Of Bravery and Bluster

by Scott Kelemen

  Johanna remained in her meditative trance.

  Paula scowled from her cell on the far side of the corridor. “They better have listened when we told them about Marrah’s role in all this. I held my gun in that woman’s face. I’ll own that, and everything we did to help those aliens find their people. But she’s the one who was stupid enough to kick this off in the first place.”

  Nadia agreed, “She isn’t good enough to hide her tracks. They’ll find it.” Her next words were lower, regretful, “I want to say I regret any of it, but after seeing that room? I wish we could have done more.” She was quiet a moment longer. Then, she asked somberly, “Either of you hear about Ferris?”

  Paula let out a heavy sigh. “He didn’t make it. Idiot ran right under that alien, but he didn’t deserve that. It was just so…unnecessary.”

  Johanna swam in her calm, guarding the bubble of her inner peace against all of it. A shimmer of noise brushed against that bubble. The sound of automatic doors parting. That was the trigger she was waiting for. She began to surface.

  Paula was still ranting, “Commander Jakes probably didn’t even listen to what you asked him, Johanna. Do you really think he was telling the truth about not knowing about that room? He thinks you’re a criminal, and he could be one himself.”

  The answer didn’t come from Nadia, but rather from Jakes himself near the door. “Under other circumstances, I would resent such a lack of faith, Cadet Ophere.” The Executive officer strode into the interior. By his side came the short but still stately presence of Angmo Ogawa, Alliance Parliament Attaché to Nearwatch 1. “However, considering the strain you’ve been under, I will overlook the insubordination. Let’s not make a habit of it.”

  Paula was flushed red, the embarrassment likely to reinforce her normal shyness for more than a few years to come.

  Jakes turned to the calmly folded form of Johanna. “Cadet Summer, now is not the time to relax. Atten-shun!”

  Johanna had been rousing herself since his footsteps had sounded inside the door. By the time his drill order came, the tingling had faded from her legs and she was ready to snap to her feet and assume the familiar posture every military member in the history of their race learned to do in their sleep during basic training. “Aye, Sir!”

  Jakes raked her figure up and down, trying to glare right through to the bones of her. “Well, seems your personnel jacket didn’t lie. Trouble goes out of its way to find you, doesn’t it?”

  Johanna broke from the perfect posture of rigid attention, her head tilting inquisitively to one side. “I would not categorize the situation as -”

  Jakes held up a stalling hand. “Apparently, you also don’t recognize rhetorical questions when you hear them.” He sighed. “At-ease, Cadet. I want you to look me in the eye while I grill you.”

  Johanna remained stiff and straight, at attention. “Respectfully, Sir, you don’t want to be here for this conversation. I recommend that you let me speak to the Honorable Representative alone.”

  Jakes’s eyes bugged out. “Do you know I just finished prying enough details out of the computer system to pull you off the chopping block? We found how Cadet Onera falsified your identity while corrupting the enclosure’s systems. She’s already confessed, insisting she was trying to embarrass you and destroy your class ranking. She claims that she never meant to harm anyone.”

  Johanna considered that. “I believe her.”

  Nadia and Paula had both come near the entrance to their cells, listening in rapt attention. Both now made sounds of disbelief.

  The commander held up a hand in their direction, insisting on their silence. The weight of his gaze remained on Johanna. “For the record, we believed her as well. She will still face charges for causing the death of two people following her rash actions, and her service in the military will come to an end.”

  This brought satisfaction to Paula and Nadia’s faces. Johanna was less convinced. “She is Trinitian, Sir. I’ve been instructed by a friend that they rarely make political moves like this alone.”

  Jakes frowned. “I happen to know there aren’t any serving Trinitian officers or ratings on this station. She appears to have acted alone. Enough about her. None of that exonerates you three from helping aliens attack and nearly kill several scientists following the breach. I find that incomprehensible since we proved you didn’t engineer the break-out! What were you thinking?”

