The Devil and Deep Space (29 page)

“And that’s that,” Habsee said, as the ident came back true blue and the manifest ticket faded into SHIPPED from STORES. “Pleasure to be of service to you, gentles. And good–shift.”

Special packages and cruiser–killer–class warships aside, it was just the same thing that she did shift in, shift out, for shift after shift after shift. It was all either “Shipped” or “Stores” to her, and once shipped, it was no longer of any interest to Scanner Habsee whatsoever. She sent a standard notification to Pesadie Training Command to confirm disposition of the special consignment, and went back to her daily tasks without a second thought.

###

Jennet ap Rhiannon stood on a loading apron in the maintenance atmosphere, watching as the maintenance crew unshipped the case of deck–wipes that Wheatfields had brought up from Silboomie Station. Two had traced its provenance through avenues known only to her; Two said it would be evidence. If it was a shipment of tallifers, it would mean one less hope for making their case against Pesadie Training Command.

“What good does it do us, your Excellency?” Mendez asked, from beside her. Mendez to the right of her, Two hanging from a support beam to the left of her, and Wheatfields standing — as was his habit — apart, watching the crew, chewing on a twig of something or another: Command and General Staff, Jurisdiction Fleet Ship
Ragnarok
.

Only Lieutenant Seascape was missing; she was up in a crane where she could watch the crew work from above. It was a big case of deck–wipes. Twice Wheatfields’s height. Three or four times as long as Wheatfields was tall. One Wheatfields deep.

“I’m hoping it will be ammunition, First Officer.” She appreciated the fact that he called her “Excellency,” even though she knew he knew it was merely a courtesy title. She could not bring herself to call him “Ralph.” “It should prove that Pesadie is corrupt, and trading in armaments. Therefore there is also a strong possibility that the explosion that killed Cowil Brem was related to black market munitions.”

“Wait,” the Ship’s Engineer said suddenly, then lapsed back into his customary sullen silence. Jennet waited. On the crane overlooking the platform, Lieutenant Seascape leaned over the top of the crate as the crew winched its top cover clear.

For a moment Seascape remained just as she was. When Seascape raised her head to look across to where Jennet stood with the other officers, it seemed that her expression was a mixture of horror and delight. Then Seascape urged the crew to hurry as they took down the great side panel that concealed the contents of the crate from Jennet’s view.

Bending over the crane’s basket, Lieutenant Seascape hooked the cable onto one of the lift points on the crane. Jennet hoped she was tethered into the basket; it was a long reach.

The winch started to work, the great side panel lifted, the maintenance crew guided it carefully across the platform to where it could be laid flat. The outline was clear, but the blanket was still in place, and a person could still tell herself that they were mistaken.

The blanket lifted clear. There could be no mistake. It wasn’t a case of deck–wipes; so much had been obvious from the first glimpse they had gotten of the contents of the crate.

“Sanford in Hell,” First Officer swore, but reverently.

It was the main battle cannon for the forward emplacement of a cruiser–killer–class warship, beautiful, deadly, and efficient beyond measure.

Jennet waved at Seascape, calling out to her. “Thank you, Lieutenant.” She needed to know exactly what else was in that container, now that the basic fact was confirmed and undeniable. “Carry on.”

“Somebody will get the Tenth Level for this,” Mendez observed. “Selling off Fleet armament. What’s next?”

Jennet looked up to where Two hung from the crossbeams, scratching her neck with her wing. Mendez knew. Mendez had to know. “At least it gives us some leverage,” Jennet said. “But it means going to Taisheki.”

That was where Fleet Audit Appeals Authority had its base. And so far she had left Pesadie Training Command on false pretenses, though the action could be excused as a misunderstanding if Fleet was generous and willing to overlook it; but once they left Silboomie Station for Taisheki, they were at war with Pesadie. There was no other way around it.

“What exactly do you mean to appeal to Fleet, your Excellency?” Mendez asked, but calmly, without challenge. Playing the Devil’s advocate. “What has Pesadie done? Except for demanding some troops and, oh, been implicated in black–market profiteering with Fleet’s battle cannon, just a little.”

