Battlecruiser Alamo: Not One Step Back (7 page)

 That served as as good a cover story as any. It even had the benefit of being true.

 “You know I am. I’m convinced that Hercules is out there, somewhere, and if I can work out where, I can convince the brass to let us go look for him.”

 “Tramiel would let you. Remek too, likely,” she nodded. “There are good, sound strategic reasons to bring that ship home, to say nothing of your own personal desires – but you’ve got to be careful, Danny. You can’t push things too far.”

 Changing the subject, Marshall said, “What do you think of our new Second Officer, anyway?”

 “Hell, I’m just glad that you didn’t give me the job,” she replied, relaxing in her chair.

 “Go on.”

 Sighing, she replied, “She is my senior officer. I know that she’s not in my direct chain, but I still have to work with her.”

 Almost on cue, the door burst open, and Cunningham walked in, his face red. He looked down at the two of them, scowling.

 “Something wrong, Jack?” Caine asked, smiling.

 “Yes, something’s wrong. I just had a ten-minute lecture on how the Operations department was poorly organized and managed, and how it was in need of a total procedural overhaul.”

 “Zebrova,” Marshall said.

 “Hell, yes. Apparently it was being run in a way more appropriate to wartime than peacetime, with insufficient possibilities for cross-training and advancement.” He did a reasonably good job of imitating her accent.

 “Was she right?”

 Fixing Marshall with a stare, he replied, “It’s the difference between running a department on paper and running it in practice, especially under the conditions we’ve been under lately. Hell, I had quieter patrols during the damn war than we’ve had since I got on board.”

 “Hopefully Spitfire will be a bit quieter,” Caine said, shrugging her shoulders.

 “I always loved your naivety, Deadeye,” Cunningham replied. “Really, never change.”

 “Let her have her head, Jack,” Marshall said, trying not to laugh. “She might have a point, and if she can bring something new to the table, all the better. If it’s any consolation, I think she recommended that I reduce Orlova to the ranks again.”

 “I already had a word with her about dealing with this one, Danny. You want me to slap Zebrova’s ears back as well?”

 “Appealing as the mental image might be, no. Let sleeping officers lie, at least for the moment, and keep an eye on her. You know the people involved.” Marshall’s terminal blinked, “And already she has a problem to deal with. Apparently our observer has requested Ryder’s help for the next five days.”

 “Five days?” Caine said, shaking her head, “What the hell does he want to do with her?”

 “He is a spook, right?” Cunningham said.

 Marshall smiled, replying, “I can neither confirm nor deny your hypothesis, Lieutenant. I think that’s the proper phrasing, isn’t it? I’ll just be glad to get him off the ship, and if I have to toss a junior officer to him to keep him out of the way while we get to Spitfire, it’s a small price to pay.”

 “Poor Ryder,” Caine said.

 “Well, that’s what Sub-Lieutenants are there for.”

 “Is there more to this mission that you’ve said, Danny?” Cunningham said.

 “Isn’t there always? The real question is whether there is more to this mission than I’ve been told, and that’s what’s worrying me about this one. There’s something we’re missing about all of this, and I have a horrible suspicion that it’s going to come back to haunt us.”

 “I’ve read the data,” Caine said, “and this doesn’t look too controversial. Espatier stop-and-searches of traffic in system, and a few missiles to knock out the pirates when they turn up. It’d be easier if we had fighters, but I don’t think this will be much of a problem.”

 “If it was that easy, Deadeye, Cornucopia would have handed it themselves,” Caine said, “Danny’s right, there’s something else going on here.”

 “What have they got, anyway?” Marshall asked

 Pulling out a datapad, Caine read, “Small tactical security force, a few transport shuttles for inspections, but Cornucopia’s dealt with a few private security agencies before, Danny, and they certainly have the money, and the desire for secrecy, out here.”

 “Maybe there is something going on that they want us to know about,” Cunningham said, frowning, peering over Caine’s shoulder. “Or perhaps we’re reading too much into a simple patrol mission.

 “When do we ever get a simple patrol mission?” 

Chapter 6

 Orlova had learned from bitter experience that the ship’s cuisine was far better at the beginning of a cruise – when the ship’s galley was stocked with at least a modicum of fresh food – than it was later on, when they were entirely dependent on reprocessed rations. No matter how the chef dressed them, they all still tasted like plastic; she scooped an extra helping of potato onto her plate, then took her tray over to her usual table.

