Starbound (Lightship Chronicles)

by Dave Bara

  “Duke Peter is here in the role of a Union Navy Commander, Highness, attending a Royal Navy inquest on the loss of our Lightship Impulse in the Altos system,” he said. The prince made a face like this was news to him, but said nothing. There was an air about him of superiority, as if he was looking down on an obviously uncultured young royal from a provincial world. Finally, he spoke again.

  “I have been taught by the Historians of Earth that our families were on opposite sides of the old Imperial civil war. How convenient it must be for your people that we are now on the same side,” said Arin.

  I was puzzled by the comment. “Well, Highness, I am not sure if I would use the word ‘convenient,’ but yes, the Union has been to Quantar’s advantage, undoubtedly,” I replied. He gave a quick, humorless smile at that before responding in kind.

  “What I meant to say is that Carinthia offers the Union our heavy industry, our machinery and resources, our engineering enterprise. Yet Quantar seems only to offer some inexpensive timber and your noted shiraz wines. It hardly seems a fair exchange to me,” he said.

  My puzzlement grew. Frankly, I felt a bit insulted, but wanted to avoid an interstellar diplomatic incident, per my recent training.

  “We like to think our contributions to the Union Navy have been of some use,” I said evenly.

  “Indeed, to the Union, such as they are. But not to Carinthia directly,” said Arin. Now I was sure I was being insulted.

  “It was Quantar lives that were the first to be sacrificed aboard Impulse,” I said, trying to make a point without starting an argument. He gave the quick half-smile again and then immediately changed the subject.

  “Tell me of your family’s lineage. I know little beside what I’ve been taught,” he asked. I gave a quick overview of our family’s founding of the planet through the QUANTAR corporation, and the emperor’s granting of royal titles some three centuries past, before the war.

  “So really, you were merchant princes, endowed with your lands historically and then given formal titles as a means of quelling growing support for rebellion against the empire,” he said. I hesitated now. Again, I didn’t want an argument, but there was no doubt he was trying to belittle me and my family.

  “I know little of the reasons for the revolt against the empire, Highness. Only that my family fell on the side of the republicans, in the end,” I replied.

  “You should be interested to know then that my family lines go back to Central Europe on Old Earth, more than a millennia in fact, and our family includes generous blood from both the Von Drakenberg and De Vere families,” he said. I had no idea what he meant by these references, except to show his family’s blood proximity to the ruling families of the First Empire.

  In the end, a polite “indeed” was all I could manage in response. With that he nodded, apparently satisfied that he had put the rube royal from the hinterlands in his place.

  “Enjoy your stay,” he said finally with a slight uptick of one side of his mouth. At that, he turned and started to walk out, the formalities apparently ended. I gave Dobrina a perplexed look. Before he reached the door, however, it opened from the other side. A lighter-haired young man, shorter by a full head but wearing the same military uniform, with less decorations, came through the door. The two men had a quiet but intense exchange, and then Prince Arin was gone. The door shut behind him as the other man came into the room and approached us.

  “I’m Prince Benn Feilberg, the grand duke’s youngest son,” he said, extending his hand with a smile. I took it.

  “A pleasure to meet you, Prince Benn,” I said. He turned to Dobrina.

  “You must be Captain Kierkopf,” he said, and then also extended his hand to her. She tried the curtsey move again but he stopped her. “No need for that, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Sire,” she said, then returned his handshake. Prince Benn dismissed the protocol officer and had the servants bring over three of the sitting chairs strewn about the room. Then we all sat together in the middle of the large, mostly empty room, our chairs placed on top of the only area rug in the room. Once we were settled, I started in.

  “Your brother, the prince regent, seems a rather formal chap,” I said conversationally. Unfriendly was the word that I was actually thinking.

  “A bit,” Prince Benn said, with only a slight smile.

  “I wasn’t aware Carinthia was under a Regency,” I said. He bristled at that a bit.

