Martial Law 1: Patriotic Treason (30 page)

He paused. “At ease, by the way,” he added. “You’re a Lieutenant now. You’re allowed to relax slightly in the presence of your Captain.”

“I understood that to be the case,” I said. “I was sorry to hear that Lieutenant Hatchet had left this ship.”

“Command has seen fit to grace me with several green Ensigns and Lieutenants again,” the Captain said, tiredly. “I’m relieved to see you – I approved your transfer despite some pressure from other quarters – because you were already familiar with Lieutenant Hatchet’s methods for breaking in new Ensigns. That will be your job as well as the other duties that come with the position.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. I had forgotten that detail – I remembered what we’d been like as Ensigns and shuddered – but there was no getting out of it now. “She taught me how to deal with them, sir.”

“And of course you will remember what it was like to be young and unformed yourself,” the Captain continued. He straightened up himself and looked into my eyes. It was almost like he had returned to his old personality. “You are not just to be another Lieutenant on this vessel, John. As First Lieutenant, you are expected to be my tactical alter ego, advising me and, if necessary, disagreeing with me. You won’t find it easy, so let me assure you from the start that you may speak freely to me at all times.”

“I never saw Lieutenant Hatchet disagreeing with you,” I said, puzzled. “I don’t recall that at all.”

“Lieutenant Hatchet spoke to me in private about any doubts or issues she had,” the Captain explained. “You were never meant to hear anything that could cast doubt on my authority, or wisdom. Jason” – it took me a moment to realise that he meant the Political Officer – “would do the same. You’ll have to learn, John, but I’m sure that you can do it.

“We spent the last cruise patrolling and watching for pirates and we will be doing the same on this cruise,” he continued. “We’re supposed to be escorting several freighters to Botany – they may be targeted by wreckers, but not by common pirates – and then onwards to New Paris, before heading out for a circuit through the Beyond. It may not work out as planned. The last cruise left us all exhausted.”

“Yes, sir,” I said. If nothing else, it would give us time to break in the new Ensigns. “How far are we going to go into the Beyond?”

“Maybe a hundred light years,” the Captain said. “It may be slightly further, but it depends on what we find. We may even have to return to Earth or another fleet base sooner than we expect.”

I couldn’t keep the grin off my face. The Beyond referred to the space beyond the advancing wavefront of official human colonisation. Anything could be out there, from hidden human colonies to pirate bases and shipyards. It almost made up for the run to Botany. We might even discover the first non-human civilisation, although I wasn’t sure I wanted the UN to encounter them. The UN’s reaction to primitive groups on Earth and some of the colonies was generally to keep them primitive, in the theory that primitive cultures shouldn’t be allowed to vanish from the universe. It probably explained a lot about Muna’s history.

“It’s not that exciting,” the Captain warned. “The last two sweeps through the Beyond found nothing of interest, beyond a pair of habitable planets. You’ll probably find it rather boring.”

“It couldn’t be boring,” I said, shaking my head. How could I explain the thought of seeing emptiness that no one had ever seen before? “Ah, sir…I…”

“Never mind,” the Captain said. He grinned at me, and then softened. “Now, I want a full briefing on Heinlein – and I want the truth, nothing, but the truth.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, and started to talk.

It lasted nearly an hour. I’d started with the invasion and gone on to talk about how the war was progressing, although my information was at least a month out of date. I mentioned the strikes on civilians and how many innocents were being killed in the crossfire, but I didn’t mentioned anything about Ensign Gomez. I did mention that the reporters had been mostly killed in engagements in ‘safe’ areas, however.

“I have met a few reporters,” the Captain said, dryly. “You won't have to worry about them on this vessel.” I let out a sigh of relief. “You will have to take care of the Infantry Company we’re shipping to Botany, but they won’t be as bad.”

“No, sir,” I said, and kept my thoughts to myself. The Infantry had picked up a bad reputation on Heinlein, at least as far as I was concerned. “Why…?”

