Throne of Stars (56 page)

Her commander in the
Dawn
, Fiorello Giovannuci, on the other hand, had been a real, honest, true-believer. Giovannuci wasn’t stupid; he’d seen the hypocrisy of the system, but he ignored it. Humans weren’t perfect, and the “hypocritical” conditions didn’t shake his belief in the core fundamentals of the Church. He’d been in command specifically because he was a true-believer despite his lack of stupidity; no one
but
a true-believer ever got to be in command of a ship. Certainly not of one that spent as much time poking around doing odd missions as the
Dawn
. And when the
Basik
’s Own’s assault was clearly going to succeed, he’d engaged the auto-destruct sequence.

Unfortunately for his readiness to embrace martyrdom, there’d been a slight flaw in the system. Only true-believers became ship commanders, true, but the CO wasn’t the only person who could
shut off
the auto-destruct. So when Giovannuci had been . . . removed by the ever-helpful Imperials, Beach had been in nowise unwilling to turn it off.

Giovannuci himself was no longer a factor in anyone’s equations, except perhaps God’s. He and his senior noncommissioned officer had tried to murder Roger with “one-shots”—specialized, contact-range anti-armor weapons—after surrendering. The sergeant had died then, but only Armand Pahner’s sacrifice of his own life had saved Roger from Giovannuci’s one-shot. Unfortunately for Fiorello Giovannuci, the
Dawn
’s entire cruise had been an illegal act—piracy, actually, since the Saints and the Empire were officially at peace—and that was a capital offense. Then, too, the accepted rules of war made his attempt to assassinate Roger after surrendering a capital offense, as well. So after a scrupulously honest summary court-martial, Giovannuci had attained the martyrdom he’d sought after all.

As for Amanda Beach, she had no family in the Caravazan Empire. She’d been raised in a state creche and didn’t even know who her
mother
was, much less her father. So when the only real choice became dying or burning her bridges with a vengeance, she’d burned them with a certain degree of glee.

Only to discover what a hash the damned Empies and their scummy allies had made of her ship.

“Six more centimeters,” she said angrily, rounding on the prince and holding up her thumb and forefinger in emphasis of the distance. “Six. And one of your idiot Mardukans would have blown open a tunnel radius. As it is, the magnets are fried.”

“But he didn’t blow it open,” Roger noted. “So when are we going to have power?”

“You want
power
!? This is a job for a major dockyard, damn it! All I’ve got is the few spaceport techs who were willing to sign on to this venture, some of your ham-handed soldiers, and
me
!
And I’m an
astrogator
, not an engineer!”

“So when are we going to have power?” Roger repeated calmly.

“A week.” She shrugged. “Maybe ten days. Maybe sooner, but I doubt it. We’ll have to reinstall about eighty percent of the control runs, and we’re replacing all the damaged magnets. Well, the worst damaged ones. We’re way too short on spares to replace all of them, so we’re having to repair some of the ones that only got scorched, and I’m not happy about that, to say the least. You understand that if this had been a
real
freighter that wouldn’t even be possible? Their control run molycircs are installed right into the ship’s basic structure. We’re at least modded to be able to rip ’em out to repair combat damage, but even in our wildest dreams, we never anticipated
this
much of it.”

“If it had been a real freighter,” Roger said, somewhat less calmly, “we wouldn’t have
done
this much damage. Or had our butcher’s bill. So, a week. Is there anything we can do to speed that up?”

“Not unless you can whistle up a team from the New Rotterdam shipyards,” she said tiredly. “We’ve got every trained person working on it, and as many untrained as we can handle. We’ve nearly had some bad accidents as it is. Working with these power levels is no joke. You can’t smell, hear, or see electricity, and every time we activate a run to check integrity, I’m certain we’re going to fry some unthinking schlub, human or Mardukan, who doesn’t know what ‘going hot’ means.”

“Okay, a week or ten days,” Roger said. “Are you getting any rest?”

“
Rest?
” she said, cranking up for a fresh tirade.

“I’ll take it that that means ‘no.’” Roger quirked one side of his mouth again. “Rest. It’s a simple concept. I want you to work no more than twelve hours per day. Figure out a way to do that, and the same for everyone else involved in the repairs. Over twelve hours a day, continuous, and people start making bad mistakes. Figure it out.”

“That’s going to push it to the high end on time,” she pointed out.

