The young activist fell silent, and Husher sighed. He hadn’t expected her to give up that information on simple request, or even to indicate whether she’d been helped by a member of the crew. He’d already decided what measure he would take to prevent this from happening again, though: from now on, each crewmember would be given a unique passcode, which they’d have to manually enter whenever they wanted to visit or leave Cybele. Everyone would be responsible for keeping his or her code secure, and also for deactivating it and requesting a new one if they thought it had been compromised. The next time a code was used by an activist seeking to make a point, Husher planned to hold the owner of that code responsible.
“Can I ask what exactly it was that you meant to protest?” he said.
“A lot of things, but mainly your refusal to allow nonhuman crew to participate in Nonattendance Day.”
If Husher had ever assumed his capacity for awe would dwindle with age, he was wrong. “If I’d encouraged them to participate in Nonattendance Day, the Vesta would have been undercrewed during the Wintercress engagement. You do realize we’re now officially on wartime footing, don’t you, Ms. Aldaine?”
“That’s exactly the time to hold closest to our principles, isn’t it? If Captain Leonard Keyes is to be taken seriously, that is. He made public statements to that effect all the time, and so did you, when you were younger.”
“I still do,” Husher said, feeling a flush creeping up his neck and trying to will it back down. “The principle I’m adhering to currently is that in order to keep everyone on this ship as safe as I can—and, by extension, everyone in the galaxy—I need all hands on deck.”
“If this were your only misstep, I could almost believe you. But we already know you’re prejudiced against nonhuman species, Captain. Both your actions and your recorded testimony at city council meetings make it obvious.”
Giving his head a brisk shake to clear it, Husher said, “Ms. Aldaine, I count several nonhuman beings among my most respected colleagues and friends.”
“Ha,” Aldaine said. “That’s exactly the argument supremacists always use. ‘I have plenty of Winger friends,’ they say, every time they’re about to do something that marginalizes Wingers even more.”
“That may be true, of supremacists,” Husher said. “But it doesn’t mean it’s never a valid thing for anyone else to bring up, especially when it happens to be correct. My XO and best friend is a Winger, I have a Gok corporal who has my eternal gratitude for saving my life, and I have a Kaithian Nav officer who…well, I won’t get into my feelings about him right now. The point is—”
“I don’t know how you can do it,” Aldaine said. “I don’t know how you can stand there and pretend you’re the perfect exemplar of interspecies relations, when I know you’re the opposite. I already know that, Captain, and nothing you say can convince me otherwise.”
Nodding, Husher said, “Exactly. That’s exactly what the matter is with people like you, Ms. Aldaine. Nothing can convince you otherwise. You’re not interested in letting other perspectives or even facts convince you. It would be pointless for me to bring up how research has shown that spending time around other species is actually the antidote to biased attitudes, not this misguided Awareness Training you keep pushing.”
Husher pressed on, before Aldaine could start shouting him down: “You just accused me of thinking I’m perfect on interspecies relations, but I don’t think that. I’m well aware I’m far from perfect. We all make mistakes about how to treat each other, and some people truly are hateful. But the honest mistakes, at least, are part of the process. They’re part of life. And you refuse to acknowledge that. You hold other people to a standard of perfection that you aren’t capable of sustaining yourself, and I can guarantee you, someday that’ll come back around to bite you in the ass.”
“Was that a threat?” Aldaine demanded, and with that, Husher grew tired of wasting his breath.
“Escort Ms. Aldaine to Cybele and release her,” he told the guards as he exited the brig.
“I’m going to make your life a living hell, Husher!” she yelled just before he drew out of earshot.
Chapter 22
Asleep to Awake
The evenly trimmed grass was damp, and it soaked through his creased pants as he knelt there. He’d paid someone to keep the lawn tidy while he was away on deployment, but right now it was far from tidy—beset by flaming timber, it would take months to restore.
Husher would not be the one to restore the lawn. Even at that moment, as he watched the inferno consume his family’s home, he knew that. He would leave this place and never return.
