Renegade (37 page)

The whole thing was more than three million years old. What had happened to the race that built it, and other monuments like it across the Spiral, no one knew. Their homeworld remained unknown, and no working settlement, nor sign of actual civilisation, had ever been found. There were countless theories, but no one even knew what the Ancients had looked like. The Fathers had paid great tribute to them, this race that had made even them look like infants. Others had sent out great searches, or studied their monuments for more navigational clues to the direction of homeworlds or settlements. Some suggested they were visitors from other galaxies, brought to this one by wormhole portal technology known to no one else. Others had thought them beings from other dimensions, or dimensions yet to come. Others still had worshipped them as gods. Trace thought that last explanation might be as good as any, in the absence of better knowledge.

With no weather to speak of, the stone of the central sphere remained utterly smooth and hard. Trace climbed up it — to get a better command view, she told herself, although the truth was probably different. From atop the sphere, she could see in all directions. The arc of surrounding monuments, the symbols of Spiral history. The orbiting worlds, the great rings, and her marines amongst them, playing out the latest, great and terrible chapter in this story.

Suddenly there were tears in her eyes, and the tightness in her throat made it hard to breathe. Personal hubris or not, this felt very much like the centre of all things. For one who had given her life to karma, and to the belief that personal choices could make significant alterations to the flow of fates, it was overwhelming. So many lives she’d seen lost, so many friends gone, and so many lives she’d taken. And now she found herself here, questioning everything that she’d ever been taught, and everything that she’d thought she knew.

A man had sent her on this path — the wisest man she’d known. She should not doubt all of her people’s teachings on the instruction of just one man. And yet if the flow of karma had taught her anything, it was that no force was more powerful in the shapings of fate than the force between two people. This
was
her people’s teaching. So how was it that she was the only one to have followed it here?

She knelt upon the top of the sphere, for a lotus position was impossible in armour. But the armour took the weight of her legs, and made it comfortable enough for someone who had spent as much of her life in armour as she had. She breathed deep, but did not close her eyes, attempting wide-eyed meditation so as not to close herself off to this amazing and enlightening view. On the sandy ground about the sphere, her marines gazed up at her in wonder and concern.

E
rik woke
to Lieutenant Draper’s voice in his ear, telling him that PH-1 was back. The time read 0402, and he dragged himself from bed, opened the narrow closet and pulled his jacket from the press rack. Rumpled leather,
Phoenix
patch on one arm, First Fleet on the other. Still it was far shinier than the Captain’s had been, or than the one Kaspowitz wore now. In Fleet, an officer might be regarded well by the number of medals he presented on parade, but his true experience was indicated by how scuffed and faded his ops jacket looked.

He took the time to run the electric over his jaw — there was only ten hours growth there, but the one thing they’d taught him in the Academy that he already knew from his father was that a man only got as much respect as he gave himself. On watch outside his quarters this time was Private Lewell, and together they took a left straight off the bridge and around to back-quarter, then down the main corridor to Assembly.

There was the crashing and clumping of arriving armour, marines shouting, Charlie Platoon on duty to help the returning Alpha stack and rack in minimum time. Erik waited on lower deck, whacking Alpha marines on the shoulder as they passed, giving thumbs up, exuding as much general encouragement as he could. They seemed pleased enough to see him, but knew that he wasn’t here for them, and passed word up to the Major that the LC was waiting for her.

She slid down a ladder railing nearby and swaggered to him with the aching legs of someone too long in armour, sweaty and exhausted beyond bothering to hide it. “No survivors,” she told him what he already knew from her report. “No encounters, the chah'nas shuttles are scattered. We could hunt them, but they’ve got weapons too and we’ve no real advantage down there. We documented everything…” she shrugged. “It’s all we can do.”

Erik considered her for a moment. Something was wrong, beyond the exhaustion. Normally she met his gaze with hard steel. Now she barely looked, distracted and avoiding eye contact. “I want to get out of here,” he told her. “I’m sorry to do it now, you need sleep, but for what I’ve got in mind I’m going to need your help.”

“You want to go to Heuron?” she said, walking and beckoning him after her. And to a marine in passing, “Fluffy, you’re looking after that shoulder yes?”

“Course Major.”

“Because I will put you on scrubs for a week if you keep skipping doctor’s advice, you hear?”

Private Sarah ‘Fluffy’ Andrews grinned as she retreated. “Sure you will Major.” The only time her marines ever doubted her word was when she threatened them with punishment for anything less than deadly serious.

“Remind me again how she got called ‘Fluffy’?” Erik tried to memorise them, but it was hard enough with
Phoenix
spacer crew, let alone the marines.

“Barracked on Shantara, on a live fire exercise she managed to put a practice-round between the eyes of one of those cute little… what are they called? Big ears, fluffy things…”

“Oh right, yeah, I know them. Too many damn fluffy animals in this galaxy.”

“Afterward she’d find little stuffed ones in her locker with a noose around their necks.” Marines and their sense of humour. And in passing to another, “Hey Porky, nice job down there.”

