The False Admiral (3 page)

“Depends on how much we use it, sir.”

“Case by case? What source?”

“If I'm reading this correctly, there's a shuttle.”

“Ah.” I thumped my fist into my open palm. “I should've thought of that. But there should be more than one on a ship like this.”

“There's only one that I can reroute here and now.”

“Odd. Could we do it manually?”

Nils shook his head. “That would be a lot more complicated than swapping an energy pack,” he said, eyeing the bundle of wires on the console beside him.

The shuttle's cells wouldn't be enough to move the ship, but they would get the computers running for a while, and maybe even air recycling.

“Sounds good,” I said.

“Wait a minute, sir. If we use that power it's going to leave the shuttle useless.”

He had a point—we didn't know where we were. The ship was crippled. The shuttle might be our only way off the freighter. If we were
near
something, escape craft would be enough, but if we weren't . . . I started to laugh.

“Go ahead and use the shuttle,” I said, dropping back into the command chair. I slouched down, gazing at the ceiling. “We can't use it in any case. How would we get the bay doors open? How would we cycle the airlocks? We couldn't get to it. We definitely couldn't launch it.”

Nils blanched, then did as I told him. Emergency lights came on. The ship was no longer black now, just dim. I let out my breath, staring at the light overhead. It wasn't much, but at least we weren't
completely
dead in the cosmos.

“I'm not going to run the lights on the whole ship,” Nils was saying. “Only where the motion sensors are tripped.”

“Fine. See if there's anyone else moving.” Now I'd find out where Tremma was. And after that, where
we
were.

“Can't, sir. I'm locked out of security.”

“Are you serious?” I didn't understand. I sat up in my chair, turning to look at him. “How did it get this way?” Nils just shook his head. “Well, turn on the viewport.”

“That I can do.” He fiddled with the console for only a moment before the large screens came to life. I got to my feet, watching the feeds light up. I stepped back, and the blood drained from the ensign's face. It would have been good to see a star formation, or Payne Station. Or another ship. A recognizable system, anything. But all I saw was shifting patterns of dark sickly green.

We weren't adrift. We were on a
planet
. That explained the gravity.

I swore quietly. Nils continued to stare, dumbstruck. And yet—this was not as bad as if we'd seen empty space, which was what I'd been fearing.

“What is it?” Nils squinted at the feeds.

“I don't know. Raise the screens,” I said. Nils did so. We looked out through the transparent carbon shield at the green mist. It was lighter here than it had been on the screens.

“We're in atmosphere,” Nils said, licking his lips.

“Yeah, but whose?”

I was on a dead ship on an unknown planet with three trainees freshly graduated into the Imperial Service.

I tried to look on the bright side.

We were somewhere. That was a relief. It was better than floating with no power in space. Wherever this planet was, it raised our chances of rescue from zero to more than zero.

Nils couldn't determine our location. He could get at only the most basic functions, and most of those only by improvised means. I was still impressed; he knew what he was doing, even with a broken system that was barely giving us ones and zeroes to work with.

We were coming to grips with how limited our options were when Deilani and Salmagard returned. I could tell that Salmagard hadn't shared her thoughts on me with Deilani, because the lieutenant was just as surly and suspicious as before.

They had located a survival kit, and even imperial field rations tasted good under the circumstances. It was surreal to be having a field ration picnic with imperial trainees on the bridge of a ship stranded on a planet that we had no means to identify.

As bizarre as our predicament was, at least we could all agree on one thing: we didn't know where this rock was, but we needed to get off of it. Even Deilani couldn't argue with that.

The question was, how would we do that? With the combiners off-line, the only food on the ship was in the survival packs. Fortunately, there were probably enough of those aboard to last a while, if it came to that. There was water too, which would be reachable if we could find some tools.

Air was the immediate problem. Nils had gotten the recyclers running, but he hadn't been able to localize them. Running life support for the entire freighter would deplete our shuttle's cells in no time at all, and that was all the power we had. Life support had to stay off, but we were still in a better place than we had been half an hour ago. My mind was starting to pull itself together, and clear thinking wasn't making our situation look any less serious.

The trainees were almost finished eating. They weren't panicking, but I had a feeling that was only because I wasn't panicking. Ships weren't made to exist, much less function, without their computers.

I
had
to find out how we'd ended up in this fix. My sleeper malfunctioning? Well, that was one thing. But Tremma's absence? That alarmed me. The ship seemingly intact, but the computer in digital tatters? I didn't have an explanation. I didn't even have a guess.

The three graduates weren't speaking. They didn't know one another. They had never met before; they just happened to be assigned to the same ship. This was even less comfortable for them
than it was for me. Nils didn't even know how to deal with Lieutenant Deilani, much less an admiral. Even Salmagard's natural grace couldn't smooth it out for the three of them.