The heat bathed him, but he didn’t care. Instead, he longed to charge into the conflagration, to rake through the white-hot cinders of his house, to topple beams and smash through burnt walls. He wanted his daughter, and if he couldn’t have her, then he wanted to join her.
His uncontrolled sobbing rose in pitch, and soon it reached unnatural heights—notes his voice should not have been capable of. It also gained the regularity of a machine, shrieking again and again in measured soprano.
He woke to a Priority-level call coming through his com, which vibrated madly atop the table next to his bed. Snatching it, he groaned when he saw the name. Penelope Snyder.
He answered, growling, “Cybele better be burning down, Ms. Snyder.”
A brief pause, followed by, “Excuse me, Captain?”
He strove to regain control of himself, ignoring his racing heart. “Unless this is an emergency, you’re abusing your ability to make Priority calls to my com, and that’s unacceptable.”
“This is a priority, Captain Husher, or at least it should be.”
“What is it?”
“According to the records my Awareness Trainers have supplied me with, some of your human crew are skipping the prescribed training. You do recall that if you’re to remain captain, every human in your crew must complete this program, don’t you?”
We’re in a war, Penelope. That’s what he wanted to say, but despite the emotional state his nightmare had left him in, he managed to restrain himself. He knew it was entirely pointless to raise that fact.
His voice came out as flat, but he forced himself to say it: “I’ll make it known that all human crewmembers must complete Awareness Training or face disciplinary action.”
“I’m relieved to hear that. My schedule tells me that you aren’t on watch right now. Unless there’s been a change?”
“No change.” Unless you count my change from asleep to awake.
“Then I trust you’ll make your promised announcement straight away. I truly believe that time is of the essence, with matters like these.”
“Yes,” he said, in a tone just as flat as before. “As a military captain in the middle of a war, I can certainly appreciate time-sensitive matters.”
“Splendid, Captain. Cheers.” Snyder terminated the call.
He pushed himself to issue the required notice on the Board, which was accessible using the crew-only narrownet. With that, he crawled back into his bunk and tried to put the rest of his off-duty time to good use.
He must have succeeded in falling asleep, because forty-five minutes later, he awoke without the ability to account for the intervening time.
There were still two hours left till his next watch began in the CIC, and his com blinked with a message from one Corporal Toby Yung. Yung was requesting an audience with the captain at his earliest convenience.
Sighing, Husher messaged Yung to meet him in his office. He started getting dressed.
Chapter 23
A Respect for Competence
Yung was already waiting outside Husher’s office when he arrived. The marine came to attention once he spotted his captain’s approach.
“Corporal,” Husher said with a nod as he palmed the hatch open. “After you. Take a seat.”
Husher made his way around the desk to his chair. Even before he was settled, the marine said, “Permission to speak freel
y, sir.”
Under current protocol, it was essentially a requirement for superior officers to grant such permission, as often as it was requested. Husher would likely have been inclined to grant it anyway, under most circumstances, but it rankled to be strongarmed into doing it. “Granted,” he said nevertheless.
“Awareness Training doesn’t work. That’s been proven, time and time again, for every form it’s taken over the last several centuries. Are you aware of that?”
Drawing a deep breath, Husher said. “I have to speak with some care on this subject, Corporal Yung. If anything I say ends up in opportunistic hands, it could easily compromise—”
“Sir, are you a politician or the captain of a military vessel?”
Husher felt his lips tighten. “While I did give you permission to speak freely, that doesn’t unburden you of the requirement to treat your commanding officer with respect.”
“I apologize, Captain.”
“I understand your reluctance to undergo the Training. I understand if you think it’s pointless, and I’d even understand if you had a personal or political reason for opposing it. But the fact is, under the current environment, I have to play ball with the bureaucrats in order to be left alone long enough to properly run my ship. Right now, that means requiring you and every other human in my crew to undergo that training. It is, in fact, an order, Corporal, and you’re paid to follow orders.”
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 24
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 conti
nuing. “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, in what she probably thought was a calming tone. “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.”
Ixan Legacy Box Set Page 11