The False Admiral (4 page)

“Suits,” I said, looking at the rack by the doors. It was a Ganraen ship, but it had an Evagardian crew, so the suits were Evagardian as well. “EVs, I guess. Quick.”

Instead of obeying, Deilani darted to the window to look for herself. It was amazing how fast her face turned as white as her uniform. She joined the rest of us without a word as we stripped down.

I'd only worn an imperial environment suit once before, but it went on easily enough. The EVs were skintight, the nanofabric adjusting to the wearer's body, and they were the purest white. They were also the most technologically advanced garments in the galaxy, bar none. I deployed my helmet, which emerged from my collar instantly. There was a hum, and the force shield that was my faceplate materialized, sealing me in. I keyed my suit's AI and checked that all my readouts were green.

The trainees slipped effortlessly into their suits. They'd obviously practiced this extensively; until recently there had been a war on, and they were bound for ship duty. They had to be ready to suit up quickly in a depressurization scenario.

To them, this technology was business as usual. Imperials take everything for granted.

I smashed the emergency carbon over the manual release with my elbow, and Nils yanked it down. The seal broke with a hiss, and a few centimeters of space appeared between the doors. Together, we pried them open. No power meant no decontamination, so we had to go in with our helmets activated.

I squeezed through and dropped to my knees beside the first
body. I couldn't tell which was Tremma; the upper half of this one was severely burned, and both bodies were in bulky tech suits intended to protect the wearers during heavy repairs and labor.

They hadn't protected these two well enough. The second corpse was badly burned too, his whole body.

When I met him briefly, years ago, Tremma had seemed to take pride in his ability to prepare for problems before they arose. He hadn't seen
this
coming.

He and his pilot officer were dead. Dead in the airlock, nothing but blackened remains.

Swallowing, I got back to my feet. I could see what had happened, even if I didn't understand the how or the why. I herded the trainees back into the ship, deactivating my helmet once the seal was engaged again.

This changed things. I had to think this through.

Something heavy struck me across the back. It would've been my head if I hadn't chosen that moment to move. I crashed to the ground, and Deilani's boot slammed me in the gut. Nils shouted something, probably an expletive. Salmagard slipped between me and the lieutenant. She didn't touch Deilani; she just blocked her with her body.

“Out of the way,” the taller girl snapped. Salmagard said nothing, but held her ground.

“What are you
doing
?” Nils demanded, still frozen in place.

“There are two
dead men
in there, and
this
is not an admiral,” Deilani said, making as though to move around Salmagard, who again managed to block her without touching her. I spat out a mouthful of blood. Good thing I'd deactivated my helmet, or that would've been all over my faceplate. “Listen to him talk—he's not
even an officer. Listen to his
accent
. Where's his uniform? Look at him move. He's
not one of us
.”

All very good points. I rolled over to probe my ribs. To have them cracked again so soon would be very upsetting. The deck was freezing, and the dim corridor blurred briefly. If I'd known this was coming, I'd have taken a larger dose when I injected a few minutes ago.

Strategically taking painkillers in advance. That was something a real admiral would do.

“LT, he was in an admiral's sleeper,” Nils said, holding up his hands. “You
can't fake that
.”

“Then what was wrong with it? Things don't go wrong with admirals' sleepers.”

“Something in the seal. I
told
you.”

“Which could have been caused if there was an unscheduled resuscitation,” Deilani snapped. She had me there. “He's on chems. He probably screwed something up when he went back in.
He
killed them, and
we
saved him. He can't be an admiral. He's not even
Evagardian
.”

“Am too,” I said, wincing.

“Shut up. They were the only people on the ship. None of
us
did it, and that leaves him.”

Deilani's reasoning was far from airtight, but it was understandable under the circumstances. Salmagard continued to protect me. She was well aware of the penalty for laying one's hands on an officer, which was why she could use only her person as a shield to protect me. She kept her hands clasped firmly behind her back.

