Vanguard (Ark Royal Book 7) (18 page)

George stared at him.  “How?”

The Boatswain met her eyes.  “How long has Fraser been a midshipman?”

“Six years,” George said.  She’d looked it up.  “But only six ...”

“Most midshipmen are promoted to lieutenant within their second or third year of service,” the Boatswain noted.  “It keeps a steady turnover of midshipmen in middy country - the midshipmen who are not promoted are often reassigned, in the hopes they’ll have a chance to shine on another ship.  The post of first middy is therefore passed down as the senior midshipman jumps up the ladder.”

He clicked the autopilot on, then turned to face her.  “A midshipman who remains in that rank for longer than four years has a problem,” he added.  “Have you ever heard of the lemon car dilemma?”

George shook her head, wordlessly.

“It was something of a problem when I was a kid,” the Boatswain said.  “If you wanted to buy a new car, well, it could cost something around twenty thousand pounds.  Most of us couldn’t hope to afford it, of course; there were laws against lending money to people with poor financial prospects.  That was after the economic crash, of course ...”

He shrugged.  “Assuming you
did
manage to buy a new car, its value instantly declined by at least a third,” he told her.  “Why do you think that was the case?”

George considered it.  “Because it was no longer
new
?”

“True,” the Boatswain said.  “But there’s another reason.  No one would
sell
a new car unless there was something wrong with it.  Therefore, no one would
buy
a second-hand car when it had barely been used.  The more pristine it seemed, the more suspicious they’d be ...”

“And a midshipman who’s served six years without being promoted ... people assume there’s something wrong with him,” George said.  She saw what he’d meant, now.  “There’s no hope of either being promoted or being transferred?”

“Correct,” the Boatswain said.  “And young Mr. Fraser has the added humiliation of watching younger midshipmen being promoted ahead of him.”

George stared down at her hands.  “That doesn't excuse him for picking on me!”

“No, it doesn't,” the Boatswain said.  He met her eyes, evenly.  “People lie; not just to others, which is
marginally
understandable, but to themselves.  Mr. Fraser has become convinced that the
reason
he hasn't been promoted is because countless others, all far less qualified than himself, are being jumped ahead of him.  He’s told himself that so often, I suspect, that trying to convince him otherwise would be a waste of time.  He hates you because he thinks you’ll be promoted as soon as it’s legally possible.  And you’ll take a slot he could have filled himself.”

“But no one is using influence on my behalf,” George protested.

The Boatswain looked ...
irked
.  “Can you
prove
it?”

“You can't prove a negative,” the Boatswain said.  “Mr. Fraser knows he isn't likely to see promotion, not now he’s been a midshipman for too long.  And the hell of it is that he
isn't
a bad first middy, as long as he keeps his head out of his ass.  He really should have been promoted a long time ago.”

George met his eyes.  “Why wasn't he?”

“That isn't a question I can answer,” the Boatswain said.  “And I
advise
” - his voice hardened - “you to be careful who you ask.”

“I could
order
you to tell me,” George said.

Oddly, the Boatswain seemed pleased by her remark.  “I would have to refuse,” he said, “but at least you thought of it.”

George looked down at her hands.  Who
could
she ask?  The XO wouldn’t answer, she was sure, and she didn't dare ask the captain.  Commander Mason had seemed nice enough - and he
had
served on
Vanguard
for two years - but she doubted they could sit down and have a pleasant chat.  And none of the midshipmen would know, not if there
had
been a steady turnover.  If something had happened, early in Fraser’s career, they might not know what it had been ...

“I won’t order you to do anything,” she said, “but please could you tell me what I should do?”

“You have several options,” the Boatswain said.  “You
could
always complain to your relatives.”

“That would let him win,” George said, stubbornly.  “I want to make it on my own.”

“He
has
to,” the Boatswain said.  He took a breath.  “You could just tough it out, if you wish, or you could challenge him directly.”

