Renegade (16 page)

“I’ve seen them on a vid,” said Lisbeth, as Trace demonstrated how the net pulled across the bed, and secured to the bed rim by steel latches.

“Good, so the release is here.” Pointing to the button. “Emergency life support is the bottom of the main closet, the yellow and black stripes. And most important…” she reached the space between wall table and closet, where a canvas wrapping stood from ceiling to floor. Hit the release and the canvas seals ripped as a couple of acceleration slings hummed into the room on steel runners in floor and ceiling. “These will deploy automatically if bridge sounds the ‘take hold’ — big alarm, flashing lights and announcements, you can’t miss it. When you hear that alarm, get in the sling. Don’t do anything else, just get in like you’ve been shown, and brace. Do
not
stay in bed — even with the net across, the rear thrust will just put you through the wall, you’re lying perpendicular to thrust and you’ll slide off. If you need any help, use personal coms, but again, if we’re under thrust, no one can actually move to help you. Any questions?”

Lisbeth shook her head. The girl looked like she could use a hug. Trace was unaccustomed to dealing with civvies in such close quarters, and thought that might actually work. She put her arms around the girl, who did the same back, and just held her for a while.

“Your brother’s mad at me for getting you involved,” Trace said as she let her go.

“Well you can’t really blame him for being protective,” said Lisbeth. “We Debogande women are really asking for it. He came out here to serve, and we stayed at home. Of course he’s protective — that’s what he’s been doing out here all these years. Protecting us with his life.”

Trace smiled at her. It was more maturity and perspective than she’d expected. And she reprimanded herself for repeatedly underestimating the girl. “That’s true enough. But he was protecting a lot more than just you. Whether that was foremost in his mind or not.”

Thrust correction hit them, unannounced, and suddenly gravity cut in half as the correction pushed the ship ‘down’, then sideways as cylinder rotation took them around. Lisbeth flailed for balance with a squeal, and Trace caught her in a two-armed embrace and fell them both sideways into the closet until it passed.

“Lots of rocks out here,” she explained, pushing them back upright. “Just remember to never stand unsecured.” And she noticed the girl was in tears. “Lisbeth?”

“Oh god.” Lisbeth wiped her eyes furiously. “How stupid. It’s just… I don’t like this. Not being able to trust gravity. And that 10-G push to jump was just… I don’t know if I can do this, I just feel so claustrophobic!”

“It’s a hard thing to get used to,” Trace said diplomatically. “But your brain will adjust in time. You have to trust that it will.”

“How did you get used to it?” Lisbeth asked desperately. “Is there some kind of… I don’t know…”

“Some kind of trick? No. I adjusted because I became Kulina Vidyarthi at age eight. I’ve trained for battle ever since. I’ve a head for heights because at age ten they made us do the santipurna arohanako — it means ‘peaceful ascent’. It’s basic ropes and limited safety harness up several thousand meters in the Rejara Phirta Range on Sugauli, all weathers, day and night. The difficulty of adjusting to spacetravel is the brain facing something unexpected. By the time I got to space, I didn’t have many of those left.”

“Weren’t you scared?” Lisbeth whispered.

“On the climb, the fearful ones are the most likely to fall. You learn to control it, or you die. Or you survive but fail and are disgraced, which is worse.”

“I don’t think I could have done that.”

“You’ve never tried. Therefore you lack self-knowledge. That is why you’re scared. The only way to gain it is to try. Perhaps you’ll fail, but at least then you’ll know.”

“It’s a little late for me to do the peaceful ascent and become Kulina,” Lisbeth said shakily.

“But it is not too late to gain self-knowledge on this,” said Trace. She hit the door. “Here, on this ship. Start today.”

Leaving her quarters, Trace walked the back-quarter galley and got herself a half-decent sandwich from the selection window where the chefs would leave them when prepared. She ate it while strolling through Assembly, where rooms and corridors gave way to open steel gantry racks and stacks of armour suits and weapons, all tightly locked and secured in case of manoeuvres. Marines did maintenance on their armour, polished visors and cleaned weapons, often in singlets as the heat from all the running powercells caused Assembly to run ten degrees C hotter than the rest of the ship.

