Dark Running (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 4) (56 page)

Alex stayed out of it, though, moving quietly to the other side of sickbay – he was not, and never had been, the kind of man who could give hugs when someone was crying. He didn’t think Banno would thank him for it, anyway, even if he tried. So he turned his back and pretended to be occupied at the micro-galley where Rangi kept his tea-making things. He only had to do that for a couple of minutes before he heard Banno catch his breath and mumble that he was fine, thanks. By the time he walked over there and handed the crewman a mug of tea, Banno was wiping his eyes and assuming the slightly huffy manner of a man attempting to restore his dignity.

‘Ta.’ Banno took the mug from him, looking grateful when he saw that it was a proper mug of rich brown tea and not one of Rangi’s herbal concoctions. ‘Thanks, skipper,’ he said, and took a sip, or at least, put the mug to his lips for a moment. It seemed to help steady him, anyway, though his expression was becoming accusing again as he looked past Alex to where Simon was still lounging on the table. ‘You…’ he started, then remembered Fleet rules again. ‘You
swine
,’ he amended, and added, fervently, ‘Your bedside manner
sucks
, Simon!’

‘So people tell me,’ said Simon, unrepentant. ‘But it works, doesn’t it? I believe we have now successfully bridged psychological rejection of a transplanted limb. Congratulations, Banno – and say thank you, I just saved you weeks of therapy.’

Banno couldn’t help grinning, though he shook his head, too.

‘I still can’t quite…’ he admitted, and gave Alex an appealing look. ‘They told me it was the Marfikians,’ he said. ‘I don’t remember anything about it – last thing I remember, we were following the Samartians, then I wake up here and they tell me I’ve been out for days and I’ve got a new leg. It’s a lot to handle, skipper.’

‘Yes, of course it is,’ Alex agreed. ‘But just take your time, Mr Triesse. We came under attack from three Marfikian Thorns, all right? We took three hits from them – one took out the section eight airlock, another stripped off the for’ard docking bay and the third blew up the air processing unit on the mess deck. You were badly injured – missing a leg, obviously, and with internal injuries – so you were kept in stasis for three days till they were ready to operate. Dr Penarth says that you’re fully restored and will make a full recovery.’

Banno gave him a haunted look. ‘How many did we lose?’ he asked, and then corrected himself. ‘
Who
did we lose?’

Alex glanced over at the screen which concealed the tank in which Ali Jezno was twitching as his brain buzzed with sensory input.

‘You and Ali Jezno were the most serious casualties,’ he said. ‘We’re still waiting for the outcome of his surgery, but we’re optimistic.’

Banno looked a bit confused. ‘Nobody died?’ he queried. ‘We got hit by three Marfikian Thorns and
nobody
died?’

‘No, I promise,’ Alex said, seeing that Banno thought they were keeping the true casualties from him while he was still recovering from his own injuries. ‘Mr Jezno has serious head injuries, then there’s you. Sub-lt Lucas had a broken leg, other than that, we suffered nothing more than bruises. The three Thorns, incidentally, were all destroyed.’

Banno looked amazed. ‘By the Samartians?’

‘Well, by us, technically, though the Samartians kept blocking their escape so they were forcing them back into range of our guns.’ Alex said. ‘The Samartians took some damage, too – one of their ships was disabled but two others managed to salvage it. Firefly took out one of the Thorns; our guns accounted for the others.’

He knew how Banno would react to that, and he was right. Banno’s astonishment turned to incredulous delight.

‘We
won
?’ He exclaimed. ‘My God, we
won
?’

Alex nodded, giving him a grin, and Banno gave a yell that was almost a scream.

‘Oh my God, I’d have given
both
legs for that!’ he declared, making all of them laugh. ‘Can I see it, skipper? Is there footage?’

‘There is, and yes you can, though maybe not right now,’ Alex said, aware of Rangi’s quick shake of the head. ‘It’s late, and I think you’re supposed to be resting.’

