Yung’s nostrils flared, but he managed to moderate his tone as he raised his next point: “There are rumors that you plan to sign on to this new Positive Response Program that’s sweeping the fleet, too. Is that something you’re considering, Captain? Allowing military assignments to be determined by what species someone belongs to over their level of training and skill?”
Husher tried to suppress a wince but was pretty sure he’d failed. The tightrope he had to walk in a conversation like this caused him almost physical pain. “I understand your concerns, Corporal, but—”
“Ah, come on, sir! You can’t honestly be thinking about giving in to them on this. You keep saying you’re appeasing the politicians to preserve our military effectiveness, but this program will do the opposite. Besides, the program’s also been found not to actually improve things for nonhuman species. Of course, things like facts or findings don’t seem to matter much anymore.”
Husher’s vision began to blur around the edges. The corporal’s words were getting to him, mainly because he agreed with them completely. Having to argue a side of an issue opposite the one he actually believed was…irritating.
But Yung wasn’t finished. “It’s not just the program,” he said, leaning forward, eyes widening slightly. “It’s everything you’ve been doing to placate the bureaucrats. You might think you’re keeping everything together, but it’s tearing the crew apart. They see you favoring politicians’ agendas over them and their careers. If you implement this program, what will happen to your loyal human crewmembers who get ‘reshuffled?’ Is the competence of your crew even a consideration for you anymore, Captain?”
With that, Husher saw a line of attack, and he exploited it viciously. “Competence, Corporal? You want to talk about competence? All right. Why don’t we have a look at your file?” Husher willed his Oculenses to display a shared view of Corporal Toby Yung’s service record. When he glanced at Yung’s face, he saw a studied neutrality underscored by palpable anxiety. Good.
“Recruit Training,” Husher said. “Instructor comments. ‘Met the bare minimum requirements to complete training.’ Infantry School. Barely sufficient grades across the board. Instructor comments. ‘Despite significantly above-average intelligence and aptitude, Yung applies himself only enough to skirt by.’”
Husher willed Yung’s records to disappear, and he turned back to the corporal. “Do you still want to talk to me about competence, Corporal? Is a lack of respect for competence something you still wish to accuse me of, when you couldn’t even be bothered to educate yourself to the level of your own competence?”
Yung’s brow crept lower. “When did you look at my record?”
“I’ve never given your service record more than a cursory glance, Corporal, despite being well within my rights to examine it.”
“Then how did you know to pull it up just now?”
“Oh, that was no leap of logic. You’re clearly a brilliant young man, but you’re just a corporal, when we both know you should have gone to Officer School. And why didn’t you, Corporal Yung? No need to answer that question—I’ve known plenty of soldiers like you. It’s because you know exactly how smart you are, and a long time ago, before you ever dreamed of joining the Fleet, someone didn’t give you something you felt you deserved. Maybe that person didn’t think your intellect alone warranted it. But you feel like your intelligence puts you above everyone else—that the world should lay itself at your feet, just because you’re such a smart boy. When it didn’t do that, you got bitter, and you swore you’d only ever do the bare minimum to skate by. Well, here you are. You really showed us, didn’t you, Corporal?”
Yung’s lips were a tight, white line. “Permission to leave, sir?”
“Permission granted. And next time you want to criticize my approach to command, try getting yourself in order first.”
Chapter 26
Warp
At last, the Vesta’s battle group rejoined her. Their scheduled patrol would take them to the Viburnum System, which was both near the former Baxa System and home to an important munitions facility that orbited the largest of its three gas giants. It seemed a likely next target for Teth, so Admiral Iver had designated it as the Vesta’s first destination, a decision Husher fully endorsed.
Their route from Wintercress to Viburnum involved transitioning through five darkgates, which put their travel time at just over two days, since a couple of the systems along the way featured darkgates positioned fairly close to each other.
At least it won’t be necessary to go to warp at any point. That would have given Teth all the time he needed to find and destroy that facility.
“Captain,” Winterton said without looking up from his console, “transition through the Wintercress-Tansy darkgate should occur in thirty-four minutes.”
“Acknowledged, Ensign. How’s our hull looking, after the attention it got from Wintercress’ galaxy-renowned shipwrights and their robots?”
“They patched us up pretty good, Captain. I won’t say she’s as good as new, but she’s more than spaceworthy.”
“My ship? She’d be spaceworthy even if we’d left the hull as it was. She’s a sturdy old girl.”
“Yes, sir.”
“The battle group captains just completed their sound off, sir,” the Coms officer said. “Captain Eryl of the Lysander, Captain Arbuck of the Thero, Captain Lee of the Golgos, and Captain Hornsby of the Hylas are all reporting systems in the green.”
“Steady as she goes, then,” Husher said—an ancient seafaring phrase he enjoyed dredging up from time to time, which had once been used to tell the Helmsman to maintain the present course.
“A com drone just transitioned through the darkgate, Captain,” Ensign Fry said. “It transmitted a message addressed to you from the Selene. Audio-only.”
“What’s the security designation?”
“Confidential.”
