Vanguard (Ark Royal Book 7) (10 page)

“I see,” Captain Blake said.

Susan tensed.  She couldn’t allow the captain to fire on a civilian craft, not even if there was good reason to suspect it was carrying spies - or the media.  It would be a black eye the navy would never recover from, tainting the career of everyone on the ship.  She’d be lucky not to be hung if she allowed him to open fire.  Relieving the captain of command would probably cost her everything - it would certainly be the end of her career - but it was preferable to allowing him to kill a handful of civilians ...

“Keep a sharp eye on her,” Captain Blake ordered.  “If she comes closer, ready a marine boarding party.  She shouldn't be dogging our heels.”

“Aye, sir,” Mason said.

Captain Blake rose.  “Commander, you have the bridge,” he said.  “Inform me ten minutes before we jump through the tramline.”

“Aye, sir,” Susan said.

She kept her face expressionless as the captain strode off the bridge, despite the sweat trickling down her back.  Who’d been in command?  If they’d come under attack ...

And, just for a moment, you were convinced he was going to fire on a civilian ship
, she thought, as she settled into the command chair. 
Would Paul have opened fire on his command?

It wasn't a pleasant thought.  Mason had clearly been shocked, but orders were orders ... and yet, firing on a civilian craft could easily get him in deep shit.  There were illegal orders, after all, and blowing the courier boat out of space probably counted.  And yet, what could she do about it?  Anything she did could easily be construed as mutiny.  It was a nightmare.  She wanted to believe the captain had just been testing his crew, but it was impossible to convince herself that that was the truth.  For a moment, the captain had teetered on the brink of ordering an atrocity.

And there’s no way to prove it, either
, she thought. 
If I took it to the Admiralty, his connections would be enough to get any charges dismissed
.

She cursed under her breath.  All she could do was watch, wait ... and pray that she could stop him before he went too far.

***

“I can't see anything,” George complained.  “There’s nothing there.”

Fraser laughed, unkindly.  “You’ve been watching too much Stellar Star,” he said.  “The tramlines are
not
visible to the naked eye.  Much like Stellar’s clothing.”

George felt her cheeks redden as she stared out of the observation blister.  Fraser had told Nathan and her that their presence wasn't desired on the bridge, but - after much angry grumbling - he’d reorganised their training rotas so they could be in the observation blister during transit.  She would have enjoyed it more if he hadn’t spent half the time telling them just how many favours he’d had to call in to get them half an hour of free time.

She grunted as Fraser elbowed her in the back.  “Did you watch the movies?”

“The naval personages in my family used to roar with mad laughter every time they came on, sir,” she said, without looking back.  “They thought they were hilarious.”

Fraser snorted.  “Even
Stellar Star VII: The Republic Kicks Arse
?”

George shrugged.  “My parents never let me watch that one.”

“I’ll have it shown when we have a moment,” Fraser said.  “Really, that girl gets around the navy.  She has a dozen aristocratic titles, five separate starships under her command ...”

“And she’s a champion Olympic diver too,” Nathan put in.  “The scene where she jumps fifty miles down to the water ...”

“Would probably not be survivable,” George said.  She’d done
some
diving in school, but the idea of falling over fifty
miles
before hitting the water ... it was absurd.  “And how much of her clothing did she lose along the way?”

“All of it,” Nathan said.

George rolled her eyes.  “Why am I not surprised?”

Fraser cleared his throat.  “You might want to watch carefully,” he said.  “We’re about to jump.”

“Thank you, sir,” George said.

She stared out into the darkness.  The stars burned constantly - there was no atmosphere in space to produce the twinkling effect - but they seemed to be fighting desperately to push back the shadows.  There was a religion, she recalled, that believed the darkness between the stars belonged to the devil, while the suns belonged to God.  The adherents prayed nightly for the light to drive back the darkness ... and claimed that the
prevalence
of darkness was caused by human sins ...

