The Bright Black Sea (72 page)

'Aye, we've run into a few.'

'Right. However, I've been told that in addition to
the regular navy spaceers, there's a separate organization within
the navy, an elite political guard unit, called Legion of the New
Order.'

'Legion of the New Order? Rather grand sounding
name.'

'Clearly Admiral Dre Rodine had grand ambitions. This
New Order group acted as his elite guard and political enforcement
arm within the navy. They were the backbone and iron fist to his
whole New Order movement.'

'And?'

'And they've taken their defeat very hard and are
looking for scapegoats. I was told that our part in the destruction
of
Explora Miner
has leaked to this organization. Now
realistically, our part in the whole collapse of the Despar New
Order is fairly minor, the three Patrol frigates on the fringe of
the Despar Reef should have successful engaged
Explora
Miner
, but that's not how the League of the New Order sees it.
They've got the idea that our destruction of the berserker was the
single most critical blow to all their hopes...'

'Turning a blind eye to the dozen Patrol frigates
that appeared in the key systems crushing their rag tag
navy...?'

'So it would seem. But you see, they can do nothing
about the Patrol...'

'But the poor old
Lost Star
and its crew, is
another matter...'

'Exactly. The berserker
Explora Miner
was
Despar's and Dre Rodine's great secret weapon, the weapon that
assured victory. And we destroyed it...'

'No good deed goes unpunished,' I muttered. My new
mantra. 'Is there no rational thought or action in the drifts?'

'Says a man who just shot a fellow for asking about a
friend...'

'And it didn't raise much more than an eyebrow. But
why are they letting these fanatics run wild?'

'Well, they're not exactly letting them run wild.
They're confined to the island base and Sanjoor City like the rest
of the naval personnel. But they can't identify every member of
this organization – it had special undercover enforcement branches
throughout the New Order, so they can't guarantee that even
stricter confinement would prevent any actions against us by these
unidentified special agents. In any event, now that the word of our
action with
Explora Miner
has reached these people, my
Patrol contacts fear that we can no longer assume everyone will be
firing non-lethal darts in the brawls with us. The Legion is out
for our blood.'

'Well, we don't have a choice, do we? 'That puts an
end to shore leave. At least it gives us a Neb-damned good reason
to end it.'

Vynnia nodded. 'Yes, and I assure you, I tried to use
it as an argument for releasing us now as well, but was given no
promises. There's something going on, but what it is, they've
decided to keep us in the dark.'

'I've had my fill of the drifts, Vyn. We've had
nothing but trouble since passing Anjur, and there seems no end in
sight. Well, I'll clear it with Min and break the news at our big
meal tonight.'

03

'No one's going downside.' I said, for the third
time, and looked around the dining saloon's filled table, 'Can I
make that any clearer for any of you?'

'We can't stay cooped up in this tin-can,' protested
Riv.

'Of course you can. It's your Neb-blasted career,' I
shot back. 'I don't like having to any more than you do, but as Vyn
just outlined, with this Legion out for revenge, you're risking
your life rather than a headache or broken bone by going down to
Despar. I don't know if you place any value on your life, but I do.
I'm already short an environmental engineer and I don't want to
sail more short handed than I am now. Like it or not, no one's
going down.'

'I value my skin as much as the next spaceer,
Skipper. But my Neb-blasted career is running rocket engines, so
when am I going to be doing that again?'

'I wish I knew. Vyn's been pestering the Patrol
everyday, and hasn't been able to get a word out of them as to
when, or even if. What more we can do? I'll promise you this, Riv,
you'll be the first person I tell and the first words out of my
mouth will be to order you to get the piles wound up and the
engines ready. No one wants to clear Despar and the drifts more
than I. But that doesn't change the fact that we've become, in the
minds of these fanatics, the cause of their defeat. And the drifts
being the drifts, that means there's no limit to what they might
do. No one goes down except on ship's business, and no one goes
down alone. That's my final word.'

'May I make a suggestion, Wil?' asked Illy in a quiet
voice.