‘Tomorrow,’ Rangi confirmed. ‘I’ll go through all the footage with you tomorrow, Banno.’

‘Okay, okay, I know, I get it, too much to handle all at once. Focus on recovering,’ he gave a sigh. ‘I suppose I’ll have to do all that ‘learning to walk again’ stuff.’

‘You suppose wrong, then.’ Simon put in, sounding quite indignant. ‘What kind of half-baked quack do you take me for? I spent three and a half hours triggering motor neuron responses, let me tell you, and if that leg doesn’t work first time out of the shop I will let you bring it back for a refund.’

Banno shook his head again. ‘That guy is
nuts
,’ he told Alex, as if Alex didn’t know that already.

‘That guy,’ Alex said, without emphasis, ‘has spent about forty hours putting you back together.’

‘Oh.’ Banno considered that, and gave Simon an abashed look. ‘Well – sorry I said – well…
Thanks
.’

Simon grinned amicably and held out his hand, and without even thinking about it, Banno slipped off the bunk he was sitting on and shook hands with him. He was doing that before he realised that he was standing up – standing strong and naturally, on both feet. He yelped a bit and wobbled with sheer surprise, but Simon steadied him with a grip on his forearm, then released him with a laugh.

Alex had rarely seen anything quite so wonderful as the look on Banno Triesse’s face as he realised he was standing unaided and took his first, tentative step.

‘Yup,’ Simon said, drawing up his own feet to sit cross-legged on the table, surveying Banno with all the pride of ownership. ‘I do
bleeping
good work.’

He got no argument on that from any of them, though Rangi helped Banno back into bed and settled him there, reminding him that he was post-operative and should take it easy for a while.

Banno accepted that, though he asked, as Rangi tucked him in, ‘Can I see Mako?’

Rangi looked surprised. ‘What, right now?’

‘Just for a minute,’ Banno asked, with a rueful note. ‘I know what he’s like, see – he’ll be beating himself up over this, for sure.’ He looked at Alex, who smiled wry confirmation.

‘We’ve had enough high emotion in here for one night,’ Simon said, and Rangi nodded agreement.

‘I think it would be best if you leave it till tomorrow,’ he said. ‘But I’ll tell him you’re all right and pass on a message to him, if you like.’

‘Thanks.’ Banno considered for a moment, and asked, ‘Tell him ‘No bad, all good,’ would you? He’ll get that.’

‘Will do,’ Rangi promised. ‘Now, get some rest, okay?’

Banno acquiesced, so Alex went over to say goodnight. He felt intensely proud of the crewman, not just for the way he was coping with his injury but for the fact that his thoughts, even now, were not for himself but for his friend, worried at how bad Mako would be feeling. Alex could hardly believe that he had ever had his doubts about taking Banno Triesse aboard his ship. The man was solid gold.

‘Goodnight, Mr Triesse.’ Alex gave him a slightly awkward handshake with the crewman lying down, but a nod and commendation which his crew knew came from the heart. ‘You’ll do,’ he said, and went out, then, leaving Banno grinning proudly.

He saw Rangi, a little later, talking to Mako on mess deck four – they were sitting at a two-seater semi together, Mako wiping his eyes and Rangi talking gently. The people walking past or sitting at nearby tables totally ignoring them were not being callous; far from it. On a ship with such little physical privacy, custom and practice created a small, invisible cocoon around people who were obviously having private conversations. Alex didn’t intrude on them, either, not zoning in audio to hear what they were saying and only watching for a couple of seconds, a glance to assure himself that Mako was going to be all right.

Then he got back to work, trying to keep up with data.

Twenty

They had two days to work on the first contact data before the Samartians contacted them again. This time it was a blunt, confrontational message.

‘This is not true.’

Part of the first contact pack they had sent the Samartians had been a map-based manifest of the ship’s company. It contained a map of the League with a side-map indicating Pirrell. Everyone aboard the ship was identified with a mini-biography tagged to their homeworld. Each biography contained their official ID holo, name, age and rank or role aboard the ship, together with a brief paragraph each of them had written about themselves.

