“The Marine Platoons won’t have been penetrated by intelligence,” the Master Sergeant assured me. “Everyone who goes into a platoon has been passed through the training camp and the Crucible. No spy could last the course.”
I hoped — prayed — that he was right. My own people were being trained by the Marines as well and, even though they couldn’t become Marines, they would be well-prepared for their future tasks. Sally, in particular, learned everything she could. She was turning into quite the bloodthirsty bitch. I knew who she saw when she smashed through the dummies and almost felt pity for her. Almost.
The ship seemed different, now that I was the commanding officer. I haunted the decks, moving from section to section and inspecting it all, keeping the ship as tidy as I could. Captain Harriman had always seemed to know what to do at all times, but I wasn’t like him. I was sure that they could see that I was faking it. They might even be pretending to do as I said and plotting against me. The ship felt lonely. The Captain’s cabin was so large that I felt completely isolated.
I made myself unpopular by running drill after drill. I wanted to practice counter-boarding operations in case the UN managed to drive us away from Earth and board our ships. A boarding action occurs once in a blue moon, but if I knew the UN, they would be vindictive in victory. They would want to arrest me and my people so that they could hang us in front of the entire world. Anyone in the lower levels would probably be sent to Botany. The tension just kept rising and rising…
It was almost a relief to return to Earth.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The downside of using conscript labour is obvious, although the UN considered the risk of sabotage to be minimal, for reasons that remain unexplained. The conscripts believed that there was no hope of eventual return to their home planets and started a program of sabotaging as much as they could. The UN found it a serious problem, not least because there was little they could realistically use as a punishment. Death deprived the UN of the services of people they needed.
“The Admiral will see you now, Captain,” the secretary said. “If you will please follow me?”
I followed. She was worth following. Her uniform was tailored to show off her assets to their greatest advantage and it didn’t take much imagination to see how she could use those assets, or how she’d gotten the position. Her long blonde hair reached all the way down to her ass and I wanted to stroke it. I controlled the urge as she showed me into Grand Admiral Rutherford’s office. It was neither the time or the place.
“Walker,” Rutherford said, gravely. He was a tall man, inhumanly handsome, the sure mark of heavy plastic surgery matched with regeneration therapies. His file suggested that he had only commanded one starship in his career, but apparently it hadn’t prevented him from rising to the highest rank in the UNPF. “Have a seat.”
“I prefer to stand, sir,” I said, carefully. No one, not even the Senior Chief, had been able to brief me on what Rutherford would say or do to me. I was flying completely blind.
“Sit,” Rutherford repeated. “That’s an order.”
I sat down and placed my hands in my lap. I’d used to fidget a lot, but the Academy had broken me of that nasty habit. The Admiral had taken his time calling for me. We’d returned to Earth two weeks ago, but after we’d made our report we’d been told to remain in orbit — under quarantine — while the investigators made their report. It hadn’t been an easy fortnight. I knew that some of the crew had been looking forward to shore leave at Luna City and I… well, I’d had my own plans. The summons to EarthStar One couldn’t have come any later.
“So,” Rutherford said, once I’d sat down. “What do you have to say for yourself?”
I looked back at him and frowned inwardly. “Nothing, sir,” I said, finally. “I acted according to regulations at all times.”
“Indeed,” Rutherford agreed. He seemed to relax slightly. “You’ll be interested to know that your own… experience wasn’t the only one. Intelligence has been reporting that there were several batches of… sabotaged components being sent out from Ceres, although you were particularly unlucky that you actually lost your Captain. Most of the other incidents were minor and cost us nothing, but time and effort repairing the damage. A handful of other people were killed, but yours was the worst.”
I didn’t relax. “The Board of Inquiry has already sat on the issue and decided that the staff at Ceres were to blame,” Rutherford continued. “Neither you nor any of your crew have been held accountable for the death of your commanding officer. The shuttle’s telemetry was inspected carefully — along with the reports of your own personnel — and they confirm your story. Captain Harriman’s death was an accident and there is nothing to fault in your own behaviour after his death.”
He leaned forward. “You should have declared yourself Captain at once,” he added, “but under the circumstances I think we can overlook that, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” I agreed. It was a relief. A full investigation would have destroyed morale under any circumstances, but it would have been particularly disastrous in my case. I had dodged a bullet. “I wanted to know what had happened before I declared myself Captain.”
“Quite right,” Rutherford agreed. He looked at me for a long moment and then stood up and started to pace. “How old are you, son?”
“Twenty-four, sir,” I said. It was certainly true, although wormholes did have a slight time dilation effect. I might actually be twenty-three and a half. There was no way to be sure. “My birthday’s in March.”
He nodded. “The Board of Inquiry did raise the issue of allowing you to continue to command the Jacques Delors,” Rutherford said. I felt my heart twist inside me, sharply. I’d grown to love being the Captain. “Some felt that you were too young for a cruiser command, others felt that you had succeeded to command according to regulations and couldn’t be removed from command without weakening the regulations. A load of bull, in my opinion, but Boards of Inquiry get terribly hair-splitting at the best of times. However…
“It seems that you have some powerful friends,” he continued. I blinked in surprise. As far as I knew, I had no powerful friends, with the possible exception of Captain Shalenko. “Captain Harriman spoke highly of you in his letters to his family and his family have apparently decided that approving you as commanding officer of the Jacques Delors would be a suitable legacy for him. You may not be aware of this, but his family have considerable influence in high places and have succeeded in pushing most of the objections out of your way. These are politics well beyond my level, but… the short version is that you have been confirmed as Captain of your ship.”
I felt cold. Favours like that tended to come with strings attached. I would have liked to discuss the issue with Roger, who might have known what was going on, but I had no idea where he was now. With his connections, he might even have made Captain himself by now, maybe even of a cruiser himself. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t trust him enough to talk about my own plans.
“Thank you, sir,” I said, finally. I had my own ship. It was almost enough to leave me well-disposed towards the system.