'Of course,' I replied turning to her and adding,
'I'd welcome yours...” And I would. Illy rarely makes suggestions
now that I'm captain, but even without knowing what it was, I was
almost certain I'd take it.

'Like most planets, there's more to Despar than Port
Sanjoor. I understand that Admiral Dre Rodine was not universally
loved, even here on Despar, so that I'd suggest that we look into
locating some out of the way locales, in regions were Rodine is not
held in esteem. We can make a series of day trips together down to
different areas until we're cleared to sail. If we're discrete we
can just pass ourselves of as local tourists, and don't spend more
than a day in any one area, we should be able to get off ship
without the Legion even knowing it, and certainly without giving
them a chance to organize any mischief.'

'Can we be discrete?' I asked, staring at Riv.

'Why, of course we can, Skipper. Let's form a
committee to locate a quiet beach so we can picnic on in perfect
safety,' he replied rather sarcastically.

I turned to Min. 'You have any thoughts on this,
Tallith?'

She shrugged. 'My first priority is keeping everyone
safe. I'm very reluctant to allow anyone off ship that doesn't have
pressing business downside. Still, confined to an idle ship is, I
realize, very taxing, so if a place and a method can be devised to
get us downside safely, even if for only a few hours each day, I'd
consider allowing it.'

'Right. Everyone who wants to join Riv's search
committee should get in touch with him after the meal. Bring me a
complete report, will you Riv? We'll want to identify lots of
places since we'll only spend a day at each and we'll need to keep
the Legion guessing, though hopefully they'll be kept completely
out of the picture.'

He grinned and nodded. 'Aye, Captain. Dig out the
travel books – mates, we're going exploring.'

Later, as Min, Vynnia and I sat sipping our cha on
the awning deck, Vynnia chided us for not strictly sticking to our
original intention of ending shore leave entirely. 'Illy could have
made it a private suggestion.'

'I'm sure she did it to keep the peace,' said
Min.

'And it was a good idea. If we're able to find places
to visit far from where the Navy is confined, and be back onboard
ship before any word could reach any remaining secret branches of
the Legion, it would help keep us all safe and sane.'

'A lot of ifs. I've two concerns – one is that we
don't know how widespread the secret branch of the Legion is. Is
there any part of Despar free of them? And the second is that
they'll be able to follow us anywhere by watching the ship.'

I considered that.

'Look into your contacts at HQ, Vyn, and see if they
have the intel on the Legion they'd share with us. And get
permission to shift our orbit outwards. We'll see if any space junk
tries to follow us – and search the hull for any spy devises,' I
added, recalling Nadine's claim to have spied on us in Sanre-tay
orbit. 'Between that and letting them spend several days coming up
with a list of places for day trips, we can keep them aboard while
we further assess the risks. I've no intention of discounting any
risk – going stir-crazy aboard ship is preferable to being dead.
What we really need to do is to clear Despar as soon as
possible.'

'We can only hope,' said Vynnia with a sigh.

Shifting orbits and searching the hull and near space
for spy devises kept the crew busy for two days and a third was
used by Riv's committee to come up with several dozen tourist
attractions that the crew was (now) eager to visit, so I couldn't
put them off too much longer. Being a spaceer is one of the more
dangerous jobs in the Unity, which meant that I couldn't use danger
as an excuse to forbid shore leave. Oh, I could forbid it straight
up and down as captain, no excuses necessary – I just couldn't use
possible danger as an excuse.

And , late this evening we received a signal from
Patrol headquarters that seemed an answer to our wishes, depending
on how you read it. It tersely ordered Captain Litang, First
Officer enCarn and Chief Tech Engineer gil'Giles to report to the
Despar Court Complex tomorrow, nine hundred hours sharp for a
judicial hearing. With no further explanation. Seeing that we're
unlikely to be freed without some sort of hearing, it sounded
promising. However, the complete lack of further information, gave
it a rather sinister ring to it.

'Any hint as to what this hearing's about?' I asked
Vynnia, 'Shouldn't we have been given a notice of what charges are
to be heard, so we could prepare our case if necessary?'

