Dark Running (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 4) (78 page)

So Alex, who had married them with such ceremony just weeks before, now signed, and filed, and gave them their divorce.

It was, he knew, no big deal, just as Simon said. Their marriage was a one-year contract so would expire anyway while Misha was on station here. And it had, as both of them had been entirely honest about, been a marriage made for fun and convenience, no great romance. All the same, it felt a little sad, so flat and trivial an end to their relationship.

‘Thanks,’ Simon said, in return for the copy of the divorce which Alex passed to both of their comps. ‘That was the nicest marriage I’ve ever had,’ he observed, happily. ‘
And
one of the longest.’ He turned to Misha with a broad grin. ‘And the only divorce where the Ex wasn’t swearing or threatening to slap me.’

The latest ex-wife looked back at him. There were many things that Misha felt she wanted to say at that moment. One of them, and not the least of them, was a desire to tell him that he only had himself to blame for that. But it wasn’t his fault, really – he was entirely open from the start about how he felt, that he was offering a relationship founded in attraction and esteem, not love. He was entirely up front about what a selfish, arrogant, impossible husband he was, too, and with no wish or intention to change. It wasn’t
his
fault if you found yourself falling hopelessly in love with him once you were married, not his fault if what you wanted changed, and what he wanted didn’t. It was, Misha felt, just as well that they
were
separating now, before things went sour. And better, all round, to make a clean end of it, shake hands and walk away.

She didn’t say any of that, though, because for one thing the skipper was there, and for another, she knew there was no point. Simon was like a force of nature. You might as well try to get a tornado to understand the damage it was wreaking. So she just held out her hand, and smiled.

‘Be happy, Si,’ she said, and Simon beamed back, stooping to kiss her on the cheek.

‘You, too,’ he said.

And that was that.

Twenty Seven

They had to wait another two days before the Samartians informed them that they were sending out the requested industrial chemist.

That was a very small statement for what had in fact been a major undertaking. Just the
idea
of taking a civilian into space had been a curve ball for the Samartians. No civilian had been in space in recent times, by which they meant the last few centuries, and it was a highly controversial proposal.

Once they had decided that they
would
send a scientist, though, the difficulties really started. There was no university culture on Samart; higher education was provided in employment, with opportunities similar to those of an apprenticeship in the League. So there was no professor of applied chemistry to call on, as there would have been on a League world. Instead, they had first to identify who their best industrial chemists actually were, before rounding them up.

They
had
been rounded up, too. Forty six people from all around the planet had been picked up by stern-faced personnel in military vehicles. They had been taken from work, from their homes, from their beds, even in one case tracked down and picked up on a fishing trip. None of them were told why – at that stage, the Samartian media was still more than a week behind actual events, so as far as the civilian population was concerned, the latest news of the Revellin was the meeting with Caldai Genave.

Once whisked off to a military base, each of the chemists had been held in separate rooms, required to swear the Samartian version of the Official Secrets Act, and shown the ‘alien formula’ which Davie had provided.

Rather to the Samartians’ own surprise, all forty six of their chemists had understood it at once. It was, they said, just a formula showing the polymerisation of carbon and fluorine molecules.

With that, though, the real selection process had got under way. Files were compiled with every bit of information that could be obtained, and each of the chemists was subjected to psych profiling and lengthy interrogation about their lives, work, families, politics and anything else that the military could think of to ask. They were also given medical and fitness tests, after which twenty seven of them were told that they could go home now, thanks, with no explanation but a reminder that they were not to tell
anyone
where they had been.

The remaining candidates had been put in a room where a senior officer had come to tell them what the situation was – that the Revellin were offering to show them a highly advanced plastic manufacturing process, for which they required a chemist to go aboard their ship.

Two of the scientists had hyperventilated and one had been sick, so they were dropped from the process at once. The others had been told that those of them prepared to agree to this would be put through an intensive training programme. None of them had refused. Nine more, however, had been dropped over the course of the next three days, nearly all of them for vomiting. To be fair, most of the things the military was putting them through seemed pretty much designed
to
make them vomit, including whizzing them around in high-gee capsules and asking them to try to eat whilst hanging upside down. Those that made it through to the next phase were taught how to wear a spacesuit – not how to put one on or how to operate it, since those were considered skills beyond their ability to learn in the time that they had, but just to
wear
one, to know how to move, how to breathe, how to use the comms.

After that, they were taken out for freefall training, which meant being put aboard fighters in the gunner’s position, going through launch and a three hour training flight. Four of them were so terrified during this that they screamed, sobbed, and in one case spent the entire flight with eyes screwed shut, hanging on to the safety harness with such white-knuckled force that his fingers had to be prised off it before he could be helped out of the compartment.

That had left just three of them standing. All three had been allowed to talk to their families, then – to their partners, at least, who were brought to the base themselves, alarmed and bewildered, sworn to secrecy, and allowed to spend some time with their husband or wife.

It said a great deal for Samartian patriotism that not only did all three remaining candidates agree to undertake the mission, but their partners supported them in that, too – with tears, to be sure, but with immense pride.

The final three were taken to meet Dakael Bleen, then – an experience comparable with being taken to meet the President on a League world. He had touched hands with them, the highest compliment he could give, and had told them that whichever was chosen for the mission, all three were bringing honour to their world.

