Dark Running (Fourth Fleet Irregulars Book 4) (83 page)

The rest of the journey back through the nebula was accomplished without incident. It took them only eight weeks and four days, this time, since they no longer had to pick their way cautiously along uncharted canyons, or waste time turning back when those canyons turned out to be dead ends.

Supplies of prepack meals ran out, as expected, while they were navigating Happy Valley. This, though, was something the crew regarded with more amusement than dismay.

‘It
is
absurd,’ said Mako, attempting to explain to their passengers why the crew was finding having gone to emergency rations so entertaining. ‘The thing is, see, normally on a Fleet ship you only have to go to emergency rations when you’ve run out of everything else – they don’t have any biovat facilities,
or
any chef stations with supplies of ingredients. Those things are very high end, luxury, something you’d only find on the most expensive private yachts. So we are in the bizarre position, here, of being served a combination of emergency K-bar rations with a side of salads, fruit and freshly baked desserts. It’s like drinking vintage champagne with burgers.’ He saw that they were not understanding that reference at all, and smiled, reaching for the universal rescue of exodiplomacy. ‘Never mind. It isn’t important.’

For Alex, that time in the nebula was just wonderful. With the ship finally relaxed from stand-by alert, he and Buzz could catch up with sleep, write up reports and data analysis, and just spend time relaxing.

He was almost sorry, really,
almost
, when they came out of their Van Damek, crossed back over the League’s border and made their way to the system where they’d left the Stepeasy.

It felt like everything changed as they saw the Stepeasy again. It was right where they’d expected it to be – there was still another three weeks before the Stepeasy would have left the system to head back to Therik and report that the Heron had failed to return. All the same, it was a relief to find that they were still where they were supposed to be, as they really would be pushing supplies to the limit without the crates the Stepeasy could provide.

It didn’t take long to establish that nothing had happened to the Stepeasy during their absence. Nothing. They had not seen any other ship, or done anything other than continue to orbit round and around and around the designated system, on the designated course, at the designated speed. They greeted the Heron with hull-rolling, light-flashing delight, rapidly turning to concern as they saw the state of the frigate.

Much of that ‘state’ was cosmetic, though there was the patched-over airlock on deck eight and two missing guns which told their own story. That cosmetic state was, however, really shocking – their paintwork had already taken some damage from their time in-system during the Ignite test. Two long trips through nebula and having been in combat had pretty much accounted for the rest, leaving only battered remnants of paint amidst the dents, scratches and long burn marks.

Reassured that they were all safe – explanations about Ali Jezno would wait till later – and told that they had not only succeeded in making contact with Samart but actually had a Samartian diplomatic delegation aboard, the Stepeasy’s crew and passengers went various shades of berserk. Their skipper – a man so discreet that he was virtually invisible – actually turned quite rosy with joy and congratulated Alex five times in succession, while the Seconds’ people they’d left there were screaming or crying, or both.

They couldn’t wait to get back aboard, scrambling onto the first shuttle they could and racing over to hear for themselves what had happened. Mack McLaver’s first words, on coming to the command deck and gripping Alex’s hand, were a heartfelt congratulation. His
second
words were an urgent, half-hopeful question.

‘Did you give them the Ignite?’

Alex nodded, and as Mack hovered between pride and dismay, gave him his moment.

‘It was a significant exchange, for missile-array tech far more powerful than ours,’ he said, and grinned. ‘They wanted it in the grey casing, though – yours. They didn’t like the red.’

Mack took a moment to take that in, and then let rip a cry of such gleeful triumph that even Alex had to laugh.

There were a lot of questions after that, from all of them, and all the amazement, shock and babbling
more
questions that the Fourth had known they’d face on their return. But there were also very welcome supplies, and not just food but tech supplies they’d need to bring the ship back up to a normal appearance before they got to Chartsey. Turning up there looking the way they did right now, after all, would be something of a giveaway, even to groundside eyes, that they’d been involved in something far more extreme than any kind of routine patrols around Dortmell.

