by J. R. Mabry
And if the people of this universe couldn’t quite muster that hatred and scorn, he would confect enough of it, all by himself. Hell, he was already overflowing with it—enough bilious self-loathing to power a starship.
It occurred to him that he could just squash space, put himself four parsecs hence, in the middle of deep space—no helmet, no suit, no ship. It would be over in minutes. But Nira and Pho needed him. There would be ample time for suicide once they were released.
He wasn’t sure why that made him feel better—and it wasn’t very much better—but it did.
“Come find me,” the shaman’s voice said in his head. Wisps of the dream invaded his memory.
“I thought you’d come find me,” Danny said, sliding into the seat across from Jeff.
“Uh…” Jeff said.
“Are you hungover?” Danny asked.
“Uh…no.” Jeff lied.
“Your eyes look…lizard-like.”
“You’re pretty, too,” Jeff said.
“I don’t look like a lizard.”
Jeff rubbed at his eyes. “Sorry.”
“You feeling okay?” Danny asked, taking a sip from Jeff’s untouched cup of coffee.
“Uh…yes. Fine. Just…worried about my crew.”
Danny’s head jerked. “What’s up with your crew?”
“In the brig. Two of the four of them.”
“What for?” Danny asked.
“I don’t…no clue. And no one is talking. I was hoping, maybe…”
“Let’s find out,” he said, looking up and blinking.
Jeff watched as his eyes twitched, making the micro movements necessary to navigate and read what he was seeing. Jeff was just polishing off his coffee when Danny looked back down.
“Damn.”
“What?”
“Your crew are rebel spies.”
“I was afraid you’d say something like that. What makes them think that?”
“Because one Commander Martin Pho and Sergeant Camil Nira are both registered combatants with the RFC.”
“RFC.”
“You have some homework to do. Revolutionary Freedom Coalition. It’s what the rebels call themselves. We just call them rebels. Or traitors.”
“I see.” Jeff set his cup down. “But here’s the problem with that. Pho isn’t a commander, he’s a lieutenant. And Nira isn’t a sergeant, she’s a commander. And these are not the same people—they’re different.”
“We have DNA on record from before the war—”
“Was Pho even born when that war started?” Jeff asked.
“Look, the action you died in—” Danny began.
“Catskill,” Jeff said between gritted teeth.
“Fine. Catskill. It started the snowball rolling that led to the war.”
Jeff nodded. “So Pho would have been three.”
“And we collect DNA samples from every newborn. They’re sequenced and logged in the Authority’s organic database.”
“What’s your point?”
“The point is, your man Pho is a 100% DNA match.”
“Of course he is, he’s the same person—genetically. But he isn’t from here. Our…my Martin Pho isn’t in rebellion against the CD…the Authority. He’s as loyal a serviceman as you’ll ever meet. He’s my navigator.”
“And until we can prove that he isn’t the Martin Pho enlisted with the rebels, he’ll enjoy the hospitality of our brig.”
“Danny, I can’t allow that.”
“Jeff, you can’t do anything about it.”
Jeff looked at the table top.
“I’m sorry,” Danny said. “Look…I don’t know what to believe. I think you’re lucky not to be in the brig yourself.”
Jeff nodded. He wasn’t sure it was luck, but he didn’t know what it was. “I get it. It’s war time. I just want you to know this: as sure as there are spiders in space, my crew is innocent.”
Danny cocked his head. “Spiders in space?”
“Sure, you know—” Jeff saw Danny’s brow knit together. He stopped. Come to think of it, he hadn’t seen a single spider since they’d jumped strings. “Do you mean to say that every ship in the…in the Authority isn’t crawling with spiders?”
Danny shook his head slowly, and had a look on his face that could only mean one thing—the man was questioning his sanity. Just then Danny shot up onto his feet. “Crewman!” he shouted.
Jeff looked over his shoulder and saw a young ensign cringe. The young man couldn’t have been out of the academy more than a few months, Jeff guessed. He raised his head slowly, saw Danny, and his face crumbled. Oh, no, he mouthed.
Danny put his hands on his hips and raised himself to his full height, his chest puffed out unnaturally. He dwarfed the ensign. “Who told you you could eat among people with honor, crewman?”
The ensign said nothing.
“Who told you that you had the right to breathe in my presence?”
The crewman’s lips were as tight as an airlock seal.
“Drop and give me a hundred, soldier. Now!”
With everyone watching, the ensign slowly got to the floor.
“Today, ensign, or you’ll do pushups in the brig!”
By now the ensign was on the ground, pushing himself up the full length of his arms with efficient jerks. Jeff could hear him counting under his breath.
After about thirty repetitions, the ensign’s left arm began to shake.
“That was a poor showing, crewman,” Danny said. “Begin again.”
The crewman started over from “one.”
At around fifty, both arms were shaking, but Danny didn’t call him on it. The last twenty were touch-and-go, but the young man struggled through to a hundred. He collapsed to the floor and panted, his cheek kissing the poly.
Danny squatted near his head.
“You either find another mess or you make damn sure I’m not in this one. You won’t speak to me, you won’t come near me, and you will walk the other way if you ever see me in the corridor. Am I understood, ensign?”