The Samartians had isolated some of these biographies, and sent them back to the Heron. The one which was attached to the ‘This is not true’ statement was Shion’s. The next was Davie North’s.

‘This is disgusting.’ The translation matrix had improved tremendously during the last few days, as it had such a wealth of material to work on, and the translation ‘disgusting’ carried a high degree of certainty.

The matrix had hesitated over the next statement, offering two possible translations with equal weight of probability.

‘This is ludicrous/fantasy.’ There were several biographies tagged to that; the only thing they had in common was that they were all the civilians aboard the ship.

The final statement was entirely clear.

‘You insult us with this garbage.’

‘Ah,’ said Alex, regretfully. He and Buzz exchanged wry looks as Alex opened the Big Picture Briefing file and entered a ‘hold’ note.

He and Buzz had developed the Big Picture Briefing between them, during the Novamas operation. It was something they’d come up with after finding that there was no ‘how to’ guide to steer them through telling people very high impact information about alien species. The Big Picture Briefing began by assessing where someone was on an awareness scale and progressing them through a step by step disclosure. Part of the process involved continuous assessment of how well the recipient was coping, with an immediate ‘hold’ peg if any signs of panic were detected. One of those signs was angry denial.

‘To be expected,’ Buzz observed, with a philosophical air. The Samartians, after all, had started from a position of very near zero on that scale, with virtually no knowledge of worlds beyond their own. It was hardly surprising that they would find this hard to cope with.

‘Absolutely,’ Davie North observed, and gave a slightly rueful smile himself as he addressed Alex. ‘Ditch me,’ he advised. ‘Tell them that I am regarded as a freak even by our own people and that they need not have anything to do with me.’

Alex took a moment to realise he was serious, then continued staring at him.

‘Absolutely
not!’
he said, in a tone which did not simply close the door on that suggestion but locked, bolted and laser-sealed it with duralloy welding.

Davie, however, was not a man who recognised locked doors.

‘Look, you
have
to,’ he insisted. ‘It was always a possibility, given that they have been at war with a genetically modified race for more than a thousand years, that they would regard anyone genetically enhanced as an object of horror, and you have to know that they are not alone in that. You have to disassociate yourself – diplomacy 101, okay? Pawn sacrifice, relationship rescue, whatever you want to call it, the fact is that if my involvement is a problem for the relationship then you
have
to disassociate, simple as that!’

‘No.’ Alex’s tone was uncompromising, and as Davie opened his mouth to protest, it became severe. ‘
No
, Mr North. I will not disassociate from you, and this is not open to discussion.’

‘Are you
insane
?’ Davie’s voice was rising as he realised just how adamant the captain was on this. ‘Alex!’ he burst out, so urgent that he didn’t even notice, himself, that he called the skipper by his first name. ‘You can’t do this! This alliance is far
far
more important than any individual. If the cost of it is shoving me out of an airlock, you do it!’

It was apparent that he meant that, that he would consider even his own life to be less important than what they might achieve, here.

‘The benefits to the League in this alliance are incredible, and I am nothing,
nothing
, unless I serve that! You just can’t…’ he broke off momentarily as Alex held up a hand to quiet him, but only to continue even more desperately, ‘No, you
can’t
shut me up! I’m the official Diplomatic Corps consultant, here, you
have
to listen to me. My presence is a block to relationship building, so you
have
to take me out of the equation, you just
have
to! Any other course would be insanely irresponsible!’ Seeing no change in Alex’s expression, he turned to Buzz. ‘
Tell
him!’ he appealed.

Buzz, however, just looked at Alex himself, his own manner very thoughtful, and said nothing.

‘Davie,’ Alex said, very deliberately, and as Davie’s eyes shot back to him, as startled as they were distressed, ‘Trust me.’