Independent Flight (Aquarius Ascendant) (14 page)

“
Help…” the voice of the crewman echoed in the hold.

*

Benjamin Mattingly stood uncomfortably in Veronica Gray’s common room in prisoner beige, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. “My people are good, Ma’am,” he insisted nervously, “We didn’t have anything to do with Jonah’s plans to kill you.”

Veronica looked at him with skepticism.
“Mattingly, I’d like to believe you, but there’s facts that I have to look at. One of your men shot and nearly killed my gunner.” Louis Bowman’s wound had been far more serious than his medical telltales had told at first glance. He’d been bleeding profusely under the skin, and his blood pressure had gotten dangerously low. Thank heavens Kellie Alyse had a lot more medical training than her official records gave her credit for. “At very least, the core six members of your little crew rebellion, not counting Jonah Ress, are going down on attempted murder of Louis Bowman, plus resisting lawful arrest, false imprisonment, and whatever other charges JAG think it can make stick. The Interstellar Navy takes that sort of thing very seriously, and it’s
not
the kind of thing that can be settled with a bar brawl.”

Mattingly almost smiled in spite of himself at the low, even assurance of the woman
’s voice.

“
All eighteen of you are going up on drug running charges. Smuggling is strict-liability. You knew you were moving cargo illegally, even if you didn’t know what it was; and you’re going to have to convince the Admiralty Court that you didn’t.” Mattingly nodded sadly, his amusement gone. “And Ress, well he’s being charged separately, but even with anti-aging he’s going to be a very, very old man by the time he gets out of prison. All in all, Mattingly, I can tell you’re a good man, but you’ve made some very bad choices.”

He looked far older than his actual age as he replied,
“And now I have to live with the consequences of them.”

“
That you do, and I’m glad you understand.
Avenger
will be here shortly, and Colonel Baldwin’s marines will take you into custody. I won’t have very much say in what happens after that, Mr. Mattingly, but I do intend to recommend that the prosecutors exercise discretion for anyone who didn’t actively shoot at my crew members.”

“
That’s… very generous of you, Ma’am. May I ask why?”

“
Because, a lifetime ago, someone else did something similar for me,” She glanced at a photo Mattingly couldn’t see on her desk, “And I believe in paying it forward. I sure didn’t shoot at anyone–took my shots, maybe, but a bar fight and a gun fight aren’t the same thing. Mr. Mattingly, you should get back to your people.”

Kellie Alyse saluted Veronica and put her hand on Mattingly
’s back, between his manacled arms, and guided him back through the airlock.

Veronica
grinned at Captain Fox’s portrait. “Hope you’re proud, Sir.”

Epilogue

8
th
of 2
nd
Month, 343

It was rare that a smuggler would have the poor luck to come nose to nose with a carrier of the Interstellar Navy, let alone to do so at the paltry range of a few kilometers. At that range, the eight hundred meter behemoth of SV
Avenger
was all too perfectly visible hanging in space, her surface blazing with light.

Two
King Cobra
drop gunships were now docked to the
Arrant Knave
in addition to the victorious corvettes, ominous hard-edged shadows on her hull as she floated in space. Their Marine teams had boarded in strength and swept the entire ship, taking the sullenly compliant crew into custody. A dark, slashing score on her hull marked the spot where
Dog Two-oh-Seven (
now blooded and therefore traditionally entitled to an officially unofficial name— the crew had settled on
Licentious Drive)
, had tagged her with a nuclear blast; another, almost invisible, marked where eight men had died in a horrible accident. A bloom of multiple-weave hull patch fabric marked where Kellie had pinned a crewman to the wall with a well-placed cluster of gunshots.

Jonah Ress
was an utterly broken man when he was finally taken from his ship. Forced by inactivity to confront the things he’d done in trying to take control of his vessel back from the boarders, he’d confessed and promised to plead guilty. Not that this changed the opinions of anyone about him, and when his crew had finally discovered his last-ditch plan to eliminate the Naval crew members (and its implications for their own survival), the looks they had given him had been murderous enough to force his separation into a different row of the brig.

Veronica Gray stood in
the flight deck gallery as the marines and their captives returned to the carrier;
Arrant Knave
would be lashed to
Avenger
’s hull for the return to Starbase 144 for debriefing and arraignment. A three-week journey would provide those looking for it with ample opportunity to reflect on their fate–not that she thought anyone would want to.

Her eyes were not on
Arrant Knave
at all now, but on
Licentious Drive
, and the heroism and professionalism of her crew members. She was proud of this team–of
her
team. Louis Bowman was looking greener and healthier with every passing day. The purple wound stripe on his sleeve, he said, would make a nice conversation starter when people asked when and how he’d served with the great Captain Gray. Veronica thought privately that the Jardinian probably just liked to see baseline humans turn red, because she knew that her cheeks and the tips of her ears had done so. Bowman was due for promotion to Gunner’s Mate 3
rd
Class by time in grade, and Veronica had the paperwork to do so sitting on her desk, waiting for her final signature–which she intended to do as soon as Bowman was out of the infirmary.

Astronaut Second Class Natasha
Leblanc was still a bit too early for a below-the-zone promotion to Astronaut First Class. She’d get it soon, though, and in the meantime Veronica thought that her Bronze Star would suit her nicely. She hadn’t gotten to pin the medal on to Natasha’s service dress uniform herself (which
had
been as slick as Veronica imagined it), but standing next to Captain Baldwin when
he
had done so was close. So had been the entirely unusual but entirely welcomed hug she’d gotten from Leblanc after the end of the ceremony.