Phoenix
’s marine company had five platoons, forty-four in each, plus Trace’s own Command Squad for two hundred and twenty eight total. Officers and non-coms took her presence passing through as invitation to report, which it was, though in reality she was always on call and only common courtesy kept her from being interrupted all-shifts. All of what they told her was minor — a few mending injuries or illnesses, inventory updates, the usual routine. Mostly, she knew, they just wanted to touch base, and see her look them in the eyes and know they weren’t completely screwed.

There was a lot of disbelief, and a lot of grief, barely covered. Most marines maintained some distance from most spacers, but the Captain had been different. Any who had served aboard this ship for long enough had come to learn that the stories about him were not just stories — they
saw
it, saw the rapid calculation, the unexpected manoeuvre, the sheer genius that saved friendly lives and took unfriendly ones. When you rode in a steel shell entrusting your next breath to the nerve and skill of a single man, you came to appreciate that man’s skill when, after so many missions, you were still breathing, and so many others were not.

And the Captain had always come down here, strolled these echoing, rattling, steamy parts of back-quarter where most spacers rarely trod, and talked with the marines like they mattered to him as much as his spacer crew. And they’d seen him emotional at their funerals, and proud at their ceremonies, and they’d come to love him as a second father — or for some less blessed, as marines often were, a first father. And now he was gone, in disputed circumstances, and many of them just wanted to know what the hell had happened, and who was to blame, and why.

Trace vouched for Erik’s version of events, and that was enough for nearly all of them. The responsibility somehow felt more daunting than usual. She wondered as she strolled, talked and ate, how that was possible. Her usual responsibility was life and death, commanding these men and women whom she loved into battles knowing that some, and perhaps many, would die or be horribly wounded. It didn’t seem reasonable that
any
responsibility could weigh more heavily than that. Yet somehow, this one did, like a gravitational mass from which no amount of thrust could provide escape.

She supposed it was one thing when the karma all flowed the one way. All of these marines would still have been in battle if she were elsewhere, during the war. Their precarious fates had not been her doing, and in time she’d come to accept that her judgement in command would usually get somewhat fewer of them killed than most other commanders could manage. But this was something else. All the Fleet’s other marines were looking forward to a long period with no fighting. Perhaps even a permanent period, in this short-scale human view of things. But not
Phoenix
. These marines still hung in the balance, pushing upstream into the onrushing flow of karma heading the other way. And that was her responsibility in a way that their fates in the war itself had never been.

After Assembly she went to the gym and punched a bag until her fists hurt. She did that until Kaspowitz arrived, ducking the overhead, then leaning on her bag as she hit it.

“Your left’s a bit low,” he advised her.

“What was that?” said Trace, continuing to strike between weaves.

“Your left, it’s…”

“What? My what?” Thud thud. “Stop mumbling.” Kaspowitz grinned. They were old friends — she’d been on
Phoenix
about a third of her life, yet that was only half of Kaspo’s time. He was an odd guy with no discernible ambition and an irreverent sense of humour, and from her first arrival here as a green Lieutenant, she’d preferred his company, of all spacers, to anyone but the Captain’s. Kaspo didn’t need, didn’t stress, didn’t bitch and didn’t covet. What he did, exceptionally well and with very little bullshit, was his job. “You know, if you’d occasionally do a bit of exercise, I might listen to you.”

“I tried it once,” Kaspowitz admitted, leaning hard on the bag as she jolted him. “Did irreparable damage to my self-esteem. Doctor said it was too dangerous for a man of my sensitivity.”

“You know,” Trace panted. “It’s almost as though some of us…” thudthudthud, “… think we’re fighting a war. While others…” thudthud “…are just here to laugh at the universe.”

“You know, you’re far too smart to be a marine. That thing you do with your mouth.” He clicked his fingers. “Sentences, that’s it.” Trace grinned, and kept punching. “Were fighting a war, Trace.
Were
.”

His eyes were suddenly serious. Trace stopped punching, and wiped her face. She leaned on the bag opposite him. There were others in the gym, punching bags, lifting weights, running on treadmills. But despite the noise, someone might overhear. “Captain didn’t tell me any specifics,” she said quietly by Kaspowitz’s shoulder. “But he said the Worlder-Spacer Congress divide would blow up and kill more people than the Triumvirate War if we weren’t careful. And that he’d said so openly, to anyone in High Command who’d listen, and a bunch who wouldn’t. I know he was thinking of a run for politics when the war ended. And I know that scared a lot of people, given his status.”