“Major, get some sleep,” Corporal ‘Porky’ Barnes said in reply.

“Yeah good luck with that,” said Erik, and Barnes rolled his eyes.

“Just lemme get some chow,” Trace complained, turning off to the galley. “Hey Beatle, I saw that new tattoo, it’s terrible.”

Ahead of her, Private Lars ‘Beatle’ Tuo laughed. “Hey kiss my ass Major.”

“Yeah make me,” she retorted with a glare and a whack on his shoulder in passing. Erik had no idea how she did it. Most people would just collapse into a shower and bed, possibly get some lower rank to bring them a meal in quarters so they didn’t have to deal with anything else. But Trace staggered through corridors chatting to all her people, and joined the end of the meal queue like everyone else.

“Now Beatle,” said Erik. “Isn’t he the guy who had an insect crawl up his ass on an exercise?”

“Yeah, they’re on New Dakota, they like to burrow.” She leaned on the wall at the queue, and saw Erik fighting a smile. “He’s lucky. If it had laid eggs, they’d have called him ‘Hive’. What did they nearly call you, LT?”

The man ahead of her turned, and Erik blinked, realising it was Lieutenant Dale. Erik was tired from a few hours’ sleep, but Trace was worse and she’d known who it was. “They called me
Lieutenant
,” Dale corrected her. “LC. Haven’t seen you for a bit.”

“Different life in first-shift,” said Erik. He’d found Dale intimidating, once. Now he realised he didn’t. Dale seemed to regard him differently, too. “Doc Suelo says you’ll get Yalen and Malik back in a few days, they’re healing well.”

Dale nodded. “They’re already helping in Assembly, they look good.” Dale could have said something about Erik’s last bit of flying, the
Tek-to-thi
intercept and escape in Argitori that was now legend among the marines, and among some of the spacers. But he wouldn’t, because it wasn’t a marine lieutenant’s place to comment on a commander’s flying any more than it was Erik’s place to offer opinions on ground combat ops. The turf would be respected, or the natural order of things would fall apart. But he didn’t need to say anything — Erik could see in his eyes what had changed. “Hey people!” Dale bellowed up the line. “The Major and the LC are in the queue! Someone get them their chow!” And in a quieter voice, “What are you having?”

Outside Trace’s quarters they found Shahaim and Kaspowitz already waiting, not about to enter without Trace’s permission. Trace entered first, startling Lisbeth who was sleeping in the lower bunk. “Oh, are you having a meeting?” Blinking in the sudden light. “I’m sorry, I’ll go elsewhere, just give me a minute…”

“No you stay,” said Erik. “Big family interests moving into Heuron, you know more about what the family’s up to these days than me.”

Lisbeth blinked in confusion, searching bleary-eyed for her jacket, wearing only a light, Phoenix-issue undershirt. “We’re going to Heuron?”

Erik handed her the jacket from beneath the bed netting, and sat beside her. “Yes we are. Do you know why?”

Lisbeth pulled on pants, while Kaspowitz chivalrously looked elsewhere. Trace crawled into the far end of Lisbeth’s bunk and put her back to the wall, opening a stir fry container on her lap. “Well, I mean it’s a Fleet hub,” said Lisbeth, frowning. Trace offered her a sip of juice, which she accepted. “I mean we’ve had it for nearly thirty years, it’s far enough back from tavalai space to be safe but close enough to mount attacks from. And it’s close to sard space, and pretty close to alo too… and I just happen to know we’ve got a shitload of investment going on there. Shipworks and repair yards especially, perfect place for it with so much of Fleet there all the time. But we can’t go there, I mean, we’ll be spotted and…” And her eyes widened as she realised. “Oh no we won’t!
Phoenix
jumps so much faster than anyone else! They won’t know what happened yet!”

“We’re still two real-time weeks away,” Kaspowitz confirmed, taking one of the wall seats while Shahaim took the other. “The fastest ship at Homeworld was
Dragonfly
, and even if they somehow got telepathic and guessed where we were going, they’d be two and a half weeks out, tops.”

“Plus we’ve just demonstrated what happens when you try and string seven or eight jumps together back to back,” Shahaim added. “Things break.”

“Right,” said Erik, cracking his own container, curried meat and veg. Chef had even slipped him a fresh papadam. He broke it and gave half to Trace. “But not too far off course are Carany, Nowa Polska and Chekov to name just three. Any of those could have had shanti-class carriers, or jupiter-class cruisers, any of which aren’t
that
much slower than us. And we’ve been delayed and off-course ourselves. Worst case scenario, if one of them got contacted by someone from Homeworld, then went straight to Heuron, how much gap would we have?”

“I ran it,” Kaspowitz confirmed. “Worst case, two days.”

“Well that’s not enough,” said Shahaim in alarm. “We go there pretending everything’s okay and not alarming everyone, we have to coast in from middle-beacon. That’s a two day run in that system. If we’re going to pull anything when we’re there, that’ll take a day or two at least, surely?”

Erik nodded. “We’ll have to chance it. Hope they’re not that fast, hope there isn’t a ship sent to Heuron immediately. I mean they’d have to get lucky. Running a shanti-class halfway across human space without proper orders would take some balls.”