“Demanded surrender of Fleet resources to face the Protocols based on illegally obtained information, demonstrating a clear preconception prejudicial to the rule of Law. Two’s found Brecinn’s marks all over this case of deck–wipes, which proves she’s corrupt. The last person who should be investigating the death of Cowil Brem is an officer who has something to hide. What was she storing on that station, anyway? Why did it explode?”

Wheatfields raised a hand and took the twiglet out of his mouth. “Taisheki,” Wheatfields said. “Three days, your Excellency, maybe five, First Officer.”

Mendez hadn’t asked, but Wheatfields was answering anyway. Jennet felt something in her gut relax. It was only an implicit agreement to go to Taisheki, but it was enough, and it heartened her more than she could say. They’d challenged her decisions, but they’d accepted them; this was the closest they’d come to an endorsement yet — and she needed their support, if she was to have any hope of making this work.

“What about the Bonds, First Officer?” Six bond–involuntary troops were on board, assigned to support Koscuisko at torture work in Secured Medical, governed to obedience. And Koscuisko wasn’t here to keep them comfortable with the situation, to assure them that they were not to blame for the fact that the ship was operating well outside its normal range of procedures. There could be trouble with their governors.

If Wheatfields had agreed and Mendez was not objecting, they believed that the crew would accept the decision. It wasn’t value neutral. Making an appeal to the Fleet Audit Appeals Authority had consequences. If their appeal was not sustained, there could be disciplinary action, loss of rank and pay; disciplinary action that should properly be restricted to the ship’s officers — but the odium attached to having made an appeal that was not sustained would attach itself to the entire crew. Transfer out would be difficult, if not impossible. Nobody wanted troublemakers within their Command.

And there was more. If an appeal was not sustained, it opened the possibility that Fleet would elect to investigate the
Ragnarok
for mutinous intent. There was only one reason why so desperate a course of action as an appeal could be contemplated: the fact that Brecinn had made it clear that “mutinous intent” was exactly where she was going anyway.

Mendez did not quite shrug. “So far, so good, your Excellency,” Mendez said. “And making an appeal is within your authority. Medical will keep an eye out. And there’s Koscuisko’s influence to consider; he’s corrupted them to a significant extent.”

This was an intriguing claim. “How do you mean, corrupted?” Jennet asked.

“Gained their trust, your Excellency. Convinced them that nobody’s going to get unreasonable on ‘em without going through him first. Ruins the whole effect, but there you are.”

She’d heard gossip about Koscuisko’s relationship with his Bonds; she hadn’t thought it through, but Mendez was right. The whole idea was for bond–involuntaries to be incapable of transgression, because punishment was so horrible and so immediate. But the governor reacted to internal stress states to make its determination of whether punishment was in order; without those cues, the governor did — nothing.

“Will you go on all–ship, First Officer?”

Mendez nodded. “I’ll make the announcement, your Excellency. Serge. How long to vector transit?”

Wheatfields did something peculiar, even for him.

Raising one arm high overhead, he drew a great looping circle in the air, three times, five times, before he dropped his hand to tuck his twiglet back between his teeth. “Twelve hours,” Wheatfields said.

She could see movement at the far end of the maintenance atmosphere. Engineering was already moving to hull the maintenance atmosphere for vector transit.

“I’d better get, then, your Excellency. With permission.”

Jennet returned Mendez’s bow with grave precision. Wheatfields nodded and excused himself, and she couldn’t tell whether he had actually saluted her or just been momentarily distracted by something underfoot.

Two hopped down from her perch and scurried off after Wheatfields, her bow over and done by the time her translator got to the end of “By your leave, Captain.” Jennet ap Rhiannon stood alone on the apron, watching Seascape strip the coverings off that beautiful cannon.

Maybe once they were on vector she could send Rukota to Engineering, to help install the battle cannon in its place. She wanted the cannon in place. She thought that they might need it. The
Ragnarok
’s own armament was on the light side, always had been. It was an experimental hull. It had never been equipped to defend itself. Until now it had never faced an environment in which it might be required to.

Defend themselves — against even Fleet? If it came to that. She was not going to throw anybody’s life away without a fight. The rule of Law would be upheld. It would. She looked at the battle cannon, and shuddered.