Deilani hadn't taken her eyes off me. I wasn't naive enough to think that I could ignore her forever, but I hoped she wouldn't become a serious problem, at least not until we'd gotten out of this mess.

Salmagard gazed at the swirling green mist outside. I watched her, trying to read her, but not getting anywhere.

She looked a little familiar, but I knew we'd never met.

She could be thinking anything, but I remembered the way she'd looked at me when I'd just come out of my sleeper. If she
had
recognized me, she was determined to keep quiet.

I felt queasy. I needed her to give me something.

Nils was grim, but not too grim. He knew how bad off we were, but he was playing it cool. Maybe he was too proud to look dejected in front of Salmagard. From what I'd heard about the Imperial Service academies, I was surprised they hadn't managed to stamp the impulse to impress a pretty girl out of him. Maybe the rumors were exaggerated.

Time to take charge. I was an admiral now.

“Admiral,” Deilani said, still watching me.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Which fleet do you command?”

“I don't command any,” I replied. “It's an honorary title. Obviously.”

Her eyes narrowed. Deilani wasn't stupid. To have gotten into bio with a commission and overachieved to the point that she was assigned to the
Julian
, Deilani had to have drive and intelligence off the charts. It didn't take a genius to see that I didn't add up.

But I needed her to stop worrying about me, and focus on more pressing issues.

I cleared my throat. “If Captain Tremma's on this ship, he's either dead or locked up. And I don't think he's locked up. We need to find out what happened to him and his pilot officer.”

“Isn't two a small crew for a ship this size?” Deilani continued to scrutinize me. She'd latched on. She wasn't going to let go until she got what she wanted. She must have been a terror in the classroom.

It was a good question, but it probably wasn't in my best interests to answer it. “It's a Ganraen ship,” I pointed out instead.

“Right.” Nils nodded. Deilani looked puzzled.

“Androids,” he told her. “Or maybe just AI and automated systems. They use that stuff a lot more than we do. But none of it's functioning because the system's down.”

Not exactly true, but it would do for now.

They were more or less finished eating. “They're expecting us at Payne Station. The
Julian
won't wait forever. Let's find Tremma and get out of here,” I said, waving at the viewports, and the mist beyond. “I've got places to be. And this place gives me the creeps.”

“Where do we look, sir?” Deilani arched an eyebrow at me.

I returned her look, praying for patience. It was a fair question. The ship was enormous. A big Ganraen freighter like this was shaped roughly like an oblong box. The sheer amount of space inside it was staggering. We didn't have the time or supplies to just look around and hope for the best. And my patience with Deilani wouldn't last that long.

“I'm still thinking about that, Lieutenant. Would you be able to pull a log off an airlock console?” I asked Nils.

“I think so, sir.”

“Let's see if any of the personnel loaders have cycled,” I suggested. If Tremma wasn't on the ship, I was curious to know what might've made him feel the need to leave.

“I may be able to do that from here once the system's reset, sir.”

“What we really need is a map.”

“I'll see about that too, sir.”

“Nils, I'm glad you're here.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Admiral,” Deilani said, hands on hips.

“Yes, Lieutenant?”

“Which academy did you graduate from?”

I felt my temper begin to rise, and stifled it. She wasn't taking the hint.

Salmagard was taking care of the plastic wrappers from the field rations, and our empty water bottles, packing them back into the survival kit. She was listening to every word, but she didn't so much as look in my direction.

“Rothschild,” I lied, giving Deilani a tired look.

“So did I, sir.”

She was baiting me. Salmagard continued to ignore us. Nils didn't care; he just wanted to get through the day. Why couldn't I have gotten three of him?

I felt a sudden contraction behind my eyes.

“Oh, dear.” I looked down to find my hands trembling.

There were three pairs of eyes on me.

“Are you all right, sir?” Nils asked, cocking his head.

“We're in trouble. Get on there,” I said, pointing at the console. “Find me a map. Playtime's over.”

“Yes, sir.”

I got up and stepped away. If I dealt with this now, it was going to be pretty obvious. And slipping away would be just as bad. I had to wait. I took some shaky breaths.

“Admiral?”

“
Yes
, Lieutenant?”

“What's the trouble, sir?” She knew. She was a doctor, after all. And she had spent our entire time together staring at me. She'd probably noticed before I had. Maybe that was why she was so pissed off.

“We don't know where we are, and our ship isn't working,” I replied, keeping my tone even. “Things are not ideal. And I'm not having a good wake-up,” I added. That was true, at least.

She gave me a pitying look. “Do better,” she said.

“All right,” I said, putting up my hands. “All right.”

Salmagard and Nils turned to look at me. Deilani folded her arms. Was that smugness?