Husher nodded. “Play it.” Confidential information could be known by almost anyone in the IGF, so long as they didn’t share it with the public.
“Captain Husher, this is Commander Ternon of the Selene, currently patrolling the Saffron System. The sensor web here has been getting some strange readings, lately. According to the sensors, small craft keep appearing suddenly in random locations throughout the system, then disappearing just as quickly. The web’s operators have been calling them anomalies, but when they passed the data on to me, I noticed that the profiles of these ‘ghost ships’ are identical to the ones detected by the Wintercress sensor web before the attack there.” Ternon cleared his throat before continuing. “We are not equipped to repel an attack on the level of what Wintercress suffered. From what I understand about that, only a capital ship can withstand the power Teth now has at his disposal, and you’re the closest capital ship to Saffron. This message is to request your aid. Ternon out.”
In the wake of the message, a silence settled over the CIC.
“Darkgate transition in twenty-nine minutes, Captain,” Winterton said, breaking the silence with his trademark neutrality, which seemed to come fairly naturally to him.
Kaboh spoke next. “The quickest route to Saffron is to effect a warp jump from the system we’re about to enter, Captain. I have the departure point coordinates at the ready.”
“What makes you think we’re going to Saffron?” Husher said slowly.
“Commander Ternon’s transmission was—”
“Commander Ternon is unaware of our current mission, which is to protect the munitions facility at Viburnum.”
Kaboh turned his entire diminutive frame to face the command seat, wearing a scowl that mixed shock and disgust. “Sir, you can’t possibly be considering choosing munitions over civilian lives!”
“We’re the only ones close enough to reach Viburnum within a meaningful timeframe, Lieutenant. If we don’t go there now, we’ll be leaving a vital military resource wide open for Teth to destroy or appropriate for his own uses.”
“Yes, but we’re also
the only ones close enough to answer Commander Ternon’s distress call.”
Clacking her beak, Fesky interjected, with what she probably thought were calming tones. “What if the Vesta makes for one system while we deploy the battle group to the other? That way—”
“Not happening,” Husher said. “The last time we allowed ourselves to get separated, Teth nearly melted half our hull off. We’re staying together.”
Kaboh shook his head, head-tail swaying back and forth. The Kaithian had a facility for employing human body language when it suited his purposes. “I must insist that you think through the implications of your proposal, Captain.”
“It’s not a proposal,” Husher ground out. “If I decide we’re going to Viburnum, then I’ll give you the order to set a course for Viburnum. I’m sure you know the term for when subordinates refuse to follow orders aboard a warship.”
“I’m prepared to follow whatever orders you give me, of course,” Kaboh said. “But would you just take a moment to consider how you’ll feel if we go to Viburnum, discover there’s no threat to the munitions facility, and then learn of an attack on the two colonies of Saffron?”
“In that event, I’ll hope that Commander Ternon had the good sense to evacuate the people of Cebrene to Edessa. The former’s a fairly minor colony of little more than a hundred thousand, but Edessa’s population approaches two million, and last year they were successful in lobbying the Union to install defensive platforms around their planet, despite being several thousand short of the usual population quota. Those platforms are fully operational, and with the two warships on patrol there as well, it should be possible for the Saffron System to mount a reasonable defense. If they fail, that will be tragic, but it will also be the type of thing that results from making expedient military decisions designed to save billions of lives, even when doing so means risking millions.”
Several officers around the CIC were wearing expressions of grim approval, and Husher caught a nod or two as well. That should be the end of it.
But Kaboh hadn’t turned back to his station, and his slim, blue-white shoulders rose and fell. “Captain,” he said, his voice meticulously level, “know that if you make this decision, I intend to file a formal complaint on the grounds of moral dissent. As you know, Admiral Iver is a close personal friend, and I’m confident he’ll take the appropriate measures once he learns of what transpired.”
Husher’s eyes locked with Kaboh’s for a protracted moment, each refusing to look away until the other faltered. Cheek twitching, Husher was hyper conscious of the CIC officers observing the exchange, waiting to see how their captain would react.
Without taking his eyes off the Kaithian, Husher said, “We’ll go to Saffron.” His voice came out much softer than he’d intended, and that made heat creep up his neck until it reached his cheeks.
“I’m relieved to hear you say so, Captain,” Kaboh said, breaking eye contact and turning briskly to his console. “I’ll alter our planned course into the Tansy System so that it takes us to the warp departure point as quickly and efficiently as possible.”
As Husher looked around the CIC, his officers’ eyes flitted away, and they focused on their respective tasks with unusual intensity.
Fesky held his eyes for little more than a second, and then she averted her gaze as well. That hurt most of all.
Chapter 27
Bash Back
“We’re clear of system debris, Captain, and safe to accelerate to warp velocity,” Winterton said, apparently unaffected by the tension that still clogged the CIC like an invisible smog, even eight hours after Husher’s standoff with Kaboh. “All four battle group ships have already completed warp transitions and are en route to Saffron.”
Husher gave a curt nod. “Helm?” he said, his voice clipped. He was none too happy about having his will as a captain subverted, and even less happy with himself for letting it happen.
