Rich Man's War (9 page)

“Oh my god,” Vanessa breathed. “Scheherazade.” She expanded the star chart and traced out a couple of routes, looking at the time frames to each and growing visibly concerned.

“What is it?” asked Sarah.

Vanessa’s eyes flicked back up to hers. She waved a hand through the displays to close them all up. “I have to go off-planet. Immediately. Sarah, I hate to do this, but I have to hand you off to one of the other operatives here on Fairhaven. We need to extract you. I think we’ve got time for you to resign and leave gracefully or come up with some other cover story, but I’ll let you work that out with him.”

“I—extraction? You’re sure?
What’s going on?”

“Sarah, I can’t explain, but I have to get this information off-planet right away, and I can’t make any sure predictions of what will happen when I deliver it. I’ll be in transit for a while, but pretty soon after that, NorthStar may realize there’s a leak and start investigating. It may come to nothing, and it may be fine, but things could get very ugly. I don’t want you exposed.

“This is the end of the line. You’ve done more than anyone could’ve asked of you already.”

“Do you think,” Sarah asked, choosing her words carefully, “there’s more for me to do?”

“I don’t make policy. You have to understand that. I can’t tell you what will be done with this information. I swear to God I won’t leave you hanging and I don’t believe for a second anyone above me would, either, but screw-ups happen. All I know for sure is that I have to jump on a situation before it unfolds, which means I don’t have time to consult with the higher-ups. It happens in my job. Part of operating light-years away from the office.” She shrugged. “Since I don’t know how this will turn out, it might be better to just tell you everything will be fine, but I can’t do that. It wouldn’t be right.”

Sarah looked her in the eye. “That’s the other reason I never turned you in,” she said quietly. “You’re the only one who played straight with me.”

* * *

“Three contacts within our bubble: one Hashemite freighter, one Hashemite liner, one Lai
Wa destroyer. Courses for the liner and destroyer are holding as listed, freighter has parked for repairs, and all have returned salutations. We had an inbound private yacht blow through here kinda fast just a bit ago, but that’s about the only interesting thing that’s happened. Comms traffic with the consulate on Scheherazade and our friendly ships in the area have been quiet. EM1 Cervantes has just assumed the watch in engineering. Any questions?”

“Nope,” Tanner shook his head, taking in the three-dimensional projection representing two light minutes of space around
Joan of Arc
. Other contacts and points of navigation beyond the “two-minute bubble” floated at the edge of the projection in alternate colors to make them easier to differentiate from closer contacts. Traffic in and out of Scheherazade stayed light to Tanner’s thinking, but then, he’d never traveled outside of Archangel before now. He knew his basis for comparison was therefore a bit thin. “Looks like it’s all under control.”

Sanjay slid the log book across the astrogation table to Tanner. “All yours,” Sanjay said, looking down with dark eyes while Tanner signed in as the helmsman of the watch.

“You are relieved,” said Tanner.

“Aye, aye,” nodded Sanjay.

“Deck officer, I have the helm,” said Tanner.

“Deck officer,” said Sanjay, “I stand relieved.”

“Crewman Malone has the helm,” answered Chief Romita from the port-side chair. The ops specialist leaned around to look back and ask, “Tanner, did you see the XO down there? He coming up?”

“Captain asked to see him before he went on watch. Said he’d only be a couple minutes.”

“Hope so,” Romita yawned, covering his whole face with his hands. “I am wiped out.”

“Better tank up on the caffeine, buddy,” Sanjay counseled, slapping his hands on the ops specialist’s shoulders. “Gonna be drill, drill, drill again today as soon as we’re done with breakfast!”

“I’m so tired I can hardly smell your sarcasm,” groaned the older man.