“Ten seconds,” Fraser said.  “Nine ... eight ...”

George tensed, feeling a hint of nervousness.  It would be her first jump ... what if something went wrong?  The Puller Drive rarely failed, but when it did the results were spectacular.  In five seconds, she’d be in another star system - or dead.  She braced herself ...

... And a faint sensation of ...
something
... washed through the ship.

“I saw nothing,” she complained.  She'd expected the stars to blink out, then return.  “I ...”

“Some of the stars are in a different position,” Fraser pointed out dryly, as she turned to face him.  He smirked.  “Welcome to Terra Nova, homeworld of idiots, morons and lunatics who hate everyone from Britain, particularly government officials.  The greatest export is sane people who want to live somewhere - anywhere - else; the greatest import is guns and ammunition.  It is, in short, a shithole.”

Nathan frowned.  “Are we going to be landing there?”

“I rather doubt it,” Fraser said.  “Didn't you hear the part about them hating everyone from Britain?  If you go to the surface, you’ll be cut into tiny pieces and shipped around the globe.”

“Yuck,” George said.

“Quite,” Fraser agreed.  His smile turned into a leer.  “And, now you’ve made your first jump, it’s time to welcome you formally to the crew.  Your initiation starts this evening.”

“Oh,” Nathan said.

They shared a look.  Fraser had been dropping increasingly unpleasant hints over what was lying in store for them over the last four days, ranging from suggestions that they should bring clean underwear to make sure they were wearing bulletproof clothing.  George was sure he was exaggerating, but she wasn't looking forward to the coming ordeal.

And yet, she was damned if she was letting him win.

“We’ll be there,” she said.

Chapter Nine

“You know,” Mason said.  “I really thought he’d do it.”

Susan nodded, tightly.  It had taken some finagling to find a time when Mason and she could talk in private - he was the second officer, after all, and she wasn't sure she wanted to risk leaving the captain on the bridge - but she’d had no choice.  She couldn't keep the whole affair to herself or she’d go mad.  Or, for that matter, do something stupid.  It was just possible she was on the verge of making a terrible mistake.

“I thought he’d do it too,” she confessed, as she poured them both mugs of coffee.  It hadn't taken her long to locate the still - there was one on every ship, producing alcohol of dubious taste and worse quality - but she’d resisted the urge to take some of the booze for herself.  “I thought I’d have to relieve him on the spot.”

“It would have been easy to prove you had a right to relieve him,” Mason pointed out.  He took one of the mugs and nodded his thanks.  “Everything on the bridge is recorded.”

“That wouldn’t have saved my career,” Susan said.  She took a chair and sipped her coffee, grimacing slightly at the taste.  No one would award her points for coffee-making, whatever else she did.  “What’s
wrong
with him?”

It wasn't a question she dared ask anyone else.  Hell, if she hadn't known Paul Mason at the academy, she wouldn't have dared ask him either.  But he was the only person she thought she could trust on
Vanguard
; certainly, he was the only person she
knew
personally.  And besides, he’d served under Captain Blake for longer than anyone else, with the exception of some of the senior crewmen.

And Commander Bothell
, she thought. 
But I’m starting to think I know why he deserted
.

“Well, we
did
spend our time watching dirty movies together,” Mason said.  “He has a dark sense of humour in private.”

Susan quirked an eyebrow.  “And the truth?”

Mason shrugged.  “I don’t know him, outside of the moments we meet on the bridge,” Mason said.  “There were a handful of formal dinners, but otherwise Commander Bothell handled everything - and I mean everything.  I think he was captain in all but name.”

“I’m starting to think you’re right,” Susan said.  “But it makes no
sense
.”