Between pants, the young man said. “Yes…sir…”
Danny stood up abruptly and returned to his table.
Jeff’s eyes were wide. “That was quite a display. What did the kid do?”
“Who, him? Nothing, I guess. Don’t like his look.” He pointed at his face. “Lazy eye. I hate the smell of weakness.”
Jeff blinked.
“Listen, Jeff, let me talk to Tal about your crew. Give me a day or so…I’ll see what I can do.”
Jeff nodded.
Danny grabbed a last piece of bacon off Jeff’s plate and tossed it into his own mouth. He grinned and chomped on the bacon with his mouth open.
There was not a ship’s counselor on board. Jo had never trusted them, and when she checked, was relieved to see that the one assigned to them was on sick leave and a replacement had not yet been assigned. But she felt obligated to honor the spirit of Admiral Alinto’s orders, if not the letter. As captain, who could she talk to that wouldn’t be inappropriate or create an ethical breach?
“Palamar,” she said out loud.
Cordwainer Palamar was one of her oldest friends—although perhaps “friend” was not the right word. They had been at the academy together, but while Jo rose quickly in the ranks, Palamar had not done much of anything with his commission. He served as senior boatswain, which meant he was a glorified supply clerk.
Still, he was the one person aboard she knew well enough to talk honestly with. And he knew her well enough to know when she was bullshitting. Accessing her neural, she saw that he was off duty. She did a search for him—his neural put him in the bar, which surprised her not at all.
In minutes she entered the bar and spied him at a table, looking over something on a datapad. She slid into the seat across from him.
He looked up and did a double-take. “Jo…er, Captain! Uh…am I dreaming?”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“It means that you have
a lot to do…and I’m confused as to why you’d be bothering with the hoi polloi.”
“You are not the hoi polloi.”
“I’m not?”
“You flatter yourself.”
He grinned and swirled his drink in his glass. “You drinking?”
“I’ll have whatever you’re having.”
Palamar raised his glass to the barkeep. A moment later another glass arrived. Jo sipped at it.
“I hear you’ve had quite a day.”
“Ain’t that the truth?” she said. “I want to know…if Shallit had succeeded, would you have gone along with it?”
“As opposed to mounting a rescue?”
She didn’t answer that.
“Do I look like the heroic type?”
He did not. His hair was thinning, and his middle was just about as thick as it could be without getting him bounced from duty.
“No, sorry to disappoint you, if that shit Shallit had prevailed, I would have kept my head down and waited to see what would happen. Like most people, I assume. Any other response is likely to get you a hole blasted through your chest.”
“I suppose…”
“No hard feelings, then?”
She didn’t answer him. She did have some hard feelings, if she were honest with herself.
“Look, Jo, you are the heroic type. It’s one of the things that makes you you. It’s why you’ve got the pips. Not everyone can be you. We can’t all be captains. The fact that you did what you did…it just means you’re in the right place.”
Her lower lip trembled. “Do you think so?”
His look softened. “Ah…this is the comedown. The self-doubt is kicking in. All those little voices in your head nattering about how you’re not worthy and shit. Am I right?”
Jo looked surprised. “You can hear them?”
Palamar chuckled. “Loud and clear, sunshine. And you’ve come here because I’m the only person aboard who can keep your secrets.”
“And I’m not too sure about that,” Jo narrowed one eye at him.
“Well…you know, if the price were right.” He winked at her.
There were a few moments of awkward silence. “I am glad you’re here,” Jo said, not looking at him. “Just knowing that you’re aboard….”
“Stop…before you embarrass yourself.”
She did stop. She looked down, twitched her nose, and nodded. “Yup, you’re right.” Then she took a swig from her glass. “Admiral Alinto told me to talk to someone. So I can check that off my list.”
“Happy to oblige.”
“Next I’m going to get a massage.”
“I have just the guy—”
“Do you get a kickback for this referral?” She scowled.
“Something wrong with that?”
“You never change, do you?”
“I don’t know, sunshine.” He cocked his head. “Do you?”
The door slid open. Hightower stepped in.
Tal waved him in, unable to speak for the moment.
“You met him?”
“Yes, I met him.”
“Creeped you out?”
Tal nodded. “He’s aged, but it’s him, isn’t it?”
“It sure as shit is….uh, begging the admiral’s pardon.”
“As you were.” Tal motioned to the chair. “Sit.”
“I heard you just put his crew in the brig,” Hightower said, taking the seat.
“What else could I do? Intelligence was able to trace their neural codes—they belong to rebel soldiers that go by the very same names.”
Hightower’s eyebrows shot up and he nodded, as if to say, That’s reasonable. “Can’t prove they’re rebels,” he offered.
“Can’t prove they’re not,” Tal said. “If we’re wrong on this, it would mean enemy spies loose in Sol Station. No matter how you slice it, that’s grand-scale incompetence on our part.”
“On your part,” Hightower corrected him, reminding Tal exactly why he hated the captain. He knew exactly where the razor’s edge of insubordination was, and he rode this side of it like a surfer on a wave. If only there were a dangerous mission he could send the captain on, something he might not come back from, the entire civilized world would be a safer place. But so long as there was a war on, he needed every killer wearing his colors. Black. “One thing in their favor: Ensign Wall is assigned right here on Sol Station.”