“What? Sarcasm? Me?” Sanjay stepped back to make exaggerated gestures of shock and innocence. “Why would you think I’m being sarcastic? I love drills! What’s better than spending all day pretending the fuckin’ ship’s about to ex
plode? Am I right Tann—oh.” Embarrassment brought his rant to a sudden halt. Sanjay made an apologetic face, scratching the black stubble of his scalp. “Uh. Wow. You know I didn’t mean anything, right?”

“I’ll back him up on that,” said a woman’s voice from the rear of the bridge. All eyes turned that way as the captain entered. “Sanjay can go pretty low, but the only way he’d sink that low is if he tripped… over his foot while it was on
its way into his mouth.”

The two crewmen came to attention and saluted as Romita stood to do the same. Kelly returned the motion quickly, murmured, “As you were,” and kept a mildly disapproving yet amused look fixed on Sanjay.

“Well, okay,” Tanner frowned at Sanjay, “but if I wake up screaming in the middle of the night, you’d better hug me and tell me everything’s okay. You’re morally obligated now.”

Kelly and Romita chuckled. Sanjay need
ed a moment to realize that Tanner couldn’t be serious, and then snorted. “Shit, I’m not
that
sorry. I’d just smother you with a pillow.”

“That might be more practical,” conceded Tanner.

“Time for drills, ma’am?” Romita asked the captain.

“Nah. No drills planned for today. People need a chance to get caught up on regular work. I came to take over the XO’s shift so he could handle some admin stuff.”

“Really, ma’am?” Sanjay blinked. Kelly allowed a reasonable amount of downtime, but she knew it was important to keep everyone sharp. Since arriving, the ship had run drills every day, be they battle stations or some other emergency scenario.

The captain offered a mild smile. “I’m not saying everyone gets the day off, but I figure we can scale back the drills just a bit at this point. Who’s my helmsman, anyway? Even I’m losing track of the new watch rotation with an extra body in the mix.”

“Uh, actually, I just got here, ma’am,” said Tanner. “Sanjay’s on his way out.”

“Oh, right. See you later, Sanjay.” The crewman merely nodded and left. Kelly turned to Romita and added, “I figure getting six-month performance reviews from the XO is much more fun than running drills, right?”

It was then Romita’s turn to wince. “Yes, ma’am,” he sighed.

Tanner waited until the changeover finished and the captain sat down before he claimed his seat on the starboard side of the small bridge compartment. Qualifying to stand watch on
St. Jude
had taken several months—something Tanner only now began to accept was hardly his fault—and along the way, he’d become somewhat accustomed to standing through his whole shift. Having the chance to sit during his watch still felt like an odd privilege.

Working alongside the captain was something else that he’d never done on
St. Jude
. In fact, he’d never heard of the captain taking up any slack in the watch rotation.

Given the vast distances of space, much of the work performed by the helmsman and Officer of the Deck was actually done by automated sensors and computer processes.
Joan of Arc
sat well outside the two-light-minute line from Scheherazade’s moon. The ship had little more to do than monitor communications and nearby traffic. Tanner and the rest of the crew soon found that standing watch on the bridge often amounted to a lot of time for idle chatter.

He expected this watch might be a bit awkward, given the customary social distance officers put between themselves and enlisted personnel—particularly those at the lowest ranks. Tanner opened up a few screens on the control panel and looked for something productive to do to fill the expected silence.

“I’m glad to see you can joke about it all,” said Kelly. Tanner looked over at her and blinked. “
St. Jude
and everything that happened with you. I’d guess that’s a good sign, right? Obviously everybody’s been deliberately avoiding the subject.”

He slowly nodded. “Yes, ma’am.”

She eyed him suspiciously. “They
have
avoided the subject, right?”

Tanner couldn’t entirely hold back the small grin. She didn’t need to know about
the first night’s chatter in the crew berth. “Pretty much, ma’am. I figured on the first day it was just a way of showing I wouldn’t be treated differently from anyone else. After that, I kind of caught on that it must be a conscious effort.”