She’d downloaded a copy of the captain’s file while she’d been on Earth, although she hadn’t had a chance to read it until she’d settled into her new post.  Captain Sir Thomas Blake had a honourable record; his connections were among the best she’d seen, but he’d definitely acquitted himself well.  He’d served in the war, surviving several battles with the Tadpoles, and then commanded a ship during the brief Anglo-Indian War three years later.  It was a surprise that he hadn't been pushed up to Commodore or Admiral, yet it wasn't uncommon for commanding officers to resist promotion if they thought they could get away with it.  A starship command was far more exciting for a dedicated officer than a desk job, even if the desk job came with considerably greater authority.

And Commander Bothell was with him for over a decade
, she mused. 
What were they doing together
?

Mason snickered, suddenly.  “Do you think he’s been replaced, somehow?  A robot?  Or an enemy spy?”

Susan rolled her eyes.  “You’ve been watching too many bad movies,” she said.  “How could a robot have passed through the medical screening?  Or an imposter duplicate the captain’s DNA?”

“Maybe the captain didn't report for his routine exam,” Mason said.  “And if someone could get a spy into a ship, surely they could replace the DNA records on file too.”

“If they have that sort of penetration they’ve already won,” Susan pointed out.  And yet, there was something about the idea that refused to die.  Commander Bothell might have been the only person close enough to Captain Blake to recognise a replacement.  What if someone
had
replaced the captain with an imposter?  “They wouldn’t
need
to replace the captain.”

“It wouldn't be easy to replace someone more senior than a starship commander,” Mason said, smoothly.  “The Admiralty runs regular security checks.”

Susan shook her head.  Even if someone
could
duplicate the captain, right down to his fingerprints and DNA code, far too many things could go wrong.  The command implants lodged within the captain’s hand would have to be removed and reprogrammed, particularly after the incident on
Ark Royal
.  Susan didn’t know
precisely
what had happened, but it had to have been serious.  New security measures had been introduced in record time.  Hell, coming to think of it, the captain’s DNA would be checked against his relatives.  Alarms would sound when it was clear there was no match.

“I think you have a great career ahead of you as a low-grade movie producer,” she said, finally.  “But this is
reality
.”

Mason looked disappointed.  “Reality is
boring
.”

“You’re on a starship travelling through another star system, en route to war games with our cousins,” Susan said.  “What’s
boring
about it?”

She dismissed the thought with a wave of her hand.  “I don’t understand it,” she said.  “The captain’s file makes him out to be an experienced officer, yet the man we saw on the bridge was hardly
experienced
.  He shouldn't have been promoted above midshipman, if that.”

“His connections
are
very good,” Mason pointed out.  “Someone could have covered for him.”

Susan rather doubted it.  The Old Boys Network was good - very good - at making sure that most promotions went to those with the correct connections, but it was dominated by serving officers who understood the stakes.  A decent officer would get a boost, true, yet a well-connected officer without competence would be pushed into a cushy desk job rather than being allowed to take command of a starship.  The near-incident on the bridge only illustrated the wisdom of that policy.  One disaster ran the risk of tearing the Old Boys Network apart.

It isn't enough to make sure that the right people get the right jobs
, she thought, with a twinge of the old bitterness. 
They have to be the right people for the right jobs
.

“Maybe,” she said.  “But they’d be taking one hell of a risk.”

“They might not know,” Mason pointed out.  “Officially, there are no question marks in the captain’s file.”

Susan eyed him.  “You’ve been studying the file too.”

“Yeah,” Mason said.  “And unless there are aspects sealed away above my clearance, Commander, there’s no reason to doubt that Captain Blake can handle his post.”

Susan stared down at her coffee.  “If there was an accident ... I mean, something that happened to him.”

Mason looked relieved.  “I thought you were considering arranging an accident for him.”

“I think the Admiralty would not be amused,” Susan said, dryly.  Captains had died before, in accidents, but they’d always been carefully investigated.  Anyone who attempted to assassinate a commanding officer would wind up hung.  “Even if he
is
a potential danger.”

She cleared her throat.  “If something happened to him, over the last decade, wouldn't it have been noticed?”