George frowned.  “A challenge?”

“Midshipmen are expected to settle any disputes amongst themselves,” the Boatswain said, simply.  “That’s what the first middy is
for
.  Bringing in higher authority ... well, let’s say that rarely ends well for everyone.  It’s only done in the worst possible situations.”

“And this isn't?”

“No, it isn’t,” the Boatswain said.  “There was a scandal, ten years before the war, when a first middy was prostituting the midshipmen under his command.”

George stared at him.  “How ... how did that happen?”

“It’s amazing what you can get away with if you have the nerve,” the Boatswain said.  “I suspect the newcomers assigned to the ship were bullied into working for him.  He was hanged, along with three of his accomplices, and most of the ship’s crew were dishonourably discharged.  Fraser, whatever his faults, isn't anything like them.”

“No,” George agreed.  She’d been naked in front of Fraser, but he hadn't tried to
do
anything to her.  The academy tutors had made it clear that relationships between midshipmen who shared the same sleeping compartment were forbidden.  “He’s not that bad.”

“Then you can get through to him,” the Boatswain said.  “But some people need to be smacked in the face before they learn.”

George sighed.  She had a lot to look up in the files, it seemed.  “Why?”

“Human nature,” the Boatswain said.  “We are programmed to respect strength and determination.  Submission, surrender, appeal to higher authority ... we emotionally scorn them, even when rationality tells us otherwise.  Why do you think there are so many remakes of
Captain America
?”

“He never surrenders,” George said.

“He
never
surrendered,” the Boatswain said.  “
That’s
why we like him.  Even when he was a skinny little runt, he never surrendered.”

Chapter Seventeen

“He froze up in the middle of a fucking war zone,” Susan hissed.

“The battle was won,” Mason pointed out.  “And we acquitted ourselves well in the later battles.”

Susan bit off a curse she
knew
her father would have slapped her for saying out loud.  The captain had been lucky, amazingly lucky.  Any halfway competent post-battle analysis would have turned up proof that Captain Blake had frozen, but Admiral Boskone had been too pleased to order a full investigation.  The mock skirmishes that the Royal Navy had lost would draw much more attention, at least for the next few months.  And then ...

“If we take it to the admiral,” she said, “what happens next?”

“We get in deep shit for not reporting it earlier,” Mason said, bluntly.  “Or we get steamrollered by Captain Blake’s connections for daring to question his competence.”

Susan stared down at her hands, feeling helpless.  She knew how to deal with crewmen, junior officers and balky machinery, but the academy had never taught her how to deal with a captain who was ... what?  A coward?  Mentally unstable?  Promoted well past his competence level?  All of a sudden, she thought she understood
precisely
why Commander Bothell had deserted.  He’d spent the last five years of his career covering for his superior.

“Someone will run an analysis of the first engagement eventually,” she said, grimly.  “And when they do, they’ll realise just how badly we screwed up.”

Mason shrugged.  “Both sides made mistakes,” he pointed out.  “If the Americans had launched from further out, they might have had a good chance to blow us out of space before we caught up with their carriers.”

“We should have reacted faster,” Susan said.  “We
cannot
afford another incident like that in a combat situation.”

She glared at the deck.  The recordings from the engagement should be enough to justify relieving Captain Blake of command - she had no doubt that Admiral Boskone would be furious, if they were brought to his attention - but her career would probably be doomed too, no matter what happened to the captain.  Even someone who understood her position would ask why she hadn't alerted the Admiralty earlier, even if she hadn't relieved the captain of command personally.

And if someone doesn’t understand my position
, she thought,
I can bend over and kiss my career goodbye
.

“You could ask the doctor to take a look at him,” Mason suggested.  “The doctor could relieve him of command ...”

“The doctor would have to satisfy a medical board that the captain was dangerously unfit for command,” Susan reminded him.  She picked up her datapad and opened the captain’s file, checking to see when he’d had his last routine check-up, then cursed as she realised Doctor Chung’s predecessor had carried out the examination shortly before leaving the ship.  “And we’d need grounds to urge the doctor to order an exam.”