'We've had six weeks to prepare. So, let's not
overlook a golden asteroid for a platinum one in the drift. We've a
hearing which is what we've been trying to land.'

'It reads rather short and ill tempered in addition
to its very short notice,' said Min looking somber. 'I should go
too, as owner.'

'It's the bloody hot weather. Makes everyone ill
tempered. And no, you shouldn't. We've been keeping your status
onboard a secret just to avoid something like this. Let'em deal
with White Bird Holding Company, if they have any issues with our
action.'

'Wil's right. And as for being terse, it's the Patrol
idea of being efficient,' said Vynnia, commander, Patrol
reserve.

'Well, if it means getting clear, I'll not complain,'
added Min.

'Amen to that,' I said. 'Don't want to attract the
Dark Neb's attention.'

04

I don't know if our mild protest did attract the Dark
Neb's attention, but our hopes of clearing our case quickly
evaporated. We arrived bright and early the following morning to
discover that the judicial hearing we were summoned to was not ours
but Grand Admiral Dre Rodine's, the former leader of the
Confederacy of Despar. We were summoned merely as witnesses,
specifically in regards to his employment of
Explora Miner
.
In the Unity, mind probes are used to determine innocence or guilt,
but that doesn't lift in the drifts. Drifteers do not trust mind
probes in general, and especially not ones administered by Unity
authorities – so the Patrol, conforming to local customs for local
political reasons, arranged for a public trial.The Patrol overlooks
a great many infractions of Unity Law in the drifts, but apparently
hiring a berserker is not one of them. His political actions, as
long as they were confined to the drifts, would have only earned
him an exile somewhere in the Unity, but the hiring of an outlawed
rogue machine, a berserker, was a capital offense charge, which, if
convicted, meant that he'd face life in a high security Felons'
Rift as a de-sexed, muck eating drone. A steep price to pay for
glory.

Our turn to testify came after the midday break. The
Patrol prosecutor had us go over the events leading to our capture
and subsequent destruction of
Explora Miner
. We'd already
provided the log data, but we were asked to retell it to the court.
Under questioning, we admitted that we'd not seen any evidence of
Explora Miner
prior to our change of course and yes, the
mercenaries had immediately launched an attack upon its arrival in
range. But, after the brief battle, it had claimed to be acting
under Confederacy of Despar orders, citing Rule 3, and altered our
course for Despar and was escorting us there when we were able to
break free of its control.

Rafe was asked how he accomplished this, and what he
found during the process. His testimony was a mix of vagueness and
minute details about what he did and how, so I doubt anyone truly
followed his explanation, but he did say that the whole process had
to be done underneath
Explora Miner
's conscious level, and
so he'd no knowledge of what Explora was thinking, and no direct
evidence of Explora being employed by Admiral Rodine and the
Confederacy.

All of which was hardly necessary – there was an
abundance of evidence that proved Admiral Rodine had, indeed, hired
the rogue machine, so by the end of the day, Admiral Rodine was on
his way to a Felon's Reef in the Apier system to live out his days,
a spayed connoisseur of muck and grub.

This was not a popular verdict in the galleries,
packed with naval officers, most of whom, I suspect, were members
of the Legion of the New Order.

We hung back to give Vynnia a chance to talk to some
of the Patrol officials about our fate. And when we emerged onto
the landing platform at the top of the building, the Despar navel
officers were waiting for us. Fortunately for us, there were armed
Patrol Marines about, so we made our way safely through this
menacing throng of grim men and women to a flier with only glares
of hate and barely heard, but heard, threats of revenge and
death.

'Blaming us for their defeat doesn't make any sense
at all. How can they overlook a dozen Patrol frigates?'

'I'm certain, Willy, if you stepped over and
explained to them that in light of the Patrol intervention, your
destruction of the late lamented
Explora Miner
, was of no
consequence, occurring as it did after their defeat, they'd
understand,' added Rafe.

'My destruction? So it's my destruction now?'