Nils stared at me. He'd been suspicious too, but his suspicions hadn't been running in this direction. And now Deilani was looking at Private Salmagard as if she was an enemy combatant.

“Who,” she bit out, her eyes burning, “in the Imperial Service does not travel with a uniform?”

“This man, clearly,” Salmagard replied evenly. Her soft musical voice actually lessened my physical pain.

“Ow,” I complained.

“Shut up!” Deilani snapped.

“You shut up,” I shot back from the floor. Behind Salmagard.

Nils didn't know what to do. Salmagard obviously wasn't backing down, and if Deilani's blood pressure got any higher there would be a third corpse on this ship. I couldn't blame her for having a problem with me, but she needed to start thinking about the greater good.

“I don't know,” Nils said. “He
kind
of talks like an officer.”

“And you
kind of
talk like a man,” Deilani shot back.

Nils opened his mouth to retort, remembered she outranked him, and shut it. “Sir?” he said to me questioningly.

“What?” I groaned, and lay back, closing my eyes. Deilani had startled me with that blow, and that had gotten my heart going. Now my chem-laden blood was rushing around a bit more enthusiastically than was optimal. I was light-headed.

There was also some pain in my ribs.

“Who are you really? I haven't been this confused since the Ganraens started the damn war.”

“My name wouldn't mean anything to you,” I told him.

“Then you're admitting you're not Evagardian,” he said, looking stricken.

“I
am
Evagardian—”

“You're
not
. You talk like a Ganraen. Like a Ganraen from the capital,” Deilani cut in, then fell silent, looking thoughtful. Yes, there was no Ganraen capital anymore, was there?

But I didn't like seeing her thoughtful. She'd drawn a couple wild conclusions, and I was worried about where her overly motivated mind was frolicking off to now.

“Nils!” I called, cutting her off. I was still flat on my back.

“Yes—er, sir?”

“Don't call him that,” Deilani snarled.

These kids. “Guys, maybe this has escaped your attention, but we don't even know what planet we're on. We have a few days' worth of food, air, and water, and that's it. With no systems, we also have no beacon. You do get that, right?”

“Someone will notice that we came down,” Nils said. “And that we didn't show at Payne Station. If we really are in trouble, we just have to wait.”

“False.” I held up a finger, enjoying the cool deck beneath me. It was calming. “Well, it's false if this planet is actually somewhere out of the way. And I'm thinking about what we saw outside. It didn't look familiar to me.”

“Doesn't mean this body isn't in a developed system.”

“No. But I'm telling you there's nothing like this on the route we were supposed to be taking.”

“You think we're off course?”

“Impersonating a—” Deilani interrupted, but I cut her off again.

“I can prove I didn't burn those men, and I can prove that I belong in that sleeper.”

“Tell us your
name
.”

“I could tell you
anything
. It wouldn't have any meaning.”

“So get out your holo. Show us some ID.”

“About that,” I said. Deilani made a disgusted noise and turned away.

Salmagard was looking down at me over her shoulder. That absolute neutrality. How proper of her. “Help me up, Private.” I reached up to her. She pulled me to my feet, and I leaned heavily on her. I was still hurting.

I looked at Deilani. “If you want to arrest me, just hold on to that thought until we figure this out. And if that's going to happen, I'm going to need everybody. That includes me. Actually, the only one I haven't thought of a use for is a doctor
.
”

I wasn't sure Deilani's face could get any redder, but it did. She lunged at me, and Salmagard pivoted to put herself between us. Awfully brave of her, I thought; Deilani was twenty centimeters taller than she was. Deilani drew up short, staring at me over Salmagard's head.

That look alone painted her as the one likeliest to be a murderer among us. But I didn't think she'd done it.

“He's got a point,” Nils pointed out. “That's the whole crew in there, right?”

“How can it be? This ship is huge!” Deilani whirled on him.

“It is,” I said. “Trust me.”

