Martial Law 1: Patriotic Treason (31 page)

I spent the first night rattling around in the bunk, wishing that Kitty had transferred with me, even though that would have made her First Lieutenant. The bunk was tiny, compared to the beds in the hotels on Luna City, but I’d been used to sharing with someone else. Now it just felt tiny, and alone. I could still message Kitty – her starship hadn’t jumped out of the system yet – but it wasn't the same. I entertained the absurd thought of leaving my new ship and going to find her, but…how could I do that? I needed the Jacques Delors for my plans.

The next morning was too long in coming. I breakfasted at the mess – as everyone, but the Captain was supposed to do – and ground my way through foodstuffs that had been reconstituted from waste, instead of having been sent up from Earth or one of the asteroid farms. The cook did the best he could, but it seemed that supplies got worse and worse every year. I didn’t understand what was going wrong with the farming back down on Earth, but it was clearly disastrous if they were starving starship crews. I would almost have preferred to starve. The food tasted like someone had fed it to a cow, which had vomited it up afterwards. There were probably laws against feeding dumb animals such crap.

“The Supply Department is having problems, or so I’m told,” the cook said, when I asked. “They’re warning us that supplies of anything, but Algae-grown foodstuffs might be limited over the next few years. It’s only temporary, or so we are assured.”

“I see,” I said, wondering if I should take it up with the Captain. He might know more about what was going on. “I’ll see what I can scrounge up for you.”

“There’s been a major accident in one of the main food producing areas on Earth,” the Captain said, when I asked him an hour later. We were alone on the bridge. Hardly anyone bothered to keep a proper watch in Earth orbit, even Captain Harriman. There was no point. Earth’s defences would provide plenty of warning if the system came under attack and the level of firepower surrounding the planet was utterly intimidating. I doubted that anyone would dare to launch an attack. “The UN Food Commission has had to reduce quotas for the year.”

I shuddered. I knew little about food producing systems – the farms and the vats where meat substitutes were grown – but if the UN had lost a major source of food, the entire population would have to tighten their belts, and probably starve anyway. The UN needed to feed us to keep us alive and working for them. What would they do with the population down on Earth? They might not bother to try to feed them at all?

They’d probably try to extort food from the colonies as well, but it would only be a drop in the ocean. Even if they assigned every jump-capable ship in existence to the task, they could only bring in a few million tons of food at most, barely a drop in the ocean compared to the requirement. It might also be disastrous. Some of the food we’d sourced from Heinlein had been contaminated in several different interesting ways. Food poisoning was not a pleasant way to go.

“Still,” the Captain said, “we can survive on what we get. Now…”

We went through an entire watch period, calling up simulations and responding to them. I don’t know if I impressed the Captain or not, but he wouldn’t have hesitated to chew me out if there had been a real problem. Eventually, he called up a set of tactical simulations and told me to keep practicing until told otherwise. I had manned tactical stations before, but this was different. The person commanding the ship had to keep everything in mind. I might not have had to fire the weapons personally, but I had to juggle our course, speed, interdiction field capabilities and weapons. There were some tactical simulations that simply didn’t have a solution. The more you progressed through the simulation, the worse the computer-generated opponents became…and, eventually, the ship was lost.

“You’re not meant to win,” the Captain said, when I complained. “The simulation is meant to force you to think quickly and survive as long as you can. There are people who turn it into a gambling game, but it’s really meant to push you right to the brink.”

He smiled, thinly. “And, of course, it’s cheaper than testing an entire starship to destruction,” he added. “How else could we find out what you’re made of?”

“There was no such test at the Academy,” I said, puzzled. “Why weren’t they included there?”

“Because the Academy is run by people who believe that failure stunts a child’s development,” the Captain explained, angrily. For a moment, I wondered if the Captain was a member of the Brotherhood. It was quite possible, apart from his family connections. “Instead of being taught how to deal with failure, in an environment where the worst thing that could happen was punishment duty, you were coddled and generally spared from experiences that would have taught you things you needed to know. Discipline was lax, almost non-existent, and accidents were common. Those accidents happened because you were not allowed to fail.”

His eyes darkened. “If you ask anyone what went wrong down on Earth, why we have to kidnap workers from Albion and a dozen other worlds, you’ll get a thousand answers,” he said. “I believe it happened because no one was allowed to fail. No child could be taught how to cope with failure, so they were never challenged or disciplined. It didn’t matter how well, or how badly, you did; you were always feted and rewarded for your accomplishments. You were never pushed to succeed, so you never really did – and you never understood that you were a failure.”

I nodded slowly. I would have liked to disagree with him, but he was right. I had been unprepared for the Academy and I’d been unprepared for life on a starship. It could have been worse – I’d seen children failing Remedial Sewing and Advanced Creative Writing – but even so, I’d been one of the lucky ones. There were people my age who’d never been taught to read, but spent most of their time mouthing slogans and trying to find a job that would pay them enough to buy enough drink to blot out the pain of their lives.

Two hours later, I met the Infantry Company as they boarded the starship. I hadn’t been impressed with the infantrymen I’d seen on Heinlein, but this company looked much neater, carrying their bags in a disciplined manner. They weren’t allowed to carry their weapons onboard ship – safety regulations again – but even so, they looked tough enough to take the ship off us with their bare hands. I wondered, briefly, how the Marines would get along with them. I just hoped there wouldn’t be blood on the bulkheads.

“Infantry Captain Andrew Nolte reporting, sir,” their leader said, as three Sergeants escorted the men off their transport boat. The sublight vessel was only capable of ferrying them between the Earth and the Moon. I’d already detailed several crewmen to escort them to their temporary barracks. The ship was going to be crammed to bursting when the Ensigns arrived. “Where do you want us?”