“We have grounds,” Mason said.  “He froze up in combat.”

“Which could easily be justified as being surprised,” Susan sneered.  She rose and paced around the cabin, trying to think.  What the hell should she do?  “If we take this to the admiral, we just have to explain too much.”

She kicked the bulkhead, hard.  A rock and a hard place ... stay where she was and await the inevitable moment when someone ran an analysis and exposed the captain’s failings or report the captain, knowing it would probably destroy her career.  Even if she didn't lose her rank, officially, what commanding officer would want a sneak under his command?  It wasn't a rational objection, but she knew it would be made. 
No one
would accept an XO who’d betrayed her commanding officer.

“I think the bulkhead’s designed to stand up to laser warheads,” Mason said.  “But keep kicking it if you wish.”

Susan shot him a nasty look.  “Do you have any other suggestions?”

Mason scowled.  “Try and ask Doctor Chung to carry out an examination anyway,” he said, after a moment.  “It could be billed as part of the war games ...”

“The captain wouldn't buy that argument,” Susan said.  “And Doctor Chung wouldn't be keen on cooperating.”

She sighed, inwardly.  Captains were notoriously hard to force into sickbay for a medical examination, something that had puzzled her until she’d realised that the ship’s doctor was the only person who could legally relieve the captain without a very good reason.  No captain would gracefully submit to an examination; no doctor would willingly abuse their position, knowing that it would cost them far too much.  Captain Blake couldn’t be pushed into having a medical exam for at least another three months, unless he suffered an accident ...

The buzzer rang.  Susan blinked - she wasn’t expecting visitors - and snapped out the open command.  The hatch hissed open, revealing the Boatswain.  He was carrying a small bag under one arm, which shifted as he snapped to attention.

“Chief,” Susan said, surprised.  “What can I do for you?”

“I have the latest reports for you,” the Boatswain said.  He was an older man, old enough to pass for Susan’s father.  He’d spent nearly twice as long as Susan herself in the navy.  “If you wish to inspect them ...?”

Susan picked up on the unspoken message and nodded.  “Paul, I’ll talk to you later,” she said, briskly.  “Meet me after your next duty shift.”

“Aye, Commander,” Mason said.

“Chief,” Susan said, once the hatch had hissed closed behind Mason.  “How long have you served on this ship?”

“I was assigned to her five years ago, back when she was really nothing more than a framework, Commander,” the Boatswain said.  “They built the armoured hull around me.”

Susan had to smile. 
She’d
served on four starships before transferring to
Vanguard
, but
she
was an officer and officers were almost always transferred after their first promotions.  A crewman, on the other hand, or a non-commissioned officer might spend his entire career on a single ship.  The Boatswain was unusual in having been transferred around, although - if she recalled correctly - his previous ship had been decommissioned and sold to Japan.

She hesitated, then took the plunge.  “Chief, I need to ask you a question, off the record,” she said.  “What happened to Captain Blake?”

The Boatswain studied her for a long moment.  Susan understood his concern.  Asking a crewman, even a senior chief, about the captain wasn't just a severe breach of military etiquette, it was technically against regulations.  But if there was anyone on
Vanguard
who might know what had happened to the captain, it was her longest-serving crewman.  The Boatswain would have heard all manner of rumours as they filtered through the hull ...

“I heard there was an ...
incident
on his last command,” the Boatswain said, finally.  “He wasn't the same afterwards, or so I heard.”

Susan frowned as some of the pieces fell into place.  An
incident
covered a multitude of possible disasters, but if one of them had shocked the captain so badly he’d developed mental health problems ... it might explain a great deal.  She'd assumed he’d been promoted to a point just above his level of competence, yet if he had
been
competent no red flags would have been raised.  There would have been no
reason
to raise them.

