking a sip of his coffee. “Of course.”

  Kat triggered her implants, sending a command to the room’s processor. A holographic star chart appeared in front of them, showing the Jorlem Sector. She took a long look, silently reminding herself of the files she’d devoured over the last two days. Some of the star systems in front of her would make good Commonwealth members if they swallowed their pride long enough to apply; others would need to make significant changes to their governments and economies before they would even be considered for membership. But if some of the long-term projections were accurate, they’d have no choice but to make the changes sooner rather than later. The economic benefits of being part of the Commonwealth would provide more than enough incentive.

  “We leave tomorrow,” she said. “Can Uncanny depart on schedule?”

  “Unless we run into unanticipated troubles, we should have no difficulty leaving with you,” William assured her. “The sooner we’re on the way, the sooner some of the more . . . irredeemable members of the crew get the message that things are going to be different from now on.”

  Kat lifted her eyebrows. “If they’re that bad, do you really want to keep them?”

  “Most of them have potential,” William said. “I’d prefer not to dismiss them completely without due cause.”

  “I suppose,” Kat said incredulously.

  She cleared her throat. “We’ll be linking up with a convoy—ten bulk freighters and a handful of smaller ships—and heading directly to Vangelis,” she explained. “There may be some other ships joining us for security, but we won’t have a full head count until we are actually ready to leave.”

  “Convoy regulations beginning to bite,” William observed.

  “And too many smaller operators facing ruin,” Kat agreed. Her father’s economists had sent her a long briefing outlining the problem. “Once we get them to Vangelis, we’ll head directly to Jorlem. Apparently I’m meant to make unofficial-official contacts with the locals.”

  “Unofficial-official,” William repeated.

  “Yeah,” Kat said. “Apparently, the Foreign Office believes that an official representative would be less . . . productive than an unofficial envoy.”

  She shook her head. Diplomacy had never been her strong suit, and she’d always found it hard to follow the tortured logic of the Foreign Office, but orders were orders. Yet, she couldn’t help feeling that the strategy didn’t make sense.

  “It’s a political thing,” William said dryly.

  “I don’t understand it,” Kat protested. “Who in their right mind would favor the Theocracy over the Commonwealth?”

  William sighed. “Do you remember Cadiz?”

  “Of course . . .”

  “Cadiz was brought into the Commonwealth against its will,” William said. “The act was the most blatant example of arm twisting by the Commonwealth, but it was hardly the only one. Traders from Tyre, and later the Commonwealth, had no scruples about abusing their commanding position, fueling local resentment. To inhabitants of Cadiz . . . the Commonwealth seemed the more immediate threat. The Theocracy was a distant nightmare hundreds of light-years away.”

  He met her eyes. “I suspect some of the local Jorlem governments may hope to play the Commonwealth off against the Theocracy,” he added warningly. “Which is foolish, but very human.”

  “Madness,” Kat said.

  “Human,” William said. “The situation calls for diplomacy, but any overt contacts will cause problems for local governments. Hence . . . an unofficial envoy.”

  “And if they prove receptive to our contacts, we can move to more formal contacts,” Kat agreed.

  “Provided that you don’t set out to screw the locals, again,” William warned. “It tends to cause long-term problems.”

  Kat sipped her coffee. She’d never known anything but wealth and privilege, which had eventually driven her to seek a naval career. Even in the military, she hadn’t been able to get away from her name. However, William had endured a very different upbringing, which had shaped him as much as her life had shaped her, but had also given him a different perspective on the universe.

  “They weren’t trying to screw the locals,” she protested. “They were just trying to establish trade links and make money.”

  “At Cadiz’s expense,” William reminded her, smiling. “And after we visit Jorlem, what next?”

  “Unless we run into any real problems, I was going to suggest splitting up and showing the flag at a number of other worlds,” Kat said. “There will be freighters that need escorts, which will win us some kudos from their crews and it’ll give us a chance to outline what happens to infidels who try to work with the Theocracy. We may encounter other problems we can help solve. Updating the hyperspace survey charts in the region might also be useful.”

  William smiled. “You don’t have a precise outline?”

  “It depends on what we find,” Kat said. “We may encounter something that forces us to throw the plan out the airlock.”