“Our Ensign Wall?”
“Right. There are two Susie Walls on board. One from this universe and one from theirs.”
“I think their Wall is a lieutenant. Our Wall is the slacker.”
“Okay, but it shores up their story.”
“It does that. If there are two Walls—”
“And two of Dr. Stewart—she is indeed on earth and very much alive and well.”
“—it stands to reason that their Nira and Pho are not rebels.”
“You can’t let them out of the brig until you can establish that definitively.”
“Right. Is that going to create a problem getting Captain Bowers to be cooperative?”
“Cooperative with what?”
“With revealing to us whatever technology he was working on.”
Tal had never seen Hightower look alarmed before. This was close to it. “Uh…if they’re right, that technology wiped a reality string from the cluster. I don’t know about you, but I’m kind of attached to this reality. I mean, if we’re not, what are we fighting for?”
“True.”
“Begging the Admiral’s pardon, but did you really ask me here to give you an update on Bowers? Because you could have—”
“No, goddam it.” Tal looked up and triggered a holo display that flickered and then resolved, hovering just above his desk. He could still make out the captain’s face through the holo-display’s shimmering opacity. “I’ve decided to read you in. I need a fresh set of eyes on this. Besides…” he didn’t finish the sentence.
Hightower cocked an eyebrow, studying the display.
“There’s a lot of dead people there.”
“There sure are.” The admiral pointed, not sure that the captain would be able to pick out who he meant because of Hightower’s angle of vision. “You see that woman? The one with the red dress.”
Hightower nodded gravely. “Was that your girl? The one who got killed?”
Tal nodded. “She was an operative for the Authority. Under cover. There was a supply pipeline running through Avalon II—do you know it?”
“I know it. Hotbed of thugs, from what I’ve heard.”
Just your type of folks, Tal thought. Aloud, he said, “Gunned down along with her bodyguards and a whole shitload of local cops. Authority cops, too. And a handful of rebels. You ever hear of a Captain Telouse?”
“Yeah,” Hightower nodded. “Decorated son-of-a-bitch, before the war. Shame we lost him to the other side.”
“He was my friend, too, at one time.” Tal looked down.
“Who did it?” Hightower asked.
“That is the question,” Tal said. “If it wasn’t us and it wasn’t the rebels—”
“How do we know it wasn’t the rebels?”
“Because the goddam rebels would not want to lose a war hero like Telouse. He might be an old man—same age as me, so no snide quips—but his record is golden. He’s taken out more of our boys than any other rebel commander. That’s a fact.”
“Who did it?” Hightower asked again.
“Intelligence has a couple of theories. Their best one is that a registered rebel has seized control of their battle cruiser and is headed for unclaimed space.”
“Who?”
“Her.”
The admiral blinked and the face of Commander Jo Taylor floated above his desk.
“Oh shit,” Hightower said. “You’re kidding me.”
“I am not. It’s why I’m reading you in. Intelligence says you have history with rebel Commander Taylor.”
“Yeah. We used to date. She fell in love with me. It was
n’t mutual.” Hightower shrugged, cold as a salamander. Tal shuddered.
“What can you tell me about her?”
Hightower looked down and away. His shoulders deflated. “She…” he sighed. “She’s hard as nails. Pretty, in a butch kind of way, but she’ll rip your guts out soon as look at you.”
“Really?”
“No, not really. She’s got it in her, but she’s strictly by the book.”
“You seem to know her pretty well.”
“Look, we were lovers, but only briefly. We were kind-of-friends for a while though—at the academy. So yeah, I know her pretty well.”
“The civilian authorities want her.”
Hightower laughed, met his eyes again. “Good luck catching her! And she’s in unclaimed space?”
“I want you to go after her. Find her.” Tal swallowed. “Take her out.”
Hightower narrowed his eyes. “You don’t want to question her?”
“Triage. Intelligence thinks we can kill her, but can’t spare the resources to capture her.”
Hightower nodded. “I have a better idea. Let’s let Bowers do our work for us.”
“Finding her?”
Hightower’s lip curled as he held the admiral’s eye. “Destroying her.”
Chapter Six
Jo arrived on the bridge feeling better than she had in weeks. She hated to admit that the admiral had been right about the self-care.
“Captain on the bridge,” Communicator Liebert announced.
Everyone started to stand.
“As you were,” she said, watching them sink back to their seats. No one actually expected to stand all the way up, but the navy had always had its traditions.
Jo sat in the command chair and glanced toward the ceiling, accessing her neural. She read the various duty reports and, satisfied that the ship was battle-worthy, she looked down again, focusing on the main view screen as stars streamed past them.
“ETA to target?” she asked.
Navigator Chi didn’t need to consult anything. “We’re set to drop into normal space in twenty minutes, sir.”
Good. She’d timed that well. She turned to her new weaponer, a thin-limbed young woman with a severe countenance which took some getting used to. “Weaponer Ditka, welcome to the bridge crew.”