I gave her a disgusted look, and reached into my bag.

“Let's keep the judgment to a minimum,” I said, taking out a hypo and injecting myself.

Deilani turned to the others, jerking her chin at me.

“Our honorary admiral,” she said.

“Hey, come on,” I said. I was feeling better already. “Even admirals can have vices, right? I'm on vacation.”

“What did you just take?” Deilani asked, cutting me off.

“That's kind of personal,” I replied, glancing at Salmagard. She was completely expressionless.

Deilani twitched an eyebrow. “From the withdrawal, I'm going to say synthetic opiates.”

“You cheated,” I said. “Who told you?”

Deilani just looked at me. I sighed.

“All right, you got me. I'm dependent. You can report me when we get to Payne Station. I'm sure that'll be great. They'll probably demote me and garnish some wages or something.”

She gave me another one of those pitying looks. “I don't know who you are,” she said, “but you aren't getting off that easy.”

“What? For this?” I held up my empty hypo.

“For impersonating an officer. You're going to prison.”

“I wish,” I said.

Deilani blinked, and Salmagard cut in.

“Sir, can we activate a beacon?” she asked.

It was a sensible suggestion, and a good rescue. We needed to get on task. “Worry about me later, Lieutenant. I'm the least of your problems.”

I turned to Salmagard. “No. I don't think so.” I shook my head. “Maybe we could if this was still a Ganraen ship, but it's full of Evagardian systems, and if the computer's down, there is no beacon. I would
love
to know what's wrong with the systems,” I added to Nils.

“Yes, sir.”

“Is it sabotage? Because if it looks like sabotage, then we're getting somewhere.”

“I don't know, sir.”

At first I hadn't been sure, but it couldn't be coincidence. Even a ship as old as this wouldn't just happen to fall apart at the same time my sleeper did. What had been done to my sleeper had also been done to this computer.

“Do you have a reason to suspect sabotage?” Deilani asked. She'd deflated a little, but she wouldn't let go. Not while there was still breath in her body. I respected that, but I wasn't at my best.

I spread my arms. “I think this is all pretty damn weird,” I told her.

“But where are the androids?” Deilani pressed.

“Never deployed,” I said. “Or we'd see them all over.” There are no androids, kid. Ganraen ship, Evagardian crew. Evagardian systems. Androids didn't fit into that picture. I didn't have long before she worked that out.

“Admiral!” Nils said, looking up.

That sounded promising. I rubbed my wrist where I'd injected and turned my attention to the ensign.

“What is it?”

“The forward, starboard loader cycled once since the last reset,” he reported. “I can't go back any farther.”

I took that in. “I guess it's something. It's one more cycle than I'd expect. But just once? So he went outside, but he didn't come back in?”

“Yes, sir.” He drummed his fingers on the panel, looking puzzled. “I don't get it, but it's right here. One cycle.”

“All right. We have to assume that Tremma had some idea what this rock is— So why would he go outside?”

“A repair, sir?” Salmagard theorized.

I nodded. “That sounds right. We're broken down, after all. We should take a look. I hope he didn't run into trouble out there.”

I looked at Deilani, who was considering the same notion. Dangerous indigenous life-forms were rare; only a few dozen had been discovered in known systems. Deilani would know at least a little about xenobiology, and she would know that this world was not one of those she had studied.

The gravity drive was shut down, but we were still on the floor. This was a planet, but not much of one. The gravity was too light. And you don't need life-forms to get you into trouble on an alien world. Anything could've happened to them out there.

Nils was the only one who looked alarmed. Salmagard was perfectly calm. Her face never seemed to change.

*   *   *

With our combined knowledge of spacecraft, Nils and I navigated the four of us in the direction of the airlock in question. There were a lot of corridors and a lot of ladders. We passed a long, dirty window overlooking one of the cargo bays. I glanced down at the massive stacks of crates inside. The white imperial containers were a stark contrast to the dark, grimy bay.

I wondered what Tremma was carrying. With the cease-fire in place, he should've been out of a job. Was that why he was ferrying graduates to their first assignment? Then what was in these crates? Leftovers?

Yet again, Deilani was monitoring me.

“Step it out,” I said. “We don't have time for sightseeing.”

“Can you teach me to walk like that?”

“Like what?” I asked, brushing past her.

“Like a model,” she said, giving a little twitch of her hips.

“You don't have the figure,” I told her. She rolled her eyes and kept walking. Maybe she'd give up if I kept refusing to bite.

Nils looked smug as we approached the airlock's pressure door. His navigation had been perfect, no easy task in a dark, foreign vessel. The airlock was sealed. That took me off guard; our side
of it should have been open. I went to the small window in the blast door and peered into the cramped chamber. What I saw made me forget all about Deilani's persistent scrutiny.