“Apparently someone at UNPF headquarters doesn’t quite trust the assurances that the troop transports are perfectly safe,” the Captain said. I couldn’t disagree with that unnamed officer, even if he had just condemned us to a crowded ship for the first two weeks of the voyage. “Botany doesn’t rate a high priority, so they’re just being dumped on us for the trip. We can’t put them in the barges or there’ll be a mutiny. They’re a good unit, so be nice to them. An old friend of mine is in command.”

“Yes, sir,” I said.

The Captain studied the starmap on his display for a long moment. “We’re scheduled to depart in two weeks,” he said. I nodded. That had been in the data pack that he’d forwarded to me, along with instructions on boarding. “You’ll have two days to adjust yourself to this ship - again – and then the Ensigns will arrive. You’ll have a proper First Ensign, at least, so that won’t be a problem. Stand watch tomorrow with me and we’ll run through a few drills.”

I wasn't deceived by his tone. He intended to put me though my paces…and it wouldn’t be easy. Captain Harriman wasn't known for sparing the rod when it came to drills; I’d be tested on everything, corrected firmly, and then tested again, and again. It had worked while I’d been an Ensign and would probably work again.

“Yes, sir,” I said, trying frantically to remember everything I would need to know. My mind seemed to have gone blank. I could barely even remember my name. “Tomorrow?”

“Get some rest,” the Captain ordered. He smiled suddenly, as if he had just thought of a joke. “Or catch up with old friends. I’ll see you on first watch.”

“Yes, sir,” I said, and saluted, before leaving the Captain’s cabin. I wasn't surprised to see that the Senior Chief had gone, leaving an Ensign in his place. He would have hundreds of things requiring his attention before we departed…but it took me a moment to realise that I recognised the Ensign. “Sally?”

“John…ah, Lieutenant,” First Ensign Sally Brenham said. There was a bitter tone in her voice. I’d served with her on the last cruise – how was she still an Ensign? She should have made Lieutenant by now. “Welcome onboard the Jacques Delors.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

The vast majority of UN Infantrymen, for various reasons, are not trained to the standards that the Marines or specialist Security Division units use. The net result is that most Infantry units are poorly led, poorly equipped and generally unsuitable for the type of war they are called upon to fight. While there are some capable and competent commanders in the UN Infantry, most of them find themselves marginalized. Their units are often asked to attempt the impossible.

-Thomas Anderson. An Unbiased Look at the UNPF. Baen Historical Press, 2500.

I had only been inside Lieutenant Hatchet’s cabin once, back when I’d been an Ensign. It had seem palatial to my young eyes, being almost large enough to swing a cat, with a large bunk and enough storage space for almost anything we could want. The Lieutenant in me wondered if there was enough space. I had picked up a few personal possessions along the way, as well as my dress uniform, ground-side uniform and various other items of clothing. I even had a bra that Kitty had given me as a joke, just before we parted and she went to her next posting. I missed her dreadfully already.

Sally hesitated on the outside of the cabin. “Come in,” I said, already feeling myself floundering. What did one say to a person who had once been your equal – and then First Ensign, making her my superior – and who was now a full rank-grade below? She clearly had the same problem. Technically, she should have saluted me, but I let it pass. There were no witnesses anyway. “Sally…why are you still here?”

The blunt question seemed to surprise her. I wasn't too surprised. I’d seen a handful of officers who’d spent too long in their grades ever to be promoted again and most people had tiptoed around them, afraid that failure would rub off on them and they’d be damned by association. Three years as an Ensign suggested that someone didn’t have a hope of advancement, but why? Sally hadn’t been incompetent, or stupid; Lieutenant Hatchet would never have allowed her to get away with it. She’d have been working off demerits for the entire voyage.

Her eyes, when she finally looked up at me, were raw and painful. “Just after you left,” she said, slowly. “Just after you left, we made the run to Albion again, carrying a new governor and his staff. The old one had suffered some kind of accident.”

