A Choice of Treasons (5 page)

“Yes, ma’am,” York said. No trial; it appeared the old broad was going to be an easy touch after all.

“Good,” she barked rather tersely. Again she looked down at the comp-tablet. “Now it’s customary that a crewmember’s civilian past is not held against him, but I’m free to consider it if I choose. Four months ago, while stealing an old woman’s purse, you struck her on the head with a blunt object, causing her death. I don’t mind telling you if you were to commit such a crime while under my command, I’d keelhaul you out to an appropriate set of coordinates then vent you.”

York didn’t like the way her voice hardened as she spoke. “What’s keelhauling?” he asked. “And what’s venting?”

Her voice cracked angrily. “Pray you never learn.

“Because of your age the civilian courts chose not to execute you, even though you had previously been arrested more than twenty times. And for reasons I still don’t understand, they pressed you into the navy instead of sentencing you properly, most unusual since the press gangs don’t ordinarily take capital offenders. But be that as it may, you joined this ship on the planet Dumark and since that time have been a continuing disciplinary problem for my subordinate officers. You’re conniving, deceitful and disobedient.”

“But I try,” York lied in a pleading voice.

“No you don’t,” she barked angrily. “ Your civilian rearing has taught you if you can get beyond the moment, then you can repeat any offense you wish as often as you wish, and probably get away with it. But here that will not be the case. You committed an act of gross insubordination while this ship was on alert status. You disobeyed a direct order and struck the NCO in charge of your station.”

“But he hit me first.”

Captain Jarwith’s eyes turned the color of steel and she growled, “Don’t say anything more.”

She paused, looked at him carefully for a moment, then barked out orders in a sequence of staccato commands. “I sentence you to thirty days unflavored protein cake and water, and thirty days suspension of pay. During that time you will be given the dirtiest, filthiest, most dangerous jobs on this ship, and when not on duty you will be confined in the brig. Do you have anything to say for yourself?”

York stifled a sigh of relief. The punishment was a harsh one, but it evidently could have been worse. He tried to look deeply remorseful, thinking he could steal real food and wheedle his way out of the brig when needed. “No, ma’am,” he said.

“Humph!” she growled. “No doubt you think you can get around this punishment in some way. But you need to learn I have absolute power over your life, your very existence, and I will tolerate nothing less than absolute and instant obedience from the likes of you. And to teach you that lesson I sentence you to fifty strokes of the lash.”

York frowned. “What’s a lash?”

Jarwith’s eyes turned almost sympathetic, and there was no joy in her voice. “The lash is a strip of hardened plast two millimeters thick, one centimeter wide and two meters long. It’s method of use is . . . well . . . it’s really quite impossible to describe.” She looked at the female marine guarding York and nodded. “Sergeant.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am,” the marine snapped crisply, then literally picked York up by the manacles on his wrists. He struggled but she cuffed him once across the jaw, then dropped him on his feet between the girders supporting two bulkheads. Two marines joined her and helped her manacle his wrists separately to the girders. York heard the unmistakable hum of a power knife as she cut away the back of his fatigues, then left him standing with his back bare and his arms spread wide.

An ominous figure stepped into York’s now limited field of view. It was human in shape, but encased head to foot in mottled gray-black plast, with a face hidden behind the silvery glare of a helmet visor. It was the first time York had ever seen a marine in full-combat plast-armor. Someone had made judicious use of black tape to obscure all identifying insignia, as well as the name stenciled on the marine’s chest plate.

The marine saluted Jarwith crisply. She returned the salute and handed him a long strap of transparent plast. He doubled it up in his right hand, then struck it against the armored gauntlet of his left. It cracked against the plast with a sharp snap, and York suddenly understood the
lash
.

The marine walked around him, behind him, out of his field of view. Jarwith remained in front of him, standing at arm’s length, her eyes filled with sadness. That scared York even more than had the whip-crack of the lash against the marine’s gauntlet.

“I’m sorry,” he pleaded. “I didn’t mean to do it. I won’t do it again.”

Jarwith shook her head and spoke without rancor. “Yes you did and yes you will, though I do believe at this moment you are truly sorry. But if I let you go now, you won’t learn the lesson you need to learn.”

She looked over York’s shoulder, nodded at the marine, said, “You may proceed.”

The metallic voice of the armored marine’s helmet speaker answered her. “Aye, aye, ma’am.”

There came no real warning beyond that, only a momentary delay, an infinitesimal instant during which York had enough time to hope he was mistaken about the nature of this punishment. Then he heard a loud snap, and a pencil thin line of searing, white-hot fire etched itself with infinitely painful slowness across the back of his shoulders. His universe exploded, expanding like the fireball of a warhead in deep space, then shrinking again to that thin, narrow line of incandescent pain. He screamed and pulled violently at his restraints, had a nightmarish vision of his back splitting open to disgorge gouts of fire.

The instant ended, and the metallic voice of the marine’s helmet speaker said, “One.”

There came no delay now, no moment of respite. A second line of pain cut into York’s back, burning its way this time across his ribs, and he disappeared for an instant into a gulf of black nothingness.

“Two,” the marine barked.

The lash struck a third time, “Three,” and a fourth, “Four.” Each time the marine voiced the count, and each time the blackness of an unknowing vacuum swallowed York for a longer and deeper moment, while between the strokes he screamed and cried and begged for mercy. For a few strokes he screamed almost continuously, until finally he was unable to scream at all. Then the black gulf devoured him and he felt nothing more . . .

Awareness returned slowly. He still hung by the manacles between the bulkheads, too exhausted to whimper or cry. His back was a smoldering cauldron of fire, and he could no longer distinguish the pain of the individual strokes. In front of him the ship’s doctor stood facing Jarwith, an injector in his hand. “That’ll keep him conscious,” the doctor said to Jarwith.