Kaspowitz nodded slowly. “So this doesn’t surprise you?”

Trace looked up at him, nose to nose. She didn’t allow herself much physical intimacy with men on
Phoenix
, having found it got in the way of just about everything. But in all these years Kaspo had shown no interest in her that way, outside of the odd playful remark. As she’d overheard one spacer putting it when he didn’t know she was there, you could only get so turned on by cold steel. “I think they were hoping he’d get killed in the last few years. But you know the Captain — they were never going to get that lucky.”

“We sure got all the tough assignments,” Kaspowitz said darkly. “You tell the LC this?”

Trace made a face. “Not in so many words. I don’t want him to just take my word for it. Some people look up to me too much, stop using their own brains. If we need anything from him right now, we need him to use his brain.”

Kaspowitz considered her for a long moment. “You trust him?”

“I think he’s as straight as a bulkhead. Which from me is a compliment. So yeah, if he says he didn’t do it, I trust him implicitly.”

Kaspowitz rolled his eyes a little. “Yeah… but that’s not all I meant. Do you
trust
him? I mean, all our lives, in his hands?”

“You’re bridge crew, I’m not. Do
you
trust him?”

“Heck of a pilot. First class. Smart as hell, qualified, brave, principled, ticks all the boxes. I dunno. Something’s missing.”

Trace nodded slowly. “Self belief. And that might be our fault.” With raised eyebrows at him, meaningfully.

Kaspowitz thought about it. “Yeah. Yeah maybe. We didn’t give the kid the easiest run.”

“And he said, that Fleet Admiral Anjo said, that the Captain picked him personally.”

Kaspowitz blinked. “Seriously? You believe that?”

“The LC or Anjo?”

“Either.”

“Captain was still alive when Anjo said it, LC could have asked the Captain himself, proven Anjo a liar. Anjo was trying to butter him up, offering him a big job, get him with the program. Too dangerous for Anjo to lie then. And you know the LC, he lies about as infrequently as I do. If he says Anjo said it, Anjo said it.”

“You think the Captain saw this coming?” Kaspowitz’s eyes were wide in a manner rare for an old spacer who’d seen everything. “Picked the LC as some kind of cover? Get the Debogandes involved on purpose?”

“Captain would never put the ship in danger by picking someone not qualified,” Trace said with certainty. “I think he got lucky that Family Debogande produced someone that good, and couldn’t resist the opportunity.
Don’t
suggest it to the LC. Kid struggles for confidence as it is.” ‘Kid’, she realised as she said it. He was three years older than her. Yet still it seemed like the right thing to say.

“Yeah,” Kaspowitz said heavily. “Next question, you think we have any friends out here?”

“Sure. Friends enough for a captain to refuse a direct order to fire? Doubt it.”

“End a lot of careers, wouldn’t it?”

“What do you think?”

“I think,” said Kaspowitz, “that they’d never fire on Captain Pantillo. But he’s dead, they’re saying the LC killed him, and lots of spacers never cut the LC an even break because of his family. There’ll be a lot who are confused and skeptical, but disobeying a direct order to fire on a ship commanded by the guy who HQ say killed Captain Pantillo?”

“Honest answer,” Trace requested. “I vouch for the LC. Would that sway anyone?”

“Marines, sure. Fleet captains, a little, but not enough to stop them pressing the button.”

“That’s my reading,” Trace agreed. “Besides, Kulina council will excommunicate me now. To a combat officer that’s not just a disgrace, it’s a death sentence.”

“Oh hell,” Kaspowitz muttered. “I’m sorry Trace.”

Trace shrugged. “The Kulina shall want for nothing,” she said with a faint smile. “And shall regret nothing. What kind of hypocrite would I be if I started caring now?”

Kaspowitz smiled at her. Put a hand in her sweaty hair. “You hang in there kid. I wouldn’t trade you for the whole fucking lot of them.” He kissed her on the forehead, and left. Trace hung on the bag for a while longer, thinking. And feeling that there were so many people she’d die for on this ship, it made survival seem unlikely.