“There’s no accident recorded in his file,” Mason said.  “And the only time he was in sickbay for anything more than a routine check-up was when he was badly scalded as a young officer, back during the war.  There wasn't anything more to the incident.”

“And he just got put back to work,” Susan said. 

She frowned.  Back when she’d been roped into rebuilding work on Earth, she’d read a paper by a noted psychologist predicting that the human race would recover quicker than anyone expected, despite the
lack
of psychiatric help.  Susan had found the paper rather amusing - civilian psychologists had never struck her as anything more than money-grubbing hypocrites - but the author had had a point.  It was hard to believe that there was something uniquely terrible about losing one’s home and family to rising floodwaters when hundreds of thousands of other people were in the same boat.  These days, no one wasted thousands of pounds on expensive mental treatment.  They just got back to work.

“I’ve been injured too, in combat,” Mason pointed out.  “It didn’t do me any harm.”

“It didn’t do you any harm,” Susan repeated, sarcastically.  “Really?”

“Oh, yes,” Mason said.  “I may have spent three months in a hospital on the moon, but there were some really cute nurses and a doctor who had an enormous ...”

“I don’t want to know,” Susan said, quickly.  Given how often Mason had visited Sin City, while they'd been at the academy, she was surprised he’d done as well as he had on his exams.  “And I'm sure
that
wasn't on the approved list of treatments.”

“It should be,” Mason said.  “Do you know one of the nurses used to ...”

“No,” Susan said.  She was no prude, but she’d heard enough exaggerated stories of sexual conquests during her time as a midshipwoman to take them all with a grain of salt.  Besides, she hadn't been able to fund trips to Sin City for herself.  “And I don’t want to know either.”

Mason shrugged.  “So,” he said.  “What are we going to do?”

“
You’re
not going to do anything, beyond keeping copies of my notes,” Susan said.  It was heartening to realise that Mason was prepared to risk his own career to help her, but she wasn't about to let him throw away his prospects for nothing.  “I’ll keep an eye on him and stay on the bridge as much as possible.”

“He does seem willing to let you handle everything,” Mason noted.  “Has he actually been
on
the bridge since the ... incident?”

Susan shook her head.  As XO, it was her job to organise the duty rosters for bridge crew, but by long-standing tradition the captain had the right to choose whatever shift he liked.  Somewhat to her surprise, although not entirely to her dismay, Captain Blake hadn't chosen
any
duty shift for himself.  She’d organised a rotating shift consisting of herself, Mason, Reed and Parkinson, but she had no idea what the captain had in mind.  Ironically, she knew she would have been relieved if the captain had openly stated he wouldn't be taking shifts when the ship wasn't actually heading into a combat situation.

“Maybe you could just claim the role by default,” Mason said.  “How long would you need to be an
acting
captain before they had to promote you anyway?”

“There’s no fixed limit,” Susan said.  In theory, anyone could be promoted to any rank, as long as it was an
acting
rank, but in practice it was rare for any such rank to be automatically confirmed.  “I could be the effective commanding officer for years and still not automatically succeed Captain Blake.”

“Something has to be done,” Mason said.  “We’re heading out for war games, remember, with Admiral Boskone in command.  I wouldn’t put good money on
him
not noticing Captain Blake’s ... issues.  He’d go through the roof.”

Susan nodded, curtly.  She’d heard of Admiral Boskone.  He’d been a Commodore during the Anglo-Indian War, then promoted to serve as commanding officer of the border guards for two years.  He had a reputation for being a sharp-tongued bastard, although no one doubted his tactical skill.  She rather doubted he would be pleased if the Royal Navy lost the war games because of
Vanguard’s
commanding officer.

“Maybe I should speak to him bluntly,” she mused.

Mason looked up.  “Admiral Boskone?”

“Captain Blake,” Susan corrected.  She looked down at her mug and scowled.  “Tell him that he needs to buck up before Admiral Boskone takes a good hard look at his records.”