“What
are
you planning to do in Heuron?” Lisbeth asked warily. Everyone looked at Erik. All with trepidation, save for Trace, who ate impassively, and sipped the juice Lisbeth held for her.

“Well I’m pretty sure Supreme Commander Chankow is there,” said Erik, as offhandedly as he could manage. “Could ask him a few questions.”

“You think he’ll tell you?” Lisbeth asked.

“Depends how I ask him,” said Erik.

Shahaim looked pale. Even Kaspowitz swallowed. “Oh fuck,” said Shahaim. “You want to kidnap Supreme Commander Chankow.”

“Kidnap might be a bit strong,” said Erik. “Strongarm, threaten and blackmail are all on the cards.”

“Erik, we don’t know if he even did anything!” Shahaim protested further. “He’s been on Heuron or at least well away from Homeworld! What happened to us was a rush job, a spur of the moment thing, probably cooked up by Fleet Admiral Anjo, and it all went wrong. The Supreme Commander probably had nothing to do with it!”

“He might not have given Anjo direct instructions,” Erik said firmly. “But he’d have established a general understanding. No one, not even Fleet Admiral Anjo, has the greatest warship captain of the war assassinated unless he’s absolutely certain that
his
ultimate commander will back him.” He glanced at Trace. “What do you think? Is it doable?”

“Sure,” said Trace around a mouthful. “But, few problems. First,
Phoenix
isn’t supposed to be anywhere near Heuron, we’re supposed to be at Homeworld. Got some explaining to do when we get there. Second, the Captain’s not supposed to be dead. We can’t just dress someone up as him cause they’re not that dumb and we’re not that lucky. Got some explaining to do for that as well… and for Commander Huang, who should logically be in command if the Captain’s not.” Erik grimaced. “Why fly
Phoenix
across human space without its Captain or Commander? Why’s the LC in charge, why are we damaged, etc? What the hell happened to us that could explain all that?

“Fourth, we can’t let crew have liberty on station dock. They deserve it, but… no offence guys, but we can’t trust all the spacer crew. They’ll rat to someone and then we’re screwed. Got to jam internal coms too, standard secrecy provisions… not hard to do, but more explaining. Fifth, how do we get you,” looking at Erik, “to see the Supreme Commander? Or even close? And how do we pull off an escape? Because in actual fact, Erik, I don’t think it should be you at all. You’re
Phoenix
commander now, acting-captain really, and we don’t have another person aboard who can do that as well as you.”

With a half-apologetic look at Shahaim. She didn’t protest.

“Well then good luck getting close to Chankow without me,” Erik told her. “Because if our Captain and Commander are somehow missing, then the Lieutenant Commander is
certainly
answerable for that, and that’ll be the only context in which anyone from this ship will see the Supreme Commander outside of an interrogation in the brig.”

“Well then we should snatch him at home,” said Trace. “Or some other way, because if we get the information we’re after, we’re going to have to go running across human space once more to spread the word, and that’s going to take the best starship jockey we’ve got.”

“Trace, the security in Hoffen Station is ridiculous,” Erik insisted. “You’re not starting another firefight in the middle of a high security zone, I won’t allow it.”

“And since when was it your job to tell me how to conduct combat operations?” Trace stared at him. Lisbeth leaned quietly back against the wall between them, to take herself out of the line of fire.

“When did you become so damn eager to kill senior Fleet commanders?” Erik replied.

“When they betrayed all the men and women who’d served under them,” Trace said coldly. “When they made it so that all the guys I’ve lost, that we’ve all lost, died for some fucking stinking lie.”

Silence from the others. Erik held her gaze completely. “They didn’t die for a lie,” he told her. “They died to secure humanity’s place in the Spiral. They did that. They didn’t die for Fleet Admiral Anjo, or Supreme Commander Chankow. We make our own causes, Trace. And so does High Command, unfortunately.”

This time it was Trace who looked away first. Back down to her food, to continue eating. “There are still tavalai at Heuron,” she said. “Speaking of people who might help us.”

“You know,” Shahaim said edgily, “I’m not sure I went through all that war against the tavalai just so I could join them now.”

“Me neither,” said Erik. “But if that’s what it takes.”

“And… then, what do we do with this information?” Lisbeth asked. “Say you find there’s some kind of conspiracy. I mean, clearly there
is
some kind of conspiracy, right? Who do you tell?”

“Everyone,” said Trace. “We’re
not
in this alone. We’re one ship for now, but once people learn what’s happened, I mean if we get
proof?
We might even be the majority.”

Erik nodded. “It’s not our problem, Lis. It’s Fleet HQ’s, when they decided to murder the Captain.”

“I’m not talking about whose responsibility it is,” Lisbeth said anxiously. “I mean this isn’t really about fairness, is it? You all agreed to go and risk your lives in a war while most of us sat safely at home and applauded from a distance. No one military is in the fairness business. You’re in the protection business. What if you find information that would start a civil war if it got out?”