Dark Running (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 4) (6 page)

Tina looked calmly back at him.

‘I believe I could be useful, sir.’

Such a statement from a cadet would normally get hoots of mirth from any Fleet officer. The final year placement was traditionally known as Snotty Season, when hundreds of final year cadets surged out of their Academies for their all-important shipboard experience. They could be amusing, if they fell for any of the customary jokes played on snotties by officers and crew, but they were never, ever, considered to be
useful
.

Dix Harangay, however, could see that she was serious, and with the details of her file still fresh in his mind, recognised that she was not being arrogant in that belief, either. Tina Lucas had been born in space and grown up aboard freighters. She had already seen more worlds than many Fleet officers would ever visit, and had been learning engineering since she could toddle. By the age of fourteen, she had been working as a cargo boss, organising cargo and dealing with groundside authorities. Her application to Fleet Academy as she approached sixteen had been snapped up. The biggest problem she had had, he knew, had been sitting patiently through classes teaching things she already knew just as well as her instructors. If any cadet
could
make themselves useful aboard ship, it would be Tina. On the other hand, there was no doubt that having her aboard would indeed put extra workload on officers already stretched to the limit. Alex von Strada might consider that unfair to his officers, and when Alex von Strada considered something unfair he was emphatic in making his views known.

Just as emphatic, in fact, as Tina Lucas was being herself. Looking at her, Dix could see the memory of another young officer sitting in that very chair, stone faced and utterly, immovably determined on a matter of principle. Alex von Strada had also been the Top Cadet of his year, rising rapidly to become the youngest skipper in the Fleet for more than two centuries. There would be a certain poetic justice, Dix felt, in giving Alex some experience of what it was like dealing with a cadet just as able – and as stubborn – as himself.

‘I am not prepared to give orders that require the Fourth to take on a cadet against agreed policy,’ he told her, and as she gave no reaction, went on, ‘I am, however, prepared to allow you the opportunity to make such application to Captain von Strada yourself. If you agree to that, it must be understood that it will be Captain von Strada’s decision entirely whether to accept you or not. And should he decide against you, Port Admiral Mackada will be asked to find you an alternate posting. Given that the Therik Academy cadets will have been allocated to assignments by then, that would leave you with whatever postings may still be available. Are you willing to take that chance, Ms Lucas?’

‘Yes, thank you, sir.’ Tina’s face gave nothing away, but there was a note of pleasure in her voice, and perhaps just a hint of relief, too.

‘Very well, then.’ He sat forward and wrote in the file already open on his desk, his lumopen datacoding with deft flicks over the privacy-blurred screen. ‘If you’re to get to Therik before the Fourth heads out on operations, you’ll have to go by courier.’ He glanced at the time. ‘There’s one leaving for Therik in two hours. I’ll give you a docket to go with them.’ He signed the travel warrant as he spoke, adding, ‘You can take the file and a note from me to Captain von Strada yourself.’ He slipped a high security tape into the slot on his desk, downloading all the relevant files and a copy of his decision onto it with an Addressee’s Eyes Only classification.

‘Thank you, sir.’ Tina did not whoop, cheer or jump up and run round the desk to hug him, as Fleet discipline held firm. She did, however, permit herself a note of deep, grateful respect. ‘Thank you very much.’

Dix Harangay flicked her a look that held a twinkle of mischief, then added a hand-coded PS to the official memorandum asking Alex to take her on if it wasn’t too much of an imposition on his officers –
What goes around comes around.
Then he added the datacode that signified laughter, sealed the tape and handed it across the desk to her.

‘The best of luck to you, Ms Lucas.’

Three

Alex von Strada chuckled as he read his mail.

This was the latest message from Shion. She didn’t need to tell him where she was or what she was doing. Davie North had taken on responsibility for her during their stay here, something he was qualified to do as an accredited exo-ambassador. The Diplomatic Corps, however, had them surrounded by a team ensuring both their safety and total anonymity. The League Intelligence Agency and Fleet Intelligence also had security presence, minders following their every move, and Alex got copies of all relevant reports.

Shion, however, liked to keep him up to date, herself, with chatty notes about where she was and how much fun she was having.

She and Davie, she told him, were having breakfast at a mountain-top café.

We’re going to ski down,
she told him, blithely.
It looks like fun
.

Alex glanced at the current risk assessment being generated by the Diplomatic Corps, noting that neither Shion nor Davie had ever skied before, and that they were talking about going down a very dramatic, black-rated run. If either of them had been human, that would have been suicidally dangerous. As it was, the Diplomats had given it a cautious amber rating, suggesting – without much hope – that they might take a skiing lesson before setting out.

They should know better than that by now, Alex thought, and have a lot more confidence in Shion and Davie’s abilities, too. He had no doubt himself that, having observed other people skiing, they would be doing trick jumps and acrobatics as they came down the mountain. They would, indeed, have to be careful not to betray superhuman strength and agility as they did so, restricting themselves to, at most, what might be achieved by olympic athletes.

Alex smiled as he imagined the harassed Diplomatic and Intel teams trying to keep up with them. But then, seeing that his car was about to come in to land at Admiralty HQ, he turned off his pocket comp and assumed his stony public-face demeanour.

He went straight to the Port Admiral’s office on the top floor, where he was ushered through at once with a murmur that the Admiral was expecting him.

‘Alex.’  Port Admiral Mackada came to meet him with a friendly smile, which Alex returned since they were in private, greeting her with an equally casual, ‘Morning, Jen.’ She was in her mid-forties, a cool and crisply dignified lady. The transfer of the Fourth from Chartsey to Therik had dumped a world of hurt on Jen Mackada, but she had never once complained. ‘Good news,’ she told him, and as she gestured hospitably to a chair, ‘We’ve found out who was behind buying you those shares in the Ladygo.’