Jarwith nodded. “Any chance of permanent damage? It’d be a shame if he died.”

The doctor shook his head. “He’s young and strong. Probably be ok.”

Again Jarwith nodded. “Thank you.”

The doctor stepped out of York’s field of view while Jarwith came closer and filled it completely. Her eyes were now deeply sad. “The count stands at twenty-three,” she said. “I can’t let you pass out. You have to feel every stroke for it to do you any good, and you have to know I’m a hard woman with a hard job to do. And I want you to understand in the depths of your soul that I will do it.”

He could see lines of strain around her eyes as she looked at him, and he felt oddly sorry for her. Then suddenly she reached into a pocket, pulled out a length of some odd, brownish material about as big around as her thumb and a bit longer. “This is leather,” she said. “Real leather, the kind you don’t see any more, braided strips of treated cowhide. But then you probably don’t know what a cow is, do you?”

Without another word she thrust the plug of material edgewise into York’s mouth. It tasted strangely unfamiliar. “When the lash strikes again,” she said, “bite down on that. Bite down hard. It helps a little. Not much, but a little.” Then she turned her back on him, walked a few paces away, turned to face him again, and called loudly, “The count stands at twenty-three. Continue the sentence.”

CHAPTER 3: CONFRONTATION

“Cap’em.”

York came back from wherever he’d been.

“We’re about two minutes out from the embassy, sir.”

Without thought York said, “Computer,
higee
antidote, execute.” There came the all too familiar pinch in the side of his neck, then relief as the
higee
antidote flooded his system. “Computer, status, global, execute.” The inside of his visor flashed a detailed summary of his armor status: reactor pack levels and reserves; seal conditions; minor malfunctions flagged for repair at the next overhaul; maintenance status and schedules; his first aid reserves, which consisted primarily of drugs.

He put
One’s
outboard view on the inside of his visor, saw a large city sliding rapidly beneath
One’s
hull, a mix of old and new buildings. If they were closer to Luna he’d expect to see more plast, less stone and mortar.

He keyed his com. “When you get to the embassy, circle it once at a three hundred meters and give me a pan of the entire compound.”

“Yes, sir.”

Hackla kept them low, less of a target, skimming the roof-tops of a semi-residential district. The tallest structure in the area appeared to be the main embassy building standing on the horizon dead ahead. The pilot banked to one side, began a turn while decelerating and lifting the nose to gain altitude. The view in York’s visor suddenly shifted to a camera in the side of the craft, and as they rose above the city they circled the embassy slowly.

The embassy compound consisted of one large, square, six-story structure, several smaller buildings that were probably residential, what looked like a small barracks, and a large garage for surface craft. The whole was surrounded by a stone wall about three meters high, with wide avenues between buildings that had probably been spacious gardens, but now seethed with a mob that overflowed the compound wall and spilled out into the streets beyond, a sea of faces that swelled and rippled like the waters of some human ocean.

As Hackla banked
One
and began dumping altitude, a sharp ping reverberated through the gunboat’s hull, some fool with a rifle taking shots at
impers
.

A small crowd of people were gathered on the roof of the tallest building waving frantically at
One
as it approached. Vents and climate control equipment cluttered the roof, but there were also several stretchers lined up. York keyed his com. “Sergeant. Are you watching this?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Apparently our people only control the top two floors of that building. When we hit the DZ secure the roof and those two floors. There’s also a member of the royal family down there—one Princess Aeya, daughter of the emperor. Find her. Put one of your best people on her. Tell him to stay with her no matter what, and to keep her alive.”

“Think this is more than just a riot, Cap’em?”

“I’m not paid to think, Sergeant. Hackla, can you hover about ten centimeters above the roof?”

“You got it, sir.”

York switched to the pickups on his helmet, which gave him the illusion of a transparent visor, though to someone facing him it would appear an opaque, shiny black. The boat’s drive whined for a moment, then steadied to a low hum. “Cap’em, we’re zoned for drop.”

York popped the clips on his safety harness, stood, stepped up to the hatch. He slapped the hatch release, and with a hiss and outrush of air the hatch slid quickly into the bulkhead. He stepped out, dropped to the embassy roof, heard his marines fanning out behind him. Palevi and Tathit knew what to do without York’s interference.

Harshaw stepped in front of him. “Lieutenant Ballin, you can’t believe how happy we are to see you.”

York flipped his visor up, and with it open the chant coming from the mob below was a deafening roar. Behind Harshaw a cluster of people were crowded about a single stretcher. “Who’s on the stretcher?” York asked.

Harshaw looked over his shoulder. “Lady Sylissa d’Hart. She’s—”

“Where’s the princess?”

Harshaw flinched at the interruption. “She’s the young one,” he said, indicating a young girl in her mid teens, wearing an unadorned coverall, kneeling beside the stretcher. She was crying.

York stepped around Harshaw to the stretcher. The princess looked up and stood to face him. Harshaw bowed deeply. York bowed too, but in the armor he was limited to a much shallower bow, and he saw the princess’ eyes flash angrily at what she ignorantly considered an affront. She started to say something but stopped suddenly, and looking over York’s shoulder she demanded angrily, “Where’s it going?”

“
One
lifting,” Hackla said on the com, “clearing for
Two
.”

“There isn’t room for two boats on the roof,” York said, “not if it isn’t absolutely necessary.” As an after-thought he added, “Your Highness.”

“But Syl’s hurt,” she pleaded, “badly. We have to get her up to your ship now, before she dies.”