 Zabek was sitting opposite her; an empty chair was waiting for Ryder, but if she didn’t hurry, she was going to miss dinner. Zabek looked up from her soup, waving her spoon in the air and throwing a few brown droplets onto the table.

 “Zebrova still giving you trouble?”

 “Last night she pulled a surprise inspection on my department – at least, she was going to.”

 “That’s the third in four days, isn’t it?” She paused in between mouthfuls, “What do you mean, going to? She changed her mind?”

 “Harper hacked into her system,” she chuckled, “and canceled the alert – leaving a series of instructions about how to improve her security for good measure.”

 “I take it that didn’t leave her in a particularly good mood?”

 “No. It didn’t.”

 Leaning forward, Zabek asked, “What did you think?”

 “Harper shouldn’t be hacking into a senior officer’s personal systems, but on the other hand, she was using her initiative to anticipate a problem, and the hackers to have standing orders to seek out holes and patch them. I’d have probably left it to a stern lecture; she wanted to throw her in the brig for security violations.”

 “What happened?”

 “The Captain ended up walking in on a major argument and told us all to get back to bed and stop disturbing him; I put Harper on extra duty closing all the security holes she’d found.”

 “You realize she’ll just put new ones in. She probably put them there in the first place.”

 Shrugging, Orlova said, “I wouldn’t put it past her, but I did tell her that she needed to use a lot more discretion in the future, and said something about allowing senior officers to have their fun. It’s not as if we needed the drill, anyway; response time to threat is down under thirty seconds. Fleet record, I checked.”

 “You’ve got a good team there.”

 “Damn right, I just wish I could find a way to convince her of that.” She took a bite of her food, and smiled, “Let’s not talk about it, though, I don’t want anything to spoil the meal. Eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow it’ll be coming out of a carniculture vat.”

 “Gagh,” Zabek said, shaking her head, “I wonder what the food will be like out at Spitfire.”

 “Terrible. No anti-grav. Lots of spice and heavy sauces. Gagh.”

 “Leave?”

 “It’s smaller than Alamo. Just a tiny little habitat with a load of man-tended space junk whirling around it. Not exactly in the Rough Guide to the Galaxy. I had a word with Deadeye about it, and it boils down to a couple of bars and a strip club.”

 “Better than nothing.”

 “Not much better, though.”

 Ryder walked into the room, fury on her face, and snatched up a tray from the counter, loading food onto it with gusto in heaped piles. Grabbing a fork, she slammed her lunch down on the table and looked between the two of them.

 “Having a bad day?” Zabek asked.

 Orlova shook her head at Ryder’s scowl, “She’s having a bad day.”

 “Zebrova as well?”

 “What? No, hardly seen her. Too busy doing grunt work for ‘call me Logan’. I haven’t sat my watch since we entered hendecaspace.”

 “The PCO?”

 “PCO my ass. He doesn’t know the first thing about ship operations, doesn’t know anyone much in the fleet, and has had me running traffic analyses.”

 “Where?” Orlova asked.

 “All over the damn place! Barnard’s Star, Proxima, even Luhman.”

 “He’s got traffic data for Spitfire Station?”

 “Yes,” she said, in between quick mouthfuls. “I’ve still got three more years of that rubbish to analyze tonight.”

 “Where the hell is he getting it from? I could really use that sort of information for the operational plan – any chance you could get me a copy?”

 Shaking her head, Ryder replied, “No can do. Don’t ask me why, but he classified the whole lot Most Secret. Why traffic files are graded as a security risk is totally beyond me – but he isn’t fleet.”

 “Who is he, then?” Zabek asked, wide-eyed.

 “Intelligence,” Ryder and Orlova said at the same time, chuckling as they looked at each other. Orlova continued, “Obviously some of the brass back home are more interested in this Spitfire business than we thought.”

 “Either that,” Ryder added, “or they’re keeping an eye on the Captain in case he goes wandering off again.”

 Shaking her head as she continued her meal, Zabek replied, “You think he might?”

 “I almost hope he does,” Orlova said. “I’d love to see the look on Zebrova’s face if he did.”