The eleven and a half weeks it took them to get to Chartsey, therefore, was mostly spent in fixing up the ship. There was plenty to do; building two guns to replace the ones which had been destroyed in combat, fixing every little dent and scratch and applying a fresh coat of paint. They had to strip off the modified comms array, too, restoring it to the binary system. Every member of the crew, by the end of that, had qualified for hullwalker work, adding a hundred per cent hullwalker training to their hundred per cent senior gunner achievement.

Alex was happy – simply and quietly happy, proud of his crew and pleased with the way they were working. The biggest problem that he had during the first six weeks of that run was so trivial it didn’t even feel as if it
was
a problem. The Seconds’ people who’d stayed on the Stepeasy had come back aboard, initially, with great enthusiasm, wanting to know every detail of all that had happened. As their curiosity was satisfied, however, it became apparent that their own stay on the superyacht had made them discontented with the facilities aboard the Heron. Time after time, the Heron’s crew found themselves being asked
why
they couldn’t provide things that people had got used to on the Stepeasy, like round the clock cabin-service, stewards to make their beds, a leisure events programme and so on. The words
‘On the Stepeasy, we had…’
became an all-too familiar complaint. Seeing that it was starting to become annoying, though, Martine stepped in with a quiet word reminding their re-acquired passengers that this
was
a warship, not a liner or a yacht, and the plaintive comparisons subsided. Alex, noting that, gave Martine a casual nod of acknowledgement, but it was nothing like anything so serious that any of them considered it a problem.

Then, four weeks out from Chartsey, Shion asked to see the skipper.

‘You know those deep thoughts I was having?’ She asked, and after a moment or two to cast his mind back, Alex remembered. ‘I’m ready to share them now – I’ll need about half an hour of your time.’

‘How about over lunch, then?’ Alex suggested. Shion gave an unexpected trill of laughter.

‘Maybe
after
lunch?’ she said, and as he looked enquiring, ‘I don’t think you’ll want to be eating while we’re talking.’

Alex felt a twinge of alarm, and seeing that, she reassured him, quickly, ‘It’s just that I’ve noticed people get squeamish when they’re eating. I want to talk to you about the Marfikians, and you may find some of it…’ she paused, emphasising that she had chosen this word with deliberation, ‘unsettling.’

‘Ah.’ Alex said. ‘Well – join me for lunch, then, and we’ll talk afterwards.’

‘Lovely – thanks,’ she said, and went off, then, looking cheerful.

Alex didn’t see her again till they met for lunch, which they had in his daycabin. He had got beyond even commenting, now, when it was Banno who turned up with the food, merely nodding acknowledgement as Banno demonstrated his ability to set the table and serve their food in under six seconds.

When he’d gone, looking smug, Alex and Shion ate unhurriedly, chatting about things she was hoping to do and see during their visit to Chartsey. It was only after Banno had returned and whisked away the trolley that they settled to their meeting.

‘So…’ Alex prompted, with an encouraging look.

‘So,’ Shion agreed, and activated screens with an echo to Alex’s side of the table. ‘I’ve been thinking,’ she said. ‘I’ve been thinking a lot about the Marfikians. I know you don’t like talking about them, but I do think that this is important – a case of the outsider, perhaps, seeing more of the game. I know, I’m not an outsider,’ she saw the protest on his face, and smiled, ‘I’m part of the team, which is
real
, everything that I could ask for, couldn’t be happier with that. But in
this
sense I am an outsider, in that I have come to this situation from a very different perspective, my view of the Marfikians is very different from yours. And not just yours personally, I mean, but the deeply entrenched beliefs that the League has become so sure of that you regard them as
fact
.

‘That struck me, as we learned about Samart. There’s been a lot of discussion about their culture of closing doors on things because they’ve decided that they’re impossible or there’s some kind of immutable natural law in force. You’ve given a lot of thought, yourself, to helping them broaden their cosmological view, opening their minds to other possibilities. But it seems to me that the League has done just the same thing where the Marfikians are concerned – made their minds up about them so long ago that it’s become embedded, something you see as indisputable fact. This is
your
cosmological view, yes?’