  Johanna once again evaded the question. “Respectfully, Sir, I ask again to speak to the Honorable Representative alone. I will answer his questions. If you stay, I will put you in an extremely uncomfortable situation.”

  Ogawa reached up to place a gentle hand on Jakes’ shoulder. “Please, Commander. Give us a moment. I’ll humor her.”

  Realizing he was caught under the need to respect authority just as he had demanded of the cadets, Jakes glared a final silent warning at the captive trio. “I’ll be outside, Sir. Maybe you can untangle this mess.” He stalked out into the corridor.

  Ogawa waited for the door to seal, then turned to Johanna. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Cadet. The Navy is large enough, but it is easy to make enemies that can last a career. Even when you are right, proving it without embarrassing anyone can be equally as important.”

  Johanna bowed her head, a small show of subservience and gratitude for the advice. Dianne had said similar things once, and she had not been alone. Some of her tutors had been powerful political figures in their own right. They had tried to teach her such things, and she knew them on an intellectual level. She simply had no taste for that sort of subtle game between factions. “I will try and remember that, Honorable Representative. But you are the only one with the power to affect real change in this situation.”

  “Please, Mister Ogawa will do for now. My full title can be a mouthful. Now, why am I the only one who can help you?”

  Cutting to the heart of the matter, Johanna asked, “Did you know about the hidden laboratory?” Her normally smooth, calm voice held a harsh undertone even as she described the room so innocuously.

  Ogawa’s eyes narrowed. “You are pinning your hopes on me not knowing what is going on inside this station?”

  Johanna clarified, “The Parliament’s public position has always been peaceful suppression of the Adonlaeydians. Whoever these abhorrent scientists are, I’m hoping they acted for the benefit of a sub-group within the scientific community. Maybe they were trying to harvest clues from their genetic code. Maybe they were looking for new medical advances based on the Adonlaeydian physiology. I don’t want to guess at their motives. But none of it is consistent with public Alliance policy. If someone in the Alliance is backing them, I’m hoping they left you out so that you could keep saying the right things and believing everything you were saying.”

  Ogawa allowed himself a dark chuckle. “You don’t mince words.” He chewed on that thought. Finally, he admitted, “I did not know that place existed. The content was shocking to say the least.” He chose the words carefully.

  Johanna was terrible at discerning lies. She lived her life in the boundaries of uncompromising truth, which left her woefully unarmed against duplicity. Politicians could sound painfully honest without meaning a word of what they said. But it didn’t matter if he really had known or not. It only mattered what he was intending to present to the public. That would determine which side he was on. At least, until it was no longer convenient.

  She had to take advantage while this lasted. “Dr. Hamblen and Captain Gressler both had to know in order to maintain the secret. I am unsure of Commander Jakes. He brought you here, and he cleared my name when he could have made both more difficult. For that, I didn’t want to put him in the awkward position of warring with his own station commander. That’s why I came to you. Public censure from the Alliance government could make real changes here.”

  Ogawa stepped closer to her cell, as if to drive home his point. “The Adonlaeydian blockade will be maintained, Cadet. That above all else is the Alliance�
��s public position, and it won’t be changing. I know you are Lauran. I know your own government’s view on this. If you are a sympathizer, you will not convince me to take up your cause.”

  Johanna wished she could. But, no. She wasn’t looking for a miracle. Only for the Alliance to hold to its own policy. That was the safer course. “My personal feelings are not in question here, Mister Ogawa. The blockade will continue. I understand that. But the Alliance called for a humane blockade. Conducting torture experiments on living creatures hardly seems to qualify. Find those responsible for causing that pain, Mister Ogawa. That’s all I ask. That…” She trailed off. Dared she try?

  Ogawa called her on her pause. “And?”

  She had to try, for her own peace of mind. “…and investigate the other station. If some corporation bought the complicity of this station commander, they probably tried on Nearwatch 2. Find them. Stop them. Punish them so they don’t try again. And then, return the Adonlaeydians home. We don’t need them up here. It only causes them pain to be separated from their own kind. End the way things are done here, and watch them from afar. It’s all we need.”