  “It isn’t, not technically,” said Benn. This was concerning. “My brother has assumed the title but without all of the appropriate mechanisms being implemented, the proper levers being pulled, if you will. As far as I and many in our government and military are concerned, my father is still Carinthia’s sovereign. That’s part of why I’m here today. I’m just passing through on my way to High Station Three.” That was the “Loyalist” station, Zander had told us. Now things were becoming clearer. “So I’m glad I caught you. I should be back tomorrow, and perhaps when this inquest is cleared off the books we can talk more freely,” he said.

  “I would appreciate that, Highness. Can I take your meaning to be that there is some question about the grand duke’s, uh, condition?” I asked, I hoped delicately.

  “There are moments when he is not all himself, I’m afraid,” said Benn. “But he has not ceded power and Arin does not have the authority to take it. Let’s just say we are having a vigorous family disagreement about that.”

  “Speaking of family—”

  The prince cut me off. “You must be about to inquire about my sister, Karina. She is in New Vienna. She sees to my father’s care on a daily basis,” he said. This surprised me. She was a fully trained Union Navy officer, an astrogator, from what I had been told. But I supposed family came first for her.

  “Prince Benn, how serious are things here on Carinthia?” I pressed, finally cutting to the point.

  “Serious enough,” he replied. “That’s why I’m heading to Three, to take the lay of the land so to speak. I wouldn’t worry, though. This is about politics, mostly, and I hope to keep it that way.” With that he stood and we stood with him.

  “I want to thank you, Captain Kierkopf, for your service aboard Impulse. It was a shock to all of us when she was lost, but your heroism in the matter, both of you, is well documented. Have no fear about this inquest business. I’m sure it’s just military formalities,” he said.

  “Thank you, Sire. Those thoughts are well appreciated,” she said in reply. He gave us a final nod of acknowledgment and with that he said his goodbyes and made his way out, leaving Dobrina and me together in the room.

  “Not what I expected,” I said, “of either of them.” I sat back down but Dobrina stayed standing. “You’re unhappy?” I asked, looking up at her. She looked back down on me with concern etched across her face.

  “I want off this station, as soon as possible. Let’s just get this damned inquest over with and get home,” she said. She seemed embarrassed by the disarray she had found her home world and its military in, and I couldn’t blame her. I was pleased though that she mentioned “home,” which I took to mean Starbound and the Union Navy, and perhaps even me. I acceded to her request, and we made our way back to the docking area, ready to get on with the business at hand now that the necessary formalities were over.

  We were promptly escorted to a military shuttle where we were hustled in and instructed to strap in to safety couches. Our Feldjäger commandant and two other guards also strapped in behind us, the rest peeling off of our detail and staying on station. The commandant issued an order in German into his com and the shuttle burned to life. What seemed like seconds later, we were off the deck of the station and back out into space, on our way to the surface of Carinthia. The whole transaction had taken barely five minutes.

  “Very efficient,” I said quietly, trying to lighten the mood. Dobrina sighed.

  “This was not how I wa
nted you to see my home world,” she said, equally quietly.

  “You can apologize later. Right now I want this all over with, just like you do,” I said. We were quiet then for several minutes while the shuttle descended. Dobrina poked her head up to the shuttle’s porthole to look out, then turned back to me, leaned in, and whispered to me.

  “This is not the route to New Vienna,” she said. “Normally diplomats or VIPs would be received at the Ganderstaad Air Base. We’re tracking much further north,” she said. I took her hand and squeezed it gently, trying to reassure her.

  After another twenty minutes of descent our shuttle landed in daylight hours in an area I could only describe as tundra, far north of any sizable settlement that I could identify during our approach. From the air it looked like it could only be a remote airbase, but even as we landed it looked seldom used and out of date. The sky was gray and dismal, and there was a sizable amount of snow on the ground, piled up and well frozen.