“It is,” Kelly confirmed. “I had the XO warn everyone about it.
Like you said, we don’t want to give the impression that you’ll be treated differently. But it’s also just a matter of respect. All the media wanted us to see was how you’re a big hero. But you went through hell. I can’t imagine that’s been easy to get over.”

“No,” Tanner replied. “No, it hasn’t.” His eyes drifted to the transparent canopy.
Joan of Arc
sat too far away from any planet or moon to see much but stars. Yet here, Tanner still had all the reassuring surroundings of a ship. He knew what it was like to be surrounded by nothing but distant points of light in an otherwise complete void.

“You know we’ll leave it alone, right?” The captain sat back in her chair in a relaxed posture. “Sanjay wasn’t trying to
goad you. He just said something dumb.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m fine, ma’am. I stopped having trouble sleeping through the night a couple months ago. No more appointments with the therapist. I’m okay with talking about it. Usually.”

Kelly’s green eyes occasionally drifted to the controls or to the astrogation table behind them, but she seemed mostly focused on the conversation. “There was plenty of talk when we got word you were coming aboard. Cervantes wondered if it was a sign that we’d be sent into some crisis.”

“Do you think we are?” Tanner asked. The question came just a little too quickly.

The captain shrugged. “I dunno. I don’t hold back much from my crew. Any captain has to be ready to make snap decisions on behalf of Archangel—the captain of any ship, large or small, represents the whole system. That responsibility goes all the way down from me to you and the other non-rates. I figure it’s best if we’re all as well-informed as possible.”

“Pretty heavy stuff.”

“It can be. It gets easier once you put yourself in the right frame of mind. Accept it, put the needs of the system first and do your best in good faith, and then someday you might get used to it.”

“I don’t think I’d want your job, ma’am,” Tanner deferred with a grin.

Kelly smiled back at him. “Not shooting for a commission? I imagine you’d have a leg up on competition for an academy spot.”

“No, ma’am. I want to do my time
, get out and get on with my life. No offense to you or any other career types.”

“Oh, I’m not necessarily a career type.”

That surprised him. “I didn’t think many people would go into the officers’ ranks if they didn’t want this as a career.” Tanner looked at her thoughtfully. He wondered if she’d had longevity treatments yet. Officers signed up for terms in five-year increments, and nobody made it to the rank of lieutenant—let alone command of even a small ship—in a single term.

Physically, Kelly seemed only a few years older than him, but then, so did Andrea. Her green eyes and short red hair stood out against her smooth skin.
Is it the feeling of conquest that draws you to women like that?
Beth’s voice asked in his head.
Or are you only interested in women who can conquer you?

Kelly smiled, finding something funny in his response. “That might be the case for the ones in the capital. How many officers
do you know who aren’t already at commander or above?”

“Good point. Just yourself, the XO, and the officers on
St. Jude
. I’ve only met others in passing. But you can’t be on your first term, either.”

“No. I thought about only doing the one term, but I wanted command experience.”
Then she paused and seemed to want to look over her shoulder before saying more. “Started my second term in the spring of ’74.” Tanner all but dropped his jaw, which she seemed to expect. “I’m twenty-six. And yes, a lot of older officers wanted this chair.”

“How…?”

“Hey, according to regs, there’s nothing odd about this at all.” Kelly tried to hold back a slightly smug, slightly amused grin. “I did the requisite time at each rank. Granted, those regs were all written back when longevity treatments were a new thing. Nowadays officers can’t make more than one rank step per five-year hitch…unless you shine brightly enough. Hell, the XO’s only on the last year of his first term, too.”

Tanner shook his head. “I had no idea. Guess I haven’t met the right sort of officers at all.”

“I knew Lieutenant Stevens from my first duty station,” she ventured. She watched Tanner for a reaction. He merely nodded, so she came out a bit further: “He was kind of an asshole.”

Tanner snorted. Then he looked away, and down at the controls. He wondere
d if he might turn red. “That’s not something I’m sure I should comment on, ma’am.”