“How can we?”

“You guys should never have been on this ship, but
that's
not on me.” It was true, and it felt good to say it. It was all I had.

“What do you want to do?” Nils asked, looking past Deilani to me. The lieutenant's mouth became a tight line.

“Did you get a look at the bodies in there?” I asked.

Salmagard and Nils both looked away. I'd heard the Service academies were tough; they'd probably only seen things like that on screens before.

“I did,” Salmagard said.

“Then you saw his arm.”

“Yes.”

“What are you
talking
about?” Deilani demanded.

I faced the lieutenant. “He burned himself. I think he burned the other man—damn it, let's say the one that was fully burned was Tremma. I think the pilot officer burned Tremma, then himself.” I held up my left hand. “Using the tech suit's incinerator. It's just a guess from the way they were lying in there. Look for yourself.”

“Why would they do that?”

“I have a feeling that's a question we're going to want to try to answer,” I said. “Call it a hunch.”

Deilani's eyes narrowed, but she didn't bite. “No. We're locking you down.”

I held up my sidearm, which I'd been holding out of sight since the first blow fell. I wiggled it at them. “If I was your enemy, it's not like I couldn't have done something about it by now. I know you're not going to like this, Lieutenant, but I'm
not
your enemy. I need you three, and you need me.” Well, I needed Nils and Salmagard. Deilani I could live without.

“You said you could prove it,” Nils cut in. “Prove you didn't do it.”

“I can. You can.”

“What?”

“Pull the log off my sleeper. You can tell if it's been opened, and you can tell if the DNA sync is right. It's not part of the ship. It still has power.”

Nils blinked. “That's a good idea.”

“I'm just a passenger, guys. I'm on a long trip. My sleeper's been getting moved around a little bit.” I made an inclusive gesture
toward them. “Us traveling together? It's just some kind of mix-up. I've been aboard this ship once before, but that was a long time ago. I didn't expect to wake up here. I don't know what's going on. So can we move past this and get down to business?”

“I can check your log,” Nils said.

“Thank you.”

“What if you rigged it?” Deilani asked.

“If that was in my skill set, I wouldn't be here,” I said honestly. Her look of loathing didn't change, but she believed me. That hatred wasn't all directed at me; some of it was for Salmagard, whom I was still clinging to. She was small, but she didn't have any difficulty supporting me.

It took longer for us to get back to the sleeper bay than it did for Nils to confirm my claims. I belonged in that admiral's sleeper. There was nothing Deilani could say to that.

“There's no name,” Nils reported, looking up from his readout. “How can there be no name?”

“You just can't see it. You don't have credentials,” I lied. “Of course it's going to protect my personal information. And it's not relevant. What matters is figuring out what killed Tremma and his PO. But I have no idea how to do that.” I caught Deilani eyeing my sidearm. “Worried about this?” I pushed it into Salmagard's hands. “I don't need it.” Instead of red, now Deilani was turning white again. She had remarkable circulation.

“What now, sir?” Nils asked, looking dazed.

I was still in pain, but I didn't know how long I could keep milking it. “Only one choice,” I said, straightening up and letting Salmagard go. “The shuttle. It has its own systems; there's a chance they're still all right. If they are, we can find out where we are. Once we know
that, we can make a play. There should be enough juice left to get us out of orbit. We'll just have to hope there's some power left after we open the bay doors. Right?” I looked at Nils, who nodded. “Questions?” Without waiting for any, I started to walk, hoping Deilani wouldn't make any more jokes about my gait. It wasn't as if it was my idea to walk this way, but I couldn't shake these habits overnight.

“There are two dead officers, sir. We'll need a report.”

I looked over my shoulder at Lieutenant Deilani. “And I'll give one. I'm ranking officer, honorary or not, whether you buy it or not, so this is my watch. Don't worry about what you're going to say when we get out of here. That comes later. What did you think you would gain by putting your unit down a man under these circumstances?”