  Ogawa paced back and forth in front of her cell. “If you expected me to support you in public, it was reasonable to assume I would ensure torture experiments ended on both stations. But now, you want me to take this a step further. You want me to end the legal experiments that we always knew were going on. To cut off the warning signs that these captives might give us. We could follow the ebb and tide of Adonlaeydian family tensions. We’d lose that window into their world. What do you offer against that?”

  Johanna knew the sacrifice she had to make. It was worth it, and she didn’t hesitate. “I will offer up my prototype. I’ll sign over full rights to its development to you. There will be no need to try and read their emotional subtexts. You’ll be able to understand them. Talk to them directly if you want, or watch their news broadcasts if you don’t. It will open a whole new era in communication with them. All under your guidance.”

  Ogawa’s lips parted a little in surprise. It took him a moment to find his voice. “No one would offer that. Do you know how many marks a company might pay to get their hands on this?”

  Johanna brushed that aside. “There is an old saying that no-one ever gets rich joining the Navy. I don’t see why I should be any different.”

  Ogawa’s face twisted into a scowl. “There are still appearances to be maintained. Do it wrong, and it will look like robbery. Perception is sometimes more important than reality.” He considered his options. Then, he said, “The Navy life also ensures you won’t have time to develop this on your own. Nor to seek out buyers and the like. If you signed it over to me but retained a percentage of interest for yourself, that could work.”

  Johanna added, “I will not object to whatever you decide as long as my conditions are met. Everything I’ve said, and your promise that anyone who had a hand in those terrible experiments won’t ever set foot on one of these stations again. Freeze them out. Use whatever legal precedent you can to end their careers, so they can’t profit from whatever knowledge they gained.”

  Ogawa warned her, “You know how people view these aliens. I might not even be able to prosecute them for wrongful deaths. They’re seen as animals by far too many.”

  Johanna didn’t let him slip away, “Then use that. Who would turn away from scientists willfully torturing animals? We have laws against that.”

  Ogawa watched her closely as he said, “And some would consider the aliens even lower. A danger. Enemies.”

  “We learned about the conventions of war, Mister Ogawa. Those exist, too. Use whatever you need. Just shut it down. Stop hurting them. If you can’t talk to them, then at least try and Listen. I’m giving you the means for that much.”

  He tapped his fingers thoughtfully on his other arm, then finished, “I’ll think about it. You’re an intriguing woman, Cadet Summer. I think you’re going to have an interesting career ahead of you. I’ll be following it, rest assured.” He spun on his heels and left.

  Nadia let out a helpless laugh and flopped back onto her bunk. “You’re going to get us all killed. Or promoted. I’m not sure which.” She let out a sigh. “I’d be seriously mad if I wasn’t sure this was going to help a whole lot of…people.” She used the word with deliberate choice.

  Johanna sank back down into her meditative lotus fold. “As long as he keeps his promise.” She closed her eyes.

  Paula sighed. “Dianne nearly got me killed in a dragonboat. Now you are trying to finish things off in a space station. I’m going to start steering clear of you and your friends. That’s all I have to say.”

  Chapter 20

  Marrah Onera hugged herself in the corner of the tiny briefing room.

  Renny Chamber perched on the table, kicking the back of a chair, trying to act like he didn’t care what was happening.

  Virri Tarlet was sitting in another of the chairs, her head down and smothered in her arms.

  Ben Tumbar glanced out of the corner of his eye at the others. His was the only plan to discredit his fellow students that had worked out. He had come back looking like a gloating hero, only to be dragged back down into the dirt. The administration had hauled them into this back room to cut them off at the knees.

  Nura Phann switched from one to the next, giving each scathing looks of contempt. “You all look like whipped dogs.”

  Virri wrenched her head off the table, revealing eyes red from tears. “Tell that to Korey.”

  Korey Lanyen was conspicuous in his absence. They were told he’d been sent back to Trinity for burial.