“Fine,” Roger replied. “We’ve got a new project we need to work out, anyway, and it’s going to mean loading a lot of . . . specialized stores. Ten days is about right. And if you blow up the ship, we’re going to have to start all over again. As you just noted, you’re an astrogator, not an engineer. I don’t want you making those sorts of mistakes just because you’re too pocking tired to avoid them.”

“I’ve worked engineering,” she said with a shrug. “I can hum the tune, even if I can’t sing it. And Vincenzo is probably a better engineer than the late chief. At least partly because he’s more than willing to do something that’s not by the Book but works. Since the Book was written by the idiots back on Rybak’s World, it’s generally wrong anyway. We’ll get it done.”

“Fine. But get it done
after
you get some rest. Figure out the schedule for the next day or so, and then tuck it in. Clear?”

“Clear,” she said, then grinned. “I’ll follow anybody that tells me to knock off work.”

“I told you to cut back to twelve hours per day,” Roger said with another cheek twitch, “not to knock off. But now, tonight, I want you to get some rest. Maybe even a beer. Don’t make me send one of the guards.”

“Okay, okay. I get the point,” the former Saint said, then shook her head. “Six more damned centimeters.”

“A miss is as good as a mile.”

“And just what,” Beach asked, “is a ‘mile’?”

“No idea,” Roger answered. “But whatever it is, it’s as good as a miss.”

Roger continued down the passageway, just generally looking around, talking to the occasional repair tech, until he noticed a cursing monotone which had become more of a continuous, blasphemous mutter.

“Pock. Modderpocking Saint modderpocking equipment . . .”

Two short legs extended into the passage, waving back and forth as a hand scrabbled after the toolbox floating just out of reach.

“. . . get my pocking wrench, and
t’en
you gonna pocking work . . .”

Sergeant Julio Poertena, Bravo Company’s unit armorer when the company dropped on Marduk, was from Pinopa, a semitropical planet of archipelagoes, with one small continent, that had been settled primarily from Southeast Asia, and he represented something of an anomaly. Or perhaps a necessary evil; Roger was never quite certain how the Regiment had actually seen Poertena.

While the Empress’ Own took only the best possible soldiers, in terms of both fighting ability and decorum, the Regiment did allow some room in its mental framework for slightly less decorum among its support staff, who could be kept more or less out of sight on public occasions. Staff such as the unit armorer. Which had been fortunate for Poertena’s pre-Marduk career, since a man who couldn’t get three words out without one of them being the curse word “pock” would never have been allowed, otherwise.

Since their arrival on Marduk, however, Poertena had marched all the way across the world with the rest of them, conjuring miracles from his famed “big pocking pack” times beyond number. And, when miracles hadn’t been in the offing, he’d produced serious changes of attitude with his equally infamous “big pocking wrench.” More recently, as one of the Marines’ few trained techs, he’d been assisting with the ship repairs . . . in, of course, his own, inimitable fashion.

Roger leaned over and tapped the toolbox, gently, so that it drifted under the scrabbling hand on its counter-grav cushion, apparently all on its own. The hand darted into it and emerged dragging a wrench that was as long as an arm. Then, the hand—with some difficulty, and accompanied by more monotone cursing—hauled the giant wrench into the hole, and there was a series of clangs.

“Get in
t’ere
, modderpocker! Gonna get you to pocking—”

There was a loud zapping sound, and a yowl, followed by more cursing.

“So,
t’at’s
t’e way you gonna . . . !”

Roger shook his head and moved on.

“Get
up
there, you silly thing!” Roger shouted, and landed a solid kick behind the armored shield on the broad head.

Patty was a
flar-ta
, an elephant-sized, six-legged Mardukan packbeast, that looked something like a triceratops.
Flar-ta
had broad, armored shields on their heads and short horns, much shorter than those of the wild
flar-ke
from which they were clearly descended. Patty’s horns, however, were just about twice normal
flar-ta
length, and she obviously had more than her share of “wild” genes. She was a handful for most mahouts, and the Bronze Barbarians had long ago decided that the only reason Roger could ride her was that he was just as bloody-minded as the big omnivore. Her sides were covered in scars, some of which she’d earned becoming “boss mare” of the herd of
flar-ta
the Marines had used for pack animals. But she’d attained most of those scars with Roger on her back, killing the things, Mardukan and animal, that put them there.