 “Say, you hear about Quinn?” Ryder said, looking between the two of them. “I heard he got married!”

 “Yes, I cornered him about it earlier. Apparently Dixon asked him when she found out she was getting transferred to the Curtiss; they tied the knot on Mariner that day.”

 “Unbelievable,” Zabek said. “You’d think he’d have told us.”

 “Never mind telling us, I was there on the bridge when he told the Captain!”

 The three of them chuckled, and Orlova looked around the mess. Two of the midshipmen were sitting by themselves in a corner, both of them pouring over datapads – no doubt they’d been set some homework they were attempting to master over lunch. Sitting alone by the currently blank viewport was the new Science Officer, Carpenter. She’d been keeping herself to herself since she’d come on board, and was pushing what looked like chicken around her plate idly with her fork.

 “Sub-Lieutenant?” Orlova called across the room to her. “Would you like to join us?”

 Carpenter looked over, as if pondering for a second, then walked across the room, slightly unsteadily, clutching her drink, her food left discarded on the table. She looked around at the three others, then pulled across an empty chair.

 “I’d eat up while you can,” Ryder said. “It gets a lot worse later on.”
 Turning slightly green, Carpenter replied, “I’ll take my chances.”

 Zabek looked at Orlova, then asked, “Don’t take this the wrong way, but are you spacesick?”

 “A little. It’s the rotation, I’m not used to it. Doctor Duquesne gave me some pills to take.”

 “Not ill, are you?” Ryder asked, frowning. “We usually all get colds a couple of days out, someone’s always managed to pick up a bug on leave.”

 “No, I always get this. I usually get better after few weeks.”

 “A few weeks? I thought you were transferred?” Ryder said.

 “Not transferred,” Carpenter replied. “Activated.” She leaned in close to the table. “Do any of you know if there is anything...strange about this mission? You see, I wasn’t really briefed, but from what the Captain’s said, I’m not sure what I’m doing here.”

 “You’re the Science Officer, aren’t you?” Orlova said.

 Ryder continued to poke at her food, “I was wondering about that myself. We’ve never had one before. Well, we did for Desdemona, but that was a team for a specific mission. You’re permanently assigned, aren’t you?”

 “For the rest of the tour,” Carpenter replied, nodding. “But now that I’ve got the lab tidied up, well, I don’t really have much to do. I’ve been helping out Mr. Mulenga down in the sensor sections, but that’s not my field.”

 “You aren’t an astrophysicist, then?” Ryder asked. “What’s your doctorate in?”

 “Biochemistry? Xenobiology?” Zabek said.

 “Paleontology,” Carpenter replied, and all of their eyes widened. Orlova and Ryder shared a knowing look, but knowledge of the discoveries on Desdemona was still confidential. “I know, I know, I think that someone’s made a massive mistake here.”

 “The fleet had a reserve paleontologist?” Orlova said, shaking her head. “How the hell did that happen?”

 “Last year of the war, I served with the planetary ground forces. Never even made it into space, but I stayed in the Mars Reserve. Paid me a few credits a month, twice a year I’d get a good workout during the physical training sessions.”

 “Ground forces? Not space?”

 “No, just the militia. I’d just finished my course at Mutch Tech, and…”

 “The Mutch Technical Institute teaches paleontology now?”

 “Actually I was just using some of their facilities; I was doing it long-distance from Zurich,” she replied, turning away from Zabek as she nibbled a piece of zucchini. “Anyway, the day after I graduated I was informed that I had been reactivated, commissioned in the Triplanetary Fleet, and had been assigned to this ship as its Science Officer. I got confirmation, but no-one seemed to know what I was supposed to do.”

 “Have you seen the Captain?” Orlova asked.

 “This morning. He told me to make myself useful, get accustomed to the ship, and that I’d have something to do later on. I don’t know what, though.”

 “You think he arranged it?” Ryder asked Orlova. “He’s planning to fly off again?”

 “I thought we were going to Spitfire Station? Look, Sub-Lieutenant…”

 “Maggie.”

 “Susan, then. Look, Maggie, you might some extra help with those inspections, yes? I’m not even on the duty roster, but I know how to use a firearm. It’d give me something to do.”

 “Who’s your department head?”

 “I don’t even know that. According to Alamo’s org chart, I report right to the Executive Officer.”