“Welcome onboard, Major,” I said. There could only ever be one Captain on the ship, so Andrew would receive a verbal promotion while he was onboard. “We’ve cleared out two of the crew wardrooms for you, along with one of the holds for your equipment. How many men do you have?”

“They didn’t tell you?” Andrew asked. I shook my head. They’d told me that it would be a Company, but I’d seen Infantry Companies that had everything from ten men to three hundred. “I’ve got seventy men and five sergeants. We should have more, but the Generals insisted that Botany was going to be a safe posting and I could spare a couple of platoons and two sergeants.”

“Typical,” I agreed. It had been clear from the start that Captain Harriman had too few officers and men. The Jacques Delors should have had more crew. As it was, if we ran into trouble, we might not be able to deal with it. The Engineer had been complaining about the shortage of crewmen trained to repair the ship for weeks, according to the reports the Captain had filed. “Are your men equipped for shipboard life?”

“Don’t worry,” Andrew assured me. He understood my meaning, all right. Infantrymen had a certain reputation on starships. It was why they were normally entrusted to troop transports and stasis pods. “We won’t cause trouble. You won’t even know we’re here.”

I laughed. “I’ll take your word for it,” I said. “We’re supposed to be departing soon, but things being what they are, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were delayed.”

“Exactly,” Andrew said. I found myself liking him, despite his career. He would have made a good starship officer. “Hurry up and wait.”

I shrugged. “Why are they sending an infantry company to Botany anyway?” I asked. It seemed rather odd to me and the orders had no explanation attached. “It doesn’t strike me as the kind of place an infantry company would be needed.”

“Just rumours, apparently,” Andrew said. The final infantrymen passed our position and marched onwards into the ship. The crewmen would be able to help them unpack and run through basic safety procedures with them. Unlike the reporters on the Devastator, they would probably be smart enough to listen. “You know what the Generals are like. They hear a rumour and suddenly everything has to be dropped until the rumour has been checked out.”

“I know just what you mean,” I said, remembering adventures on Heinlein. We’d been deployed in support of rapidly-mounted operations before on the planet’s surface. We’d just been lucky that there hadn’t been a second atrocity – as far as I knew. “We’ll get you there as soon as we can.”

“Oh, there’s no hurry,” Andrew assured me. He laughed, dryly. “Like you said, nothing ever happens there. We’re probably just wasting our time.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

The UNPF’s original motive for disdaining military formalities was a reaction to the military formalities used by various national military forces, before they were integrated into the UNPF or dispatched to various colony worlds. It didn’t take long for the new hierarchy to realise that it enjoyed the formalities, and even that they served a purpose. Regardless, the UNPF takes a slapdash view – at best – of the requirements and it is sad, but true, that many Ensigns leave the Academy with only a vague idea of what they are.

-Thomas Anderson. An Unbiased Look at the UNPF. Baen Historical Press, 2500.

I saw them coming through the cameras in the docking tube before they reached the Marines. There were five of them, wearing uniforms that were…slovenly, at best. I had a moment of Déjà vu – seeing them as Lieutenant Hatchet must have seen us, years ago – before they came up to the Marines and presented their papers. No wonder the Marines had smiled when they’d seen us. They'd known, and probably heard, the chewing out we’d received. We had deserved worse than we’d got.

The scene didn’t improve as they stepped through the airlock. They should have walked in one by one, in accordance with safety regulations. Instead, two of them pushed through, propelled by the other five. They stepped dead on seeing me and the others, who hadn’t seen me yet, pushed them forward. I almost expected them to fall flat on their faces – which would have been an embarrassing welcome to the starship – but they managed to keep their footing, barely. The other three saw me and stared. I’d worn my dress uniform – I’d shined it specially – and looked practically perfect in every way. They looked like they were wearing unearned uniforms, compared to me.

“Ah,” one of them said. “We’re reporting for…”

I cut him off, making a big show of reading my chronometer. “And what time,” I demanded, with another flash of Déjà vu, “do you call this?”

The spokesman stumbled, and started to recover. I didn’t give him a chance. “It is now 1307,” I said, coldly. It was my impression of Captain Shalenko and it worked. To them, it must have been thoroughly intimidating. “Your orders specifically ordered you to report onboard at 1300 precisely. Instead, you are seven minutes late. Do you have a good explanation for this?”

I allowed my eye to trail across nervous faces, some defiant, some twitching, and smiled inwardly. “Well?”

“We were…ah, admiring the ship from outside,” one of the female Ensigns said, finally. I mentally gave her points for truthfulness. We’d admired the ship too before we’d boarded, only to run right into Lieutenant Hatchet. “We didn’t mean to be late.”

“And yet you disobeyed orders,” I said, icily. I paused, as if I had just made a shocking realisation. “Why are you not at attention? Were you given leave to stand at ease?”

They straightened up. If anything, they were worse than we had been. The line wasn't straight; they weren't angling themselves on me and their uniforms…I didn’t want to think about what some of them had been doing to their uniforms. If they’d worn dress uniform, they would at least have been presentable, but really! No one in their right mind should report onboard a starship wearing standard ship-worn uniforms. They weren't really capable of making a good impression.

“Good,” I said, grudgingly. It wasn't anything like good enough and I knew it. I just hoped they knew it as well. “Sound off, by the numbers.”

There was a moment’s pause while they tried to remember who should go first. It was generally from left to right, but evidently they hadn’t bothered to practice that either. I listened as they finally gave their names and ranks, nervously eyeing me as if I were a tiger contemplating my dinner.

“Ensign Allan Barras, reporting for duty, sir!

“Ensign Yianni Gerasimos, reporting for duty, sir!”

“Ensign Evgenia Agathe, reporting for duty, sir!”