Alex gave her an intrigued look as he sat down. That was a mystery that had been bugging him for nearly five months. He’d visited the classic V-2-8 racing yacht Ladygo during a visit to ISiS Karadon – he was a classic starship enthusiast and had thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to go aboard a V-2-8,
the
classic yacht for all serious classic enthusiasts. He’d certainly talked about his visit afterwards, telling anyone who was interested about the V-2-8’s finer points, but it had been nothing more than a trivial personal matter.

Trivial and personal, at least, until they returned to Novamas months later and he received a majority shareholding in the consortium which owned the yacht, a hundred thousand dollars of shares bought anonymously and registered in his name.

He had handed the shares over to the Port Admiral immediately, but had been wondering ever since who was behind it. Nobody who knew him could possibly believe that he would accept such a gift, still less that he would accept it from an anonymous giver. Fleet Intel had not been able to track the purchase, as it had been made by brokers acting on behalf of a client they refused to identify. Alex had been convinced from the start that the gift had been hostile, an attempt to corrupt or at least smear his reputation. If so, it had worked. The media and campaign groups had made all the mileage they could from the incident. They refused to believe that he had voluntarily handed over the shares immediately he found out about them. Most reportage either hinted strongly that he’d been caught with the shares and forced to hand them over to the Fleet. The rest just said so straight out.

Alex would give a great deal to know who was responsible for that. Someone, clearly, who was happy to pay a hundred thousand dollars just to embarrass him.

‘Who was it?’ he asked, with a searching look at her. She was obviously relaxed about this, even amused.

‘Oh, you wouldn’t believe it,’ she said, sitting down herself and giving him a grin. ‘Well, you would,’ she amended, considering. ‘Your life is so crazy anyway, this probably rates as quite normal.’ She could see that he wasn’t going to rise to this teasing, though, so just went straight on and told him, ‘It was Marto.’

‘What?’ Alex sat up straight, a horrified look coming onto his face. One of the more bizarre aspects to the publicity storm that blitzed around the Fourth was the minority contingent not campaigning against them but in support of them. Just as with the anti-Fourth lobby, this was always founded in what the various organisations believed the Fourth was doing rather than any understanding of the reality. It was arguably even more annoying to have the kind of people Alex would never want to be associated with hailing him as a hero than it was to have other people he
did
have respect for railing against him as a villain.

Marto, in that, was undoubtedly one of their highest profile supporters. The League’s most famous celebrity chef had been deeply moved by the Fourth’s anti-drugs campaign at Karadon, and had as a result of that declared himself to be a hundred per cent supportive of Skipper von Strada and the Fourth doing whatever was necessary to put a stop to drug trafficking there. His support had manifested both in cooking extraordinary meals for them, which had been very welcome, and in tearfully embracing Alex in public, which had not. ‘
Seriously
?
Are you sure?’

‘Definite,’ she confirmed. ‘Proven beyond doubt. And no conspiracy, either – a personal gesture of appreciation of your operations at Karadon, no more. He is pretty wealthy, you know – has made a fortune from his restaurants and an even bigger one from his media career. And he is convinced that you saved hundreds of civilian lives at Karadon, including his own. I know, I know,’ she held up a hand to forestall his objections, ‘But this is Marto we’re talking about; highly emotional, impulsive, egotistic,
not
a man noted for calm or common sense. Did it never occur to you that it might have come from him?’

‘No, not at all,’ Alex admitted, and as he realised the truth of it, groaned. ‘Oh, that is just
so…
I may never live that one down.’

Jen chuckled. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘But I do have to tell you there’s a heads-up on this. Marto has already talked to the media at Karadon. He was, I gather, devastated by the reportage that bounced out there, seeing that what he’d meant only as a gift to someone he feels such admiration and gratitude towards had actually caused you such embarrassment, even accusations of taking bribes. So he went straight to the media in a state of high emotion and told them the shares had come from him, and what he thought of such allegations being made against the finest, bravest, most heroic man he’d ever met.’

As Alex winced, she laughed again, though there was some sympathy in her tone as she told him, ‘We’ve got about two days before that news hits Therik.’

She did not need to tell him what would happen when it did. Marto’s impassioned championship had already made news across the League, raising an outcry from anti-Fourth campaigners. Some of them had described him as an ‘apologist’ for the Fourth. Some had gone further, alleging that the Fourth was paying or somehow manipulating the famous chef in an attempt at improving their public image. Everyone, but
everyone
, would have something to say about it when the news broke that it was actually Marto who had tried to give him the shares in the yacht.

‘Oh, well,’ Alex said, with a resigned sigh. This was as close as he ever came to cursing, and Jen grinned. It would, she knew, have been much easier for him to cope with this if it had turned out to be the act of bitter enemies trying to discredit and disgrace him. He was
used
to that kind of thing, after all. When it came out that it had been his self-declared biggest fan who’d tried to give him those shares, though, the Fleet and spacer community would fall about laughing. Alex would, naturally, rise above that with due dignity, but it would be years before the Fleet and merchant spacers gave up making jokes about it.

‘Never mind,’ she consoled him. ‘It could have been worse.’ As he gave her a speaking look for that, she chuckled again. ‘Okay, okay.’ She held up a hand in an appeasing gesture, indicating that she wouldn’t tease him any more. ‘Pax. I’ll let you have the files, all right?’