  Nura spat back, “Korey fucked up. He hated Sam so much, he got killed giving himself a front row seat to watch the traitor fall.”

  Virri kicked her chair back, rising fast and closing the distance to Nura. She yelled in her face, “Korey wasn’t trying to humiliate him! He was trying to kill both Sam and Brenna! But Korey wasn’t the only one trying, was he? You nearly killed someone on that asteroid, Nura. That wasn’t part of this!”

  Nura scoffed, “Nothing shows failure like death. You just didn’t have the guts to take this as far as it needed to go. We needed them to have catastrophic failures, not mild hiccups in their careers.”

  Ben scowled at that, objecting, “Our directions were clear. I made it work without putting a knife in anyone. Out of the cadets with me, two were finished and on their way out, two had black marks that wouldn’t fade easily, and the last looked like an idiot for having missed it all. Exactly as Brenna wanted!”

  “She wasn’t willing to push far enough. Maybe that’s why Korey turned on her. Maybe he was more loyal to Tanner than she thought.”

  Marrah peaked up from her corner. “What?”

  Nura laughed away her surprise. “Don’t pretend like you didn’t know what was happening. Those emails came from Brenna. She was making a big play, trying to push Tanner out of the way. We all knew that. Which meant, we were all willing to give her the ammunition to do it. If she had pulled this off, she’d be the darling of the Trinitian ball. Tanner would wither and fade, and we’d be her favorite lieutenants. That was worth whatever we had to do!”

  ***

  Commodore Alice Weathers, Commandant Superior of the Alliance Naval Academy, spoke a single word. “Pause.”

  The recording froze in mid-argument.

  Weathers angled herself to face the accused standing in the center of a ring of senior officers. “This seems like the right moment for you to say something in your own defense.”

  Brenna Styles was locked in stunned silence. Her lips parted, but not even a gasp slipped out.

  Weathers’ own mouth twisted into a disappointed frown. “So noted.”

  That disapproval broke through. Brenna blurted out, “But, I didn’t! I didn’t send anything to them! I was told…” She faded off, even now her instinct toward loyalty stopping her from revealing that Tanner had told her to stay out of the games this time around.

  She was
surrounded by exalted rank. Commodore Mila Baker was Chief of the Military Police on the planet, and she had stepped in to personally lead this investigation. To ensure nothing was done improperly. “This recording was not coerced, Miz Styles. We didn’t need to pressure them. They didn’t even ask for privacy. They just started to fight.” She placed a datapad on a nearby desk. “Their testimony told us where to look. Do you know what’s on that pad, Miz Styles? Emails. Programs dug deep into Academy software we linked back to your time tables and accounts. Communication logs with hidden correspondence off planet paid for by you in what could charitably be called circular routes. A careful plan, and one we might have not even thought to look for if we were dealing with the mess you could have caused.”

  Brenna flashed with anger, forgetting rank entirely. “That would have taken years -”

  This time it was the final flag officer, one Commodore Julian Spahar who was the Judge Advocate General for the Academy, who spoke up. “Careful, Cadet. You do not know how much they have gathered on you. They have an estimate on how long you’ve been piecing this together. Years spent in a conspiracy to commit fraud which led to the reckless endangerment of life. I have rarely seen such a cunning sort of patience.”

  Gritting her teeth, Brenna tried again, “This wasn’t me.”

  Spahar demanded, “Do you know what sort of access it would take to imitate you? The time investment it would take? Brenna, these details are more damning than fingerprints. They even matched the free time you had between classes! This would take more than data crunching. This would take people who know you.”

  Brenna felt the only possible answer crush her like a mountain. She was being cut loose. She gasped out, “Tanner!”

  The only other officer in the room was Captain of the List Gregor Kollak, the Commandant for the Fourth-Year cadets, the organizer and guide for the teachers and supervisors who ruled over Brenna and her peers. Always protective of all his ‘children’, his eyebrows drew together as a dark cloud gathered over his forehead. “That is a serious accusation, Miz Styles. Do you have any proof?”