  Once we were on the ground the Feldjäger commandant personally unbuckled us from our couches while the guards stood watch, hands on their weapons. The commandant silently motioned us to the shuttle door, which had popped open into a frigid day with a cold north wind whipping through the air. More armed soldiers lined our path as we made our way to a ramshackle wood and steel building with a metal pipe on the roof blowing dark smoke into the air. We were silently ushered inside, where a small, bald man wearing a black military police colonel’s uniform and circular eyeglasses sat behind a simple wooden desk. He was writing in a paper journal with a pen. He checked his watch once, then wrote down the time, as if he was keeping a log. Then he rose, hands behind his back, and stepped around the desk. He addressed Dobrina first.

  “Captain Kierkopf,” he said in Standard, albeit with a heavy accent, using the temporary rank she had held aboard Impulse. “You will face charges of neglect of your duties before a court-martial, beginning tomorrow morning.”

  “Neglect of my—” started Dobrina before I cut in.

  “There must be some mistake, Colonel. We were told this was to be an inquest only. And the captain here is part of my entourage, and thus under diplomatic protection,” I said firmly. The colonel shook his head.

  “You do not understand, Commander. There is no ‘diplomatic mission.’ The captain was given her commission by your Union Navy, but since she no longer has a command in that navy her commission has now been returned to the Carinthian Navy. There will be answers for the murders of the crew of Impulse, which had an almost all-Carinthian crew, sir,” he said to me, defiant.

  “Murders?” said Dobrina. I put a hand out to quiet her.

  “I am also Duke of KendalFalk, of House Cochrane of Quantar, not just a navy commander,” I said, “and as such that makes this a diplomatic mission, and the captain is part of that mission.”

  The colonel got angry now.

  “This is a navy affair, Commander, and you will both be tried in your capacities as navy officers!”

  “But Captain Kierkopf—”

  “Captain Kierkopf will stand trial for negligence and dereliction of duty. But you, sir, you will stand trial for much greater crimes. It is you who destroyed Impulse, you who lost her crew. You, sir, are charged with treason, and the murder of the entire crew of Impulse!”

  And with that he stomped from the room, and I felt the chill wind blow right through the shack walls, the cold sinking deep into my bones.

  On Trial

  I spent the night in what could only be described as a military brig with minimal heat, bedding, or services of any kind. The discomfort didn’t matter much as sleep eluded me all night anyway, my mind spinning with the possibilities of my situation, and Dobrina’s of course, which ran the gamut from a huge misunderstanding to an outright coup d’état against the grand duke and the Feilberg family. I found it hard to believe that Carinthia’s ruling family would want an outright conflict with Quantar, unless what constituted the Feilberg military had taken control of the civilian government and was now hostile to the Union.

  There was no doubt that Prince Arin had been at best distant in our conversation, and borderline unfriendly. It was obvious that whatever was happening on Carinthia, it must certainly revolve around him and his attempt implement a Regency government. That much had been made clear by Prince Benn. The full extent of that attempt, and its peripheral effect on me, was still unclear. I wondered if he was the kind of man who would go so far as to execute another royal on trumped-up charges to further his goals, and who or what might be backing him in these endeavors. Worries about Imperial entanglements came to mind many times over the course of the night.

  My worrying of course also encompassed Dobrina. We had been separated immediately after our arrival and I hadn’t seen her nor heard anything about her at any time during the night. I feared for her, as I hoped my status as both a Union Navy officer and a Quantar royal would be enough to protect me from the worst of circumstances. But if someone in the Carinthian hierarchy had singled her out for punishment in the Impulse affair, then her career was certainly in jeopardy at a minimum. I also feared for her as a woman, one I had more than just a passing interest in.

  In the morning one of the Feldjäger MPs brought me a rudimentary breakfast of a fried egg, slice of bread, and water. I was then taken out and allowed to use the toilet and a sink to freshen up. When returned from this I was given my Union Navy commander’s uniform from my baggage and ordered to put it on. Apparently the Carinthians wanted to try me as a navy officer, and not a royal. From there I was walked under heavy guard to a room with a small window, a simple wood table, and two chairs facing each other. I was instructed to sit down and I did, facing the door. My escorts departed and locked the door behind them.