But she had work to do, if she was to be prepared to transmit an appeal to the Fleet Audit Appeals Authority at Taisheki Station. She would need to have her Brief in order. And request Safes, for the bond–involuntaries.

She left Seascape to supervise the birth of the battle cannon and exited the maintenance atmosphere for her office, to get to work.

###

General Rukota hadn’t seen much of the officers of the
Ragnarok
since the preliminary assessment team had been confined to quarters. He looked in on Pesadie’s people once a day because it was his duty, but he wasn’t any more interested in talking to them than they to him, and the visits were short accordingly.

Something was clearly in the air; he’d known that since Two had not–told him that they were not going to Laynock for resupply. But the crew of the
Ragnarok
had discipline: whatever it was, he wasn’t hearing gossip. He spent his day in the Lieutenant’s quarters they had set aside for him, writing letters to his wife and children for some future and possibly never–to–come date when he would be able to transmit them.

He worked on his official report, the one that Admiral Brecinn was expecting, the one with the by–name identification of the troops who had been on the Wolnadi at the time of the explosion of the observation station. But he didn’t spend too much time on it. He saw no particular point; ap Rhiannon was not about to surrender those troops, so taking his time was doing her a favor, really.

The longer it took him to prepare the official report, the longer it would be before ap Rhiannon would have to stop defying Admiral Brecinn and start defying a Bench warrant with the full weight of Chilleau Judiciary behind it, which was going to be much trickier than merely refusing to cooperate with Pesadie Training Command.

He worked on his memoirs instead. Some of the officers he had known in his career deserved commemoration, some of the battles he had fought had been worthy of preservation for the lessons they could teach, and he had his theory of armament to propose and develop. Plenty to do.

Twice a day he went to exercise. Individual training in the morning; group combat drill in the evening, when he could find someone in the arenas to spar with him. He could almost always get a bout with one particular team of Security that was apparently on its fifth–week duty, in Medical.

Individual members of any Security team — the Captain’s Security 1–point, Intelligence’s 2–point, First Officer’s 3–point, the Engineer’s 4–point — could be and were posted to Medical to maintain their basic field medical skills; but the only time an entire team did fifth–week duty in Medical was when they were bond–involuntary, and the only place bond–involuntaries could be assigned was to the Chief Medical Officer, because he was Ship’s Inquisitor. Security 5–point.

But Rukota had seen the Security manifests. There were only six bond–involuntary troops in all on board of the
Ragnarok
, and four of them were to have gone home with Koscuisko on leave. Therefore Jennet ap Rhiannon had switched Security teams. So she couldn’t surrender the troops that Brecinn was demanding, because they weren’t even on the
Ragnarok
.

That was ap Rhiannon’s business, though, not his; and was certainly nothing to do with the troops themselves. They gave him a good workout. They pressed him hard enough, but not too hard. They worked so well together. Good people. It would be a shame to let Pesadie Training Command torture them to death.

He was just getting cleaned up after his evening’s exercise, toweling off his thinning hair, getting dressed, when Security came for him. “General Rukota?”

One of the senior Warrants, Miss Myrahu; he’d interviewed her about the audit problem. She was standing in the doorway of the dressing room, but it was nothing personal; there was no segregation of the sexes in Security arenas and he was more clothed than not anyway, by now.

“Speaking. Excuse my state of undress. What do you want?”

Maybe Brecinn’s people had tried a breakout and been shot down. A man could fantasize. If they had, though, wouldn’t that cause damage to the courier? And it was a nice courier. It deserved better. When this was all over he would have it fumigated. Exorcised. Apologized to, at the very least; as far as he could tell it was an honest ship.

“If you’ll come with us, sir. Captain has requested an interview.”

Had she, indeed? Well, why not. It wasn’t as though he had any urgent business of his own; he was curious, too, to see what ap Rhiannon might tell him — if anything — about what was going on.

“Very well. At your disposal, Miss Myrahu, lead on.”

His escort took him down to the engineering bridge in the very core of the ship, the single second–best shielded area on the
Ragnarok
. Was it his imagination, or was the atmosphere in the corridors a little more tense than it had been earlier today?