She met his eyes.  “Do you know what happened?”

“No, Commander,” the Boatswain said.  “Commander Bothell was the only other transfer from his former command, I believe, and he was a very private man.  Highly competent, very capable, but not inclined to sit back and just chat.”

Susan nodded slowly.  None of the senior officers had known Commander Bothell very well, although they’d clearly respected him.  And Commander Bothell had clearly been loyal to his commanding officer, right up until he’d deserted.  Or suffered an accident.  There was no way to know, but he’d left Susan with an ungodly mess.

And what would I do
, she asked herself,
if a commanding officer I respected and admired needed me to cover for him
?

“Thank you,” she said.  She'd have to find a way to get the captain into sickbay for an exam, even if it risked her career.  There was no other choice.  “Now, I assume you didn't just come to talk to me about shuttlecraft reports?”

“No, Commander,” the Boatswain said.  “You may have a problem in middy country.”

***

There had been a joke at the academy, George recalled, about some mythical entity called ‘free time.’  Younger cadets had been sent on snipe hunts, the joke went, for scant hours when there was nothing to do, but kick back and relax.  She hadn’t really understood the joke until she’d been commissioned and assigned to
Vanguard
, where free time was almost non-existent for junior midshipmen.  It had taken hours of haggling with Nathan and Midshipman Walter Haworth to get even an hour of free time.

She slipped into the privacy compartment, hoping desperately that no one had seen her enter, and locked the hatch behind her.  By long tradition, no one entered a locked privacy compartment unless the ship had to rush to battlestations; she’d heard stories of half-dressed crewmen trying frantically to pull on their clothes while rushing to their duty stations.  None of the stories were actually true, she suspected, but it hardly mattered.  Anyone who saw her entering the compartment - alone - might start off a new series of rumours.

The bunk looked clean, but she decided it would be better to sit on the deck instead as she pulled out her datapad and connected it to the starship’s datanet.  She wasn't surprised to discover, as she thumbed through the files, that a large number were classified well above her pay grade, yet the basic personnel files were open to all.  Her own file contained little more than a note of her academy rankings - any notes made by her superiors were hidden from her - but anyone who had more than a little experience in data-mining could probably draw lines between her and her uncle.  The name alone was a bit of a giveaway.

It’s not like we’re the only people with the name Fitzwilliam
, she told herself, crossly. 
But we are the first ones any naval officer will consider
.

Shaking her head, she looked up Fraser’s file and frowned.  Fraser had been assigned to
Vanguard
for three years, something that puzzled her until she realised he’d actually been on the ship while she was still in the shipyard.  She tried to parse out a reason for his assignment to an incomplete ship, but nothing came to light.  Whatever notes his superiors had attached to his file, and she was sure there had to be
something
, weren't open to her.  His previous assignment had been a carrier ... and he’d been transferred, instead of being promoted.

Odd
, she thought.  Had something happened to deny Fraser promotion? 
Did he screw up or did someone screw with his career
?

The file offered no clues.  Fraser couldn't have screwed up royally or he would have been reassigned to a mining station or simply dishonourably discharged from the Royal Navy.  But if he’d made an enemy amongst the senior officers ... even a mere second lieutenant could cripple a midshipman’s career, if he said the right words in the right ears.  And reassigning him to an incomplete starship might have been a deliberate slap in the face.  But, no matter what she did, she couldn't find any further data from the files.

She gritted her teeth, then brought up the complete registry of midshipmen assigned to
Vanguard
and worked her way through their files.  Fraser was the longest-serving by over two years, she noted; the other midshipmen had been promoted and transferred within two years of their assignment.  The Boatswain had been correct, she saw; indeed, he’d understated the situation.  Fraser was doomed to remain first middy on
Vanguard
for the remainder of his career.

Unless he requests a transfer himself
, she thought. 
But being a midshipman for so long would ensure he wouldn't get a post on another starship
.