Now she gave a low, hoarse bellow and backed away from the heavy cargo shuttle’s ramp. She’d had one ride in a shuttle already, and that was all she was willing to go for. The long, sturdy rope attached to the harness on her head prevented her from drawing too far away from the hatch, but the massive shuttle shuddered and scraped on its landing skids as she threw all six-legs into stubborn reverse.

“Look, Roger, try to keep her from dragging the shuttle back to Diaspra, okay?” Julian’s request was just a little hard to understand, thanks to how hard he was laughing.

“Okay, beast! If that’s how you’re gonna be about it,” Roger said, ignoring the NCO’s unbecoming enjoyment.

The prince slid down the side of the creature, jumped nimbly to the ground via a bound on a foreleg, and walked around her, ignoring the fact that she could squash him like a bug at any moment. He hiked up the ramp until he was near the front of the cargo compartment, then turned and faced her, hands on hips.

“
I’m
going up to the ship in this thing,” he told her. “
You
can either come along or not.”

The
flar-ta
gave a low, high-pitched sound, like a giant cat in distress, and shook her head.

“Suit yourself.”

Roger turned his back and crossed his arms.

Patty gazed at his back for a moment. Then she gave another squeal and set one massive forepaw on the shuttle ramp. She pressed down a couple of times, testing her footing, then slowly eased her way up.

Roger gathered in the slack in the head rope, pulling it steadily through the ring on the compartment’s forward bulkhead. When she was fully in the shuttle, he secured the rope, anchoring her (hopefully) as close to the centerline as possible. Then he came over to give her a good scratching.

“I know I’ve got a kate
fruit around here somewhere,” he muttered, searching in a pocket until he came up with the astringent fruit. He held it up to her beak—carefully, she could take his hand off in one nip—and had it licked from his palm.

“We’re just going to take a little ride,” he told her. “No problem. Just a short voyage.” You could tell a
flar-ta
anything; they only knew the tone.

While he was soothing her, Mardukan mahouts had gathered around, attaching chains to her legs and harness. She shifted a few times in irritation as the chains clicked tight against additional anchoring rings, but submitted to the indignity.

“I know I haven’t been spending much time with you, lately,” Roger crooned, still scratching. “But we’ll have lots of time on the way to Althar Four.”

“What the hell are you going to do with her aboard ship?” Julian asked as he entered the compartment through the forward personnel hatch and picked up a big wicker basketful of barleyrice. He set it under Patty’s nose, and she dipped in, scooping up a mouthful of the grain and then spraying half of it on the cargo deck.

“Put her in hold two with Winston,” Roger answered, using a stick to reach high enough to scratch the beast’s neck behind the armored shield. The big, gelded
flar-ta
was even larger than Patty, but much more docile.

“Let’s hope she doesn’t kick open the pressure door,” Julian grumbled, but that, at least, was a false issue. The cargo bay pressure doors were made out of ChromSten, the densest, strongest,
heaviest
alloy known to man . . . or any other sentient species. Even the latches and seals were shielded by too much metal for Patty to demolish.

“I don’t think that will be a problem,” Roger said. “
Feeding
her now.
That
might be.”

“Not as much as feeding the
civans
,” Julian muttered.

“Quit that!” Honal slapped the
civan
on its muzzle as it tried to take a chunk out of his shoulder. It was never wise to allow one of the ill-tempered, aggressive riding beasts to forget who was in charge, but he understood why it was uneasy. The entire ship was vibrating.

Cargo was being loaded—
lots
of cargo. There were flash-frozen
coll
fish from K’Vaern’s Cove,
kate fruit and
dianda
from Marshad, barleyrice from Diaspra and Q’Nkok, and
flar-ta, atul
and
basik
—both live examples and meat—from Ran Tai, Diaspra, and Voitan. There were artifacts, for decoration and trade, from Krath, along with gems and worked metals from the Shin. All of it had been traded for, except the material from the Krath. In the Krath’s case, Roger had made an exception to his belief that it was generally not a good idea to exact tribute and simply landed with a shuttle and ordered them to fill it to the deckhead. He was still bitterly angry over their attempt to use Despreaux as one of their “Servants of the God”—sentient sacrifices to be butchered living and then eaten—and it showed. As far as he was concerned, if
all
of their blood-splattered temple/slaughterhouses were stripped of statuary and gilding, so much the better.