The final choice as to which of them
would
go was only made hours before the ship which would bring them out departed. The media was allowed to film that, though it would be days before they were able to broadcast it. There were interviews and footage of the chosen candidate being put into his spacesuit, walked through an honour-guard and put aboard a shuttle.

All that was behind the simple statement of ‘We’ve found you a chemist,’ and the transmission of a brief CV, identifying him as Citizen Bavore. And the Fourth, with no real understanding of the effort and drama that had been going on with that, just said ‘thank you’ and didn’t give it another thought.

While they were busy finalising other plans, though, Citizen Bavore was being raced out to them. He was alone aboard what the Samartians called a drone – just a stripped-down, unarmed patrol ship, operating under autopilot for the journey out to them, and then under remote control by the other ships. The drone was not
just
bringing him – it was a scheduled rendezvous to re-supply the contact ship, doing an air-exchange and bringing out another two weeks of food ration and a much-needed change of clothes. After just a few minutes docked on, it was disengaged and sent off to self-destruct, as the Samartians didn’t feel that they could use it again even with the most stringent decontamination. None of the gifts the Fourth had taken to the cold-drop would be opened for
months
, not until the Samartians were absolutely sure that they were a hundred per cent sterile.

Bavore would not be going home any time soon, either – from the moment the airlock opened between the drone and the contact ship, he was subject to long-term quarantine. That, though, was the least of his worries. He was already coping with overwhelming stress – he had made history by being the first civilian on record to leave the solar system,
and
he had had to make the eleven hour journey out here entirely on his own aboard a drone ship. He now had to transfer onto a patrol ship, scary in itself, with the Heron right there.

The frigate was nearly two hundred times the mass of a patrol ship – as massive, in comparison, as Solaran ships were to Fleet carriers. And it was every bit as alien to their eyes, with its vast hull of geometric planes studded with pyramids and huge, angular tech. Most astonishing of all, it was a blaze of light and colour, with brilliant emblems and insignia, hull-lights and comms arrays which flickered and danced like superfast aurora. Just seeing it, for real, made Bavore feel dizzy.

It was Martine who took the shuttle over to pick them up, with Jace Higgs piloting – Buzz was not exactly on stand-down, but Simon had made it clear that unless he got at least six hours of uninterrupted sleep, he
would
be on a stand-down order. And just in case Buzz had felt that there was any kind of personal slight in that, that Simon might be suggesting that he was too old to cope with the workload he and Alex had been working under, Simon had turned to Alex, too, and told him that the same went for him, that after Buzz had had his six hours sleep, Alex had to do the same.

‘Or I
will
put you on a ten hour stand-down, and if necessary, handcuff you to your bunk,’ he said, pointing a finger at the skipper. ‘And don’t think I won’t.’

With the skipper and exec effectively Simoned, therefore, it fell to Martine to handle the pick up. It was starting to feel like a routine procedure and that in itself was a danger – this
was
a very challenging manoeuvre, after all.

With Jace at the helm, though, and Martine handling flight-control coordination with Dakael Tell, the shuttle was docked on and their improvised airlock secured without any difficulty.

It was Janai Bennet who brought Bavore aboard, coming with him as his minder. Just how much he needed her was obvious from the first, as she manoeuvred him through the airlock like a parcel, stiff-legged and arms crossed over his chest as he had been taught, not even attempting to move in freefall by himself.

As they came into the shuttle’s gravity Bennet swung him upright and steadied him, supporting him as he nearly fell to his knees with the surprise of finding himself suddenly weighing rather more, in fact, than he did on the planet.

‘Thank you, Mother,’ he gasped, clinging to her arm and looking around with fear-filled eyes.

Bavore was forty three, and Bennet was nineteen. He was the senior chemist at a major refinery, she was barely more than a cadet. But it was absolutely clear which of them was in charge.

‘Breathe,’ Bennet reminded him, kindly, and smiled as she recognised Martine. ‘Commander.’ They exchanged finger-touch greeting, and Bennet introduced the trembling man beside her. ‘Citizen Bavore.’

‘Welcome, Citizen,’ Martine said, and introduced the pilot.

‘How do,’ said Jace, with a friendly wave from the flight console.

‘It’s good,’ Bennet said, and as Bavore was rooted to the spot, took hold of his arm and urged him gently forward. ‘They are very gentle people,’ she told him. ‘It is a term of honour with them, to be a gentle man. There is nothing to fear. Here,’ she led him to the shuttle seats, and smiled encouragement, ‘You lie on it,’ she told him, ‘It holds you but it won’t hurt you, just keeps you safe during the flight. Here…’

She got him to sit down and took the place beside him, allowing him to keep hold of her hand. He was still holding it when she helped him up a couple of minutes later, the shuttle having docked on to the deck seven airlock.

Martine handed them over there to Davie, who was waiting to greet them.

‘Mother!’ Bavore gasped again as he saw what was, to him, the cavernous space within the ship, with all its gleaming surfaces and light as bright as daylight.

‘It’s good,’ Bennet comforted him, then, with the voice of experience, ‘it is
beautiful
here.’

That wasn’t how most League people would have seen a Fleet ship, especially not a Seabird 37 frigate. Alex had got rid of the worst stylistic horrors, including a massively pompous command console and what the designers had considered to be excitingly chunky console chairs, but the best that could be said for the interior of a Seabird 37, really, was that it was sturdy, and relatively spacious by starship standards.