  She pointed to the star chart. “There are a handful of StarComs within the sector, not many, but enough for us to keep each other informed about our movements,” she added, her eyes tracing out possible patrol routes. “I don’t expect you to stick to a tight schedule as there’s no way to know what will demand our attention. If worse comes to worst, we can hire a local courier boat to take a message to the RV point. It’s not ideal, but it will have to do.”

  “We could use a few more bases,” William observed. “And a proper StarCom network.”

  “There was a proposal to fund a network,” Kat said, “but the demands of the war pushed it aside.”

  “And the locals probably weren’t too keen on something that would give the Commonwealth much more influence in their affairs,” William added. “You’d be routing every last message through Tyre.”

  Kat knew he had a point, though she preferred not to admit it.

  “For the moment, it’s just the two of us,” Kat said. “Ideally, we’ll spend the next six months in the sector; practically, it could be a great deal longer.”

  “Or shorter,” William pointed out. “Has there been any progress on logistics?”

  Kat grimaced. “They’ll be sending a logistics ship out to meet us in a month, apparently,” she said. Lightning and Uncanny were designed for long-term deployments with minimal support, but she was all too aware that they could expend most of their missile supply in a single engagement. “The demands of the war front take priority.”

  “That could leave us in trouble,” William observed. “They’re not even going to allow us to take a freighter?”

  “Apparently not,” Kat said. “I argued the matter with the Admiralty, but they were adamant.”

  “Not good for us,” William said. “We might have to come home early.”

  Kat was in grim agreement. She had no doubt they could handle a pirate ship or a whole pirate squadron with their energy weapons alone, but a front-line warship was a very different proposition. The Theocracy might have decided to send a raiding squadron to Jorlem, secure in the knowledge that they’d come out ahead whatever happened. And if they did encounter a raiding squadron, Kat knew she’d have to do everything in her power to destroy it.

  Assuming we even find it, she thought. Space is vast enough to hide thousands of raiding squadrons.

  “We’ll just have to make do with what we have,” she said simply. “And we can head home early if we really run short of supplies.”

  She rose and walked to her desk. “This is a copy of our formal orders and my planned schedule,” she said as she picked up a datachip. “It also includes some diplomatic authorization and various . . . files . . . you might want to read. If you can make contact with the locals, please do.”

  William grinned as she turned back to him. “And give them an honest assessment of the Commonwealth’s strengths and weaknesses
?”

  “And tell them about the Theocracy,” Kat added. She walked back to the chair and passed him the datachip. “You have authorization to share our records from Verdean and Ringer, if you like. Those should open a few eyes.”

  “Some of our detractors will probably claim they’re faked,” William warned her. “It wouldn’t be difficult.”

  Kat scowled. It was easy to produce faked records these days. Done properly, it could be very hard to sort out truth from lies. Indeed, she’d seen a few of the more . . . interesting . . . fakes during her time at Piker’s Peak. The fakers had done such a remarkable job that even knowing they were fakes, she’d found them impossible to disprove. It wasn’t hard, her instructors had warned her, to put together a scenario that could confuse even a suspicious mind.

  And as we would be the only source for their records, she thought darkly, it wouldn’t be hard to claim that we’d produced them from whole cloth.

  She shook her head in disbelief. The government—at the king’s insistence—had released the complete and unedited footage from Verdean, showing the destroyed cities, the reeducation camps, and interviews with refugees Kat had taken from the planet before the Theocracy had arrived to regain control of the high orbitals. Their tales had been terrifying, stiffening support for the war all across the Commonwealth . . .

  . . . Nonetheless, they could have been faked. And it would be very hard to prove that they had not been faked.

  Not without access to the refugees themselves, she told herself. And that could probably be arranged.

  She leveled her gaze at William. “Do you have any issues you wish to raise before we leave?”

  “Just that I would like to carry out a multitude of exercises during the voyage,” William said. “My crew has next to no experience in multiship operations.”

  “Good idea,” Kat said. Lightning could do with the experience too. “Do you have a scenario worked out?”

  “A couple,” William said. He smiled, rather thinly. “And I asked the tactical staff to devise some more. I actually had to speak to them quite sharply for letting their imaginations run away with them.”