  After several minutes of sitting I got anxious and started pacing, stopping to look out of the high-set window. As I craned my neck to see out, I could see a small patrol of guards in the square outside, a disheveled fence, and an empty guard tower. Beyond was a long, empty run to some very sharp, barren, snow-capped peaks. The guards I could observe seemed casual in their approach to their duties, and I had no doubt it was due to the low probability of escape by any prisoner. Where would they go? If someone left this base alive, my belief was it was surely at the beneficence of its masters.

  I was surprised then by a knock at the door. A tall, lanky redheaded lieutenant came through the door wearing a standard Carinthian Navy green uniform. He sat down opposite my chair and pulled several papers from a brief, then set the brief down on the floor. He donned glasses and took to reading for a few moments, then looked up at me.

  “Are you enjoying the view?” he asked, his accent coming through strongly.

  “Not really,” I said, keeping my place at the window.

  “Come. Sit,” he said, gesturing to my open chair and smiling slightly. I didn’t want to go on with this charade at all, to give it any credence, but I decided this moment might not be the best time to fight. “I am Lieutenant Karl Poulsen. I will be the . . . what do you call it . . . lawyer? Yes, the lawyer representing Captain Kierkopf in her defense,” he said once I had sat down.

  “But not for me?” I asked. He shook his head, shuffling papers.

  “You have no standing in our court system for representation. You will have to defend yourself against all charges. However, I thought it might be helpful to the captain’s case if I talked with you first, to see if you would be sympathetic to helping her?”

  “Of course I would,” I said.

  “Good, then we can proceed,” he said, seeming satisfied. What followed was a series of carefully prepared questions. Whoever this lawyer was, he had done extensive research into the Impulse incident. I tried to answer as honestly as I could and to be as helpful as I could to Dobrina’s case. At least, that’s what I hoped. After about twenty minutes he concluded his questioning and started to pack up.

  “So that�
�s it?” I said, starting to get upset. “Nothing about my case, no consultation, not even a reading of the court rules?” He stopped and looked at me in that even, passionless, Carinthian way.

  “You are not without my limited sympathies, but I do not make the rules. You will stand trial on your own, although the court proceedings will be held side by side. I will not consult with you nor answer your questions in court. My only interest is in getting Captain Kierkopf exonerated and returned to duty in the Carinthian Navy, nothing more.” He stood to leave. I stood as well.

  “The Carinthian Navy? Captain Kierkopf is a Union Navy officer,” I said.

  Poulsen smiled narrowly. “Not anymore. Her commission belongs to the Carinthian Navy, and her knowledge of your navy’s inner workings is far too valuable to us to allow her to leave our service again,” he said with only a hint of a threat.

  “One last question,” I said as he turned to open the door. “Your name, Karl Poulsen. Would you be any relation to Claus Poulsen, late of H.M.S. Impulse?” He looked at me impassively.

  “Claus was my brother, and a good officer, and another black mark on you,” he said, then went through the door. I sat back down as the impact of that nonrandom selection hit me.

  Nothing was going right here. Nothing at all.

  An hour later, I was escorted across the yard through cold, blowing snow to the original building we had been brought to when we arrived. This was obviously to be the trial location. I was placed in a holding room that was slightly better appointed than my previous locale. I sat down on a small couch and was brought tea by a Feldjäger MP, which I welcomed. All the Feldjäger were kitted out in winter gear. I had just my navy uniform jacket as protection against the cold. After a few minutes of drinking the warming tea and contemplating my situation, I was surprised by the door popping open as another MP came through, followed by Dobrina. The MP then turned and left, locking the door behind him. I was ecstatic to see her. I jumped up and we hugged for a few seconds, almost as much out of a desire for warmth as out of affection, and then we sat together on the couch.