Master Chief Petty Officer Kellie Alyse
had tried to modestly refuse any commendation, insisting that she had only done her job and hadn’t been in any real danger to boot. Veronica still didn’t understand why the ex-instructor was so resistant to awards, but had cheerfully agreed to “only” recommend a Meritorious Service Medal in return for Kellie finally submitting an OCS application. 

While she had previously felt the wariness of the pilots and aircrews of her squadron, now Veronica could feel that she was truly part of the family, not just someone who had been invited into their home. It was a change she could never have put into words, exactly, but the last of the testing reserve toward her had evaporated.

Belonging to this team felt right. She would forever be part of this squadron, even after moving on.

Baldwin put his forearm up on the window frame, and Veronica steeled herself against her own jump.
“Penny for your thoughts, Lieutenant,” he asked.

She struggled for a moment, but finally
spoke the doubt that had plagued her since
Licentious Drive
’s return to
Avenger
, “Sir, I just wonder. I was about to completely dismiss
Arrant Knave
as just another dime a dozen tramp trawler and go on my business. How many times do we ignore our duty like that in the course of a career?”

“
It’s not ignoring your duty, Lieutenant. It’s
doing
it. You paid her exactly as much attention as you thought you needed to; smugglers like Ress count on that. We can’t get everyone, only provide a
chance
that everyone be gotten. And you have to apply your judgment and your discretion in looking at which tramps need a closer look and which ones can go on with a simple manifest interrogation.

“
You’ll probably get a few hundred ‘rule number ones’ from well-meaning COs before you get your own ship, Gray, so let me give you mine: Rule number one–every good commander makes the judgment call that works best with the information he or she has at the time it’s made. Some of those judgment calls will turn out to be wrong. That doesn’t mean you screwed up.”

Veronica nodded,
“Yes Sir.”

“
The judgments you made were the best one you had to you, Lieutenant, and I’m proud to have that kind of woman on my wing.”

“
Duke Ifrit is someone with the kind of scratch to ship the next-best thing to a quarter million kilos of drugs halfway across the galaxy, and the sovereign immunity to completely ignore prosecution for it. He doesn’t sound like someone to cross lightly to me,” mused Veronica.

The nobleman had promised a full investigation into the
‘unauthorized dealings’ of his factors, but Veronica Gray knew too much to suspect that justice would ever touch anyone in the household of a neo-feudal lord of one of the poorly-organized worlds on the frontiers of the galaxy. The diplomatic protests at the interruption of supposedly legitimate trade on the rim of the Orion arm were a usual fact of life out here. The shipping magnates of the outer rim considered everything their legitimate business; and the business of their rivals to be fair game for the navies of the galaxy. Veronica didn’t mind that part so much.

“
Life’s too short to worry about enemies of the personal kind! We’re pretty well-stocked with hostile aliens, human adversaries, and pretty much every type of problem child God saw fit to grace the galaxy with.”

Veronica laughed softly at that, then looked past Baldwin to see
Kellie and Yeboah.

Yeboah smiled back to her.
“Lieutenant,” she said, “Sickbay’s going to clear Bowman to return to duty in about an hour, Chief Alyse and I thought it would be a positive gesture for all of us to come and collect him when they do. Leblanc’s already there with him.”

Veronica said,
“By your leave, CAG?” and saluted.

Jack Baldwin returned her salute
. “Go get your crew member, Lieutenant Gray. Remember, it’s not about you anymore, Skipper. It’s about your team and your people and your ship.”

“
I’ll remember, CAG. Thanks for the pep talk.”

Yeboah grinned.
“Done moping in the gallery, Skip?”

“
What, was I really that bad?”

“
Very, Very, Quite Contrary. You were
worse
.”

Veronica buried her face for a moment in her hand.
“I’m sorry, Alyssa.”

“
Stop that, lady! A little mope is good for the soul now and again, but you have to know when to give it a rest. But you know, you’re going to have to share your ship with another Lieutenant.” She flashed her sleeve showing the two rings of braid now equally wide.

“
Does this mean we’re going to have a wetting-down when we make starfall at the base, Lieutenant Yeboah? I think it does, in fact!”

Alyssa
Yeboah grinned and rubbed Veronica’s hair. “I think this deserves a
double
wetting-down, Ms. Gray, since it occurs to
me
that you didn’t throw one when you were promoted to Lieutenant. Six months and nothing? Skip, you are seriously pushing our friendship!”

“
A double it is. I bear
no
responsibility for what happens afterward!”

“
Don’t feel like explaining drunken, naked roller derby to the base commandant?”

Veronica laughed and shoved her executive officer.
“Not on your
life
, Lieutenant Yeboah! I’ll buy.”

Appendix: Galactic Timekeeping

Independent Flight begins on the 18th of First Month, 343 Star Era, and ends on the 8th of Second Month in the same year. This translates to beginning on June 11th, 2529 CE, and ending on June 22nd.

“Year Zero, Star Era” is equal to the year 2178 CE, when the Treaty of Galactic Alliance was signed, forming the common Star Era calendar. Years before the Star Era began are kept in local time.

The galactic year is 9,000 hours in length, exactly 10 days longer than Earth
’s year of 8,760 hours, which means that the current year of 343 SE is 2529/30 CE, and that the galactic year started on 24 May, 2529. It is divided into 12 equal-length months of 750 hours for timekeeping purposes. Those months are subdivided into thirty twenty-five hour days. Months are ordinally numbered, although Humans tend to refer to them by the traditional Julian month names.