Luckily, Ensign Vy was smart enough to know what her captain wanted. “Opening hatches and extending distortion rods now, sir.”
“Very good,” Husher said, plunging back into his dark reverie. What’s the point of placating bureaucrats, even bureaucrats disguised as Fleet officers, if it means sacrificing our military effectiveness? Still, he was convinced he’d done the right thing. Just as Snyder and Chancey had the power to burn down his career, Husher knew Kaboh did as well, but only if Husher agreed to provide the flint and tinder. That was something he refused to do.
To defeat Teth, I need to be in command. I can’t let them yank me from the command seat.
But what was the point of sitting there if he couldn’t get the correct decisions past the haze of feel-good nonsense? Husher was sure bureaucrats’ folly came from a place of good intentions, but that wouldn’t make the people it got killed any less dead.
“Warp bubble generating,” the Helm officer said. “Stabilizing now. Approaching superluminal speed in proportion to declining energy density.”
“Acknowledged,” Husher muttered.
“Negative mass achieved, Captain. We’re in warp.”
“Acknowledged,” he repeated, and silence fell as his CIC crew checked over critical systems to make sure nothing had been negatively affected during the transition.
Once they were finished, the CIC would become one of the most boring locations on the Vesta. Even though the feat performed by the warp bubble—contracting the space in front of the ship while expanding the space behind it—was conceptually astounding, while inside the bubble, there was virtually nothing for the CIC crew to do. The chances of a hostile ship entering the bubble were zero, and it was likewise impossible to steer the ship, since no interface existed for communicating with and controlling the warp bubble itself. Warp transitions had to be carefully preplanned, along a route that was vanishingly unlikely to contain debris of any kind, since impacting anything bigger than a pebble would likely result in the molecules of the ship and her crew getting strewn across the void.
Luckily, the chances of encountering anything at all in the spaces between stars really were infinitesimal, and since the advent of the warp drive, there had been no mishaps involving collisions with errant debris.
Husher’s com vibrated, and he slipped it from its holster to find a message from Ochrim inviting him for a beer.
For a moment, he considered which would have been more damning, once IU officials inevitably reviewed his text exchanges with the Ixan—the chummy fiction he was maintaining with the perpetrator of one of the worst atrocities in galactic history, or the truth: that Ochrim was conducting research for him with likely military applications.
Wait, I know exactly which would be more damning. The second one. Much better to continue pretending he was close friends with the war criminal.
“Be right there, pal,” Husher messaged back, standing from the command seat. “Fesky, you have the CIC.”
“Yes, sir,” Fesky said, sounding as morose as everyone else looked.
This time, the pack of protesters were waiting for Husher in the outskirts of Cybele, instead of sitting right outside the hatch into the desert. Husher assumed that was a strategic choice—they’d get more attention from other residents, this way.
“Why haven’t your signed onto the Positive Response Program yet?” one yelled, appearing from an alleyway between two residences.
“Why haven’t you joined other Fleet captains in the movement to make military hiring practices more equitable for nonhuman species?” demanded a second, screaming at him from less than a meter’s remove.
Husher opened his mouth to respond, and the protester held an air horn in his face, activating it and drowning out his words with a deafening blare.
Seizing the air horn from the protester’s grasp, Husher threw it against the side of a nearby residence as hard as he could, where it ruptured with an audible pop.
Get a grip, he berated himself even as his ears rang. You’re a warship captain, not a temperamental child.
Deciding to take t
he tack of ignoring the protesters, he marched straight ahead. That was when a band of them trooped into the street ahead, linking arms, digital signs above their heads flashing righteous messages:
“HUSHER ISN’T HELPING!”
“BASH BACK!”
“STOP SWEEPING ME UNDER THE RUG!”
He continued marching coming to a halt in front of the center protester, whose angry sneer devolved into a look of uncertainty.
There must have been something suggestive in Husher’s eyes, because within seconds, the protester he was staring down decoupled himself from his neighbors and stepped out of the way.
Husher passed through them, tearing his com out of his pocket. The ability to send the Oculenses mental commands was too limited to compose an actual message, so for discretion he was forced to tap one out on his com as he walked.
“Can we get that beer at the Secured Zone instead?” he asked Ochrim. “Would that work for you?” He was actually asking whether Ochrim could discreetly show him what he’d discovered there, which he was guessing he could, since as far as Husher knew the Ixan was now doing most of his work in a simulation anyway.
“That’ll work,” came Ochrim’s reply. “I’ll meet you there in twenty.”
Holstering the com, Husher stalked through the streets of Cybele, fighting the implacable sensation that he was losing control of his ship.
Chapter 28
The Secured Zone
The Secured Zone was one of Cybele’s most popular bars. He supposed they were trying to follow a military theme, but that wasn’t the vibe Husher got—from the name or the atmosphere.
When he entered, the silence was almost total. He supposed that did remind him of certain memories from Basic, when their drill sergeant had left them to stand at attention on the parade grounds while a blistering star cooked their innards into a fine stew.
Capital Starship (Ixan Legacy Book 1) Page 12