She activated a star chart which did, indeed, represent the situation as the League perceived it. Within the roughly hatched out ovoid within the Firewall, defined as ‘human space’, were very much smaller zones identified as League space and Marfik-controlled territory. Zooming in on them showed the picture of two powers, confronting one another at points where their borders met, notably at Lundane and at Cherque. The outer extent of the Marfikian-dominated region was faded out as ‘unknown’, as the League had not explored that region, the area beyond Marfik often referred to as ‘the dark zone’.

‘This is how you see things – you and them, the Marfikians ruthless aggressors who will conquer any world they can,
because
they can, and you, the League, the great power standing against them.’

Alex did not point out that this was so entirely obvious that it hardly needed saying. He just gave a slight nod, listening attentively.

‘This is your mind-map,’ Shion observed. ‘In which, please note, you have Pirrell as a bubble within Marfikian territory, making the assumption there that the only reason they have not conquered us is because our shield, the veil technology, protects us.

‘And you have this…’ She used a screen to display a formula which Alex recognised at once. It was centuries old, used by the League as a model in evaluating the danger of Marfikian attack. It was a simple formula in essence – on the one side was the strength of Marfikian forces and on the other the strength of the League.

‘You believe this is how the Marfikians think, right?’ Shion said. ‘Pure logic, making their decisions on relative force. If they calculate that they can conquer a world, they will, because they
can
, because they believe that the strong have a right to dominate the weak. So the only way to protect your worlds is to make yourself stronger than they are, to keep that balance, that edge, in your favour. It’s a border standoff, arms race, in which you never
do
achieve a decisive edge because as fast as you develop new technology the Marfikians match it.’

Alex nodded patiently, understanding that Shion
did
know that he already knew all this, but that she was laying out the basis for an argument according to academic protocol. ‘And you see it differently?’

‘Perhaps. I have an idea of how it
might
be different, anyway, and I do believe you’re leaving something very important out of your equation.’ She changed the screen. ‘This is what
I
think it is.’

It was almost the same formula, but for a couple of new factors introduced as variables.

‘What’s ‘R’?’ Alex asked, having noticed that this was a significant addition on the Marfikian side.

‘Revulsion,’ Shion said. ‘It is the driving force of Marfikian culture, and you leave it out entirely. But before we get to that, let’s start with this.’ She drew a ring around the part of the formula which was believed to describe how the Marfikians decided whether it was worth invading a system or not, with another significant addition, a qualifier of
If
T.

‘I believe that
T
is a vital condition which, again, you’ve left out of the equation,’ she said. ‘
T
represents Territory, that the Marfikians won’t even consider invading another system unless it falls within what they consider to be the territory where they have the right to do so.’

Alex puzzled that one through in his head.

‘That’s pretty much a pointless condition, though, isn’t it?’ He said. ‘Given that they believe they have the right to dominate the entire universe – the quality of
T
, there, is meaningless.’

‘Well, that’s what your people have always believed,’ Shion observed. ‘But let’s look at the evidence, okay?’ She saw the involuntary, momentary look on his face, and looked apologetic. ‘Bear with me, please,’ she requested. ‘I know how hard it is for you to even accept that it is
possible
to understand Marfikian thinking. You use words like ‘monsters’, ‘rabid’ and ‘psychotic’, and you state, with absolute certainty, that Marfikians do not have any feelings – sociopathic, you’ve said, a race of sociopaths, utterly ruthless, devoid of all emotion. You say ‘cyborgs’ with a subtext of ‘killer robots’. The very idea of ‘understanding’ them, having any empathy with them at all, is actually offensive to you, I know, I
do
understand that. But please, Alex, try to set your beliefs and feelings aside, here.’

‘Fair enough,’ Alex agreed, with a wry look. ‘It
is
difficult,’ he admitted. ‘Even hearing anything sympathetic said about them triggers very strong, instinctive reactions – gut level outrage, frankly. But I
am
listening, Shion, and I will do my best to keep an open mind.’