I nodded. I could guess what form that accident had taken. Albion might not seethe with resistance, like Heinlein, but it was still unstable. The men and women who had been trying to escape the UN’s conscription program had probably escaped with the help of an underground resistance organisation, which might have started a new campaign of violence. Another world for the United Nations to occupy…if they could find the Infantry, after Heinlein.

“One of his staff was a Political Officer, but we didn’t know that,” Sally continued. “She seemed friendly and often engaged us on conversation and I shot my mouth off. She wanted my opinion of a few programs and…I told her just what I thought. I’d been assisting the Lieutenant with the logistics after you left and I knew enough to make a fool of myself. I thought it had gone well until I discovered that she’d entered a notation in my file forbidding further advancement.”

I winced. A Political Officer’s notation could be damning to a career. Nothing that Captain Harriman or his Political Officer could do would remove the blight from the file; whatever it said, it would prevent any further advancement. The only good thing about it was that it hadn’t seen her consigned to a deep-space fuelling station somewhere on the edge of the Beyond. Instead, she’d been left on a starship. I wasn't sure if that was kindness or an extra twist of the knife.

“And so, here I am,” Sally said. Her voice was bitter. “What’s the point of doing anything when there’s no hope of going any further?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. I wanted to tell her about my plans, but I didn’t dare, not yet. This wasn't the Sally I had once known, but a stranger consumed with bitterness and hatred, raging helplessly against the universe. Even if the notation were somehow removed from her file, she’d still be tainted by it…and her new attitude. On the other hand, I could use her. “Sally…we’ll find a way out, all right? I promise.”

“You can’t keep that promise,” Sally pointed out, angrily. “Part of me just wants to tell them to shove it and quit. The other part doesn’t want to give up the starship and service on her. John…why the fuck do I even care?”

A dozen possible answers ran through my mind, but I abandoned them all. They wouldn’t have made the situation any easier. “There are always possibilities,” I said. It sounded trite and I knew it, but I couldn’t tell her anything else just yet. “Listen. We will find a solution, one way or the other. Now, tell me about the ship and its new crew.”

“I shouldn’t even be socialising with you,” Sally pointed out, suddenly. I was surprised by her sudden grasp of regulations, and her willingness to heed them. “You’ll just have your career dragged down by mine.”

“It doesn’t matter,” I said, softly. “You should try serving on a monitor instead of this ship. That would give you a sense of perspective.”

I listened, carefully, as she talked about the other lieutenants, the ones I hadn’t met. They were all junior to me, having earned their promotions later, and had transferred in from other starships. The Captain had apparently decided that they all needed additional training and had run them through endless drills – I knew the procedure by now – until they improved. When Lieutenant Hatchet had left the ship, one of the new Lieutenants had served as First Lieutenant and succeeded in seriously annoying the Captain, enough for him to accept my transfer request. I hoped that that meant there wouldn’t be a second resentful officer onboard, but there was no way to know. If the Captain had been annoyed…it had to be bad.

“Oh, look at that,” I laughed suddenly. “She’s left me the horsewhip!”

Sally giggled, despite herself. Lieutenant Hatchet had decorated her cabin with a horsewhip she’d picked up from somewhere and she’d occasionally threatened to use it on us for a particularly disastrous failure, back when we’d been new and untrained Ensigns. No one had called her bluff and, as far as I knew, no one had ever been whipped. The Political Officer Sally had encountered sounded like an excellent choice for the first target.

“I think its her way of warning you not to fuck up her position,” Sally said. “Or perhaps its her way of telling you that she’ll be back. Take care of it, all right?”

I nodded. “I wouldn’t dare not take care of it,” I said. “She’d kill me.”

Sally finally left me to my cabin and I started to unpack my bags. I’d been impressed by the size of the cabin, but even so, my small number of possessions just seemed to rattle around in the compartment. Lieutenant Hatchet must have had hundreds of possessions, or – perhaps – she hadn’t been inclined to fill all her drawers. I wished, just for a moment, that she were still onboard. I knew so little about what I had to do. I didn’t even know how to console Sally. Lieutenant Hatchet would have known what to say, of course, but I didn’t. I just felt so helpless.