No Honor in Death (29 page)

Over the last few days Brakal and Jhar had come to the conclusion that Khrada was more than his putative rank indicated.  And therefore more dangerous, much more dangerous.  He displayed intimate knowledge of starship operations, Fleet doctrine and of Brakal's career and family.  Though the last two were expected of
Tai Kan
operatives, the first was unusual indeed.  Brakal had hoped to curb Khrada by playing on his
Tai Kan
ignorance of the real life in the Deep Space Fleet.  That hope had vanished, along with Jhar's confident plan of killing Khrada as soon as the cruiser reached the line.  While the death of a
Tai Kan
Lieutenant could be overlooked, even if he was sent on the Council's order, Khrada represented a deeper danger, one which his death on Brakal's ship would only worsen.

Surprising Brakal and Jhar too, was Khrada's lack of involvement in the ship's affairs.  He declined to meddle with the Commander's exercise of his command, with life aboard the ship, and did not comment on the oft treasonous jokes bandied about freely by the crew.  Neither did Khrada show the usual crude disdain and suspicion towards Brakal's less than orthodox leadership style and his open study of anything human.  The
Tai Kan
officer simply watched, took notes and sent reports to his masters.  Even the code he used proved childishly easy to crack, as if Khrada wished it so.

His actions reminded Jhar of nothing so much as an investigator preparing a case for the Imperial Inquisitor, for Brakal's court-martial.  The thought stunned him, for the Council had not shown much desire to adhere to the Codes of late, preferring the expediency of staged accidents and other forms of more or less subtle assassination.  But it made sense, in a perverse way.  Killing Brakal would only fan the flames of discontent among Deep Space Fleet officers and among the Clan Lords opposed to the Council's dictatorship.  Discrediting him however, presented a pleasant alternative, especially if they could prove Brakal actually did disobey orders and conducted himself in a manner offensive to the Code.  That would stay the hand of those who would be inclined to rise for a true martyr.  A conviction would not carry with it the punishment of death, but simple dismissal from the Fleet would do just as well, followed, once the dust settles, by a well-crafted accident.

When Jhar presented his thoughts to his Commander, Brakal laughed uproariously and slapped his First Officer on the shoulder.

"You are definitely becoming a true
hereditary
member of the Warrior Caste, Jhar.  Your ability to see through the webs of intrigue spun by the scum on the home world is nothing short of astonishing in someone who has not lived among them all his life.  Yes, my friend, I fear you are right.  I have come to the same conclusion.  Khrada is here to build a case.  The Council intends to use the Code against me because it fears to use its usual, dishonorable methods."  Brakal suddenly became serious as he turned to stare at the pseudo-view of space on the viewscreen in his cabin.  "Mind you, this new tactic of theirs is much more dangerous than any direct attack.  I cannot, as officer and Clan Lord, deny and evade any true accusation under the Code.  Even half-truths, dressed to resemble actual facts, are enough to stay those who would support me."

"What will you do?"

Brakal grimaced, as if he had bitten on a sour
r'fit
.  "What choice have I?  Obey my orders and yet try to fight the humans as best I can.  And leave Khrada to carry out his duties in peace.  But I will not dishonor myself or this ship in any way.  If that means I must face the Inquisitor upon our return, then so be it."

Jhar growled with displeasure.  "If this is how the Empire wishes to function, then it deserves to submit to the humans."

Brakal laughed again, but this time, it was tinged with bitter irony.  "Take care of your words, Jhar, lest you face the Inquisitor with me.  For all the good it will do the Empire.  We are losing this war, and the turds on Shrehari Prime cannot even see it."  He turned around to face his First Officer.  "Be that as it may.  We still have our duties to attend to.  Find me a convoy I can shadow, and I guarantee a small victory for the Empire."

"Commander."  Jhar nodded and left Brakal to his thoughts.

Two hours later, the Commander joined his First Officer on the bridge, observed as always by Khrada's sharp, unblinking eye.

"You have something, Jhar?"

"Yes.  Convoy
Lhat-One-One
is proceeding to Cimmeria to reinforce the garrison.  Its course brings it within striking range of the human patrols on the line.  It is composed of five transports, two of which carry Regiments of Imperial Levies, and three
Kardan
-class light cruisers.  The convoy left Garenga one week ago."

"Interesting, Sub-Commander," Khrada remarked from his vantage point near the security console.  His words momentarily stilled Brakal and astonished the crew.  He had not yet spoken on the bridge, and his words cut through the tense atmosphere.  "Convoy information is highly classified, and not for dissemination to every patrol ship.  How did you come across it?"

Jhar looked at Khrada with teeth bared in a parody of a grin.  "A little
irag
whispered it in my ear, Lieutenant."

"And does that
irag
have a name and rank, Sub-Commander?"  Khrada's tone would have been insubordinate, had everybody accepted the fiction of his lowly rank.  As it was, Jhar simply snorted.

"The
Tai Kan
will forgive me for doing my duty, Lieutenant.  Even you should appreciate the difficulties of protecting our operations with inadequate information."

"I see," Khrada replied, a vulpine grin creasing his bony features.  With deliberation, he took his computer from his pocket and made a few notes for his periodic report to the home world.  "It will not be difficult to ascertain the origin of the security breach."

Brakal, who had kept silent, letting his First Officer show his confidence and power aboard the
Tol Vakash
, now snarled.

"Stations!"

The crew stiffened and turned their attention back to their duties.  Jhar and Khrada remained in their respective postures, staring each other down.

"Lieutenant Khrada, you will include, in your report, that the
Tai Kan
's paranoid notions of security are helping the humans best us in this war."  Brakal swivelled his chair to face the spy.  "And, Khrada, if you really claim such high knowledge of tactics and combat, you should know that keeping a convoy secret from our own forces will hamper any attempt to counter a human raid.  Three light cruisers will not prevent an enterprising human frigate captain from cutting out one, even two transports without suffering any damage.  Not if that captain understands the Shrehari way of thinking.  And more of the humans than you may think do understand us, while we make every effort to not understand them.  You are dismissed, Lieutenant."

Khrada's face had tightened in anger at the public rebuke, but he dared not challenge the Commander on his own bridge.  He saluted crisply, turned on his heels and left.  Jhar's cruel grin followed him out, but was cut short by Brakal's pre-occupied frown.

"Your orders, Commander?" He asked.

"My orders are to shadow convoy
Lhat-One-One
, Jhar.  No matter what the
Tai Kan
's notions of security entail, my instinct tells me the humans will find it and strike."

"Maybe without the
Tai Kan
's paranoia we can win this war, eventually, Commander," Jhar grumbled.  "The pox on all spies, Admirals and politicians."

SIXTEEN

Siobhan shut off the terminal with a sigh and checked her timepiece.  Another four hours before they emerged to pick-up the convoy's trail.  Time enough for some sleep.  They would get precious little of it once the hunt was on in earnest.  She rose and poked her head through the hatch to the bridge.  Lighting was back to normal, now that the ship was in a sort of half-state between full battle stations and cruising stations.  But from this state, the
Stingray
would be combat ready in less than a minute because the crew now lived at their posts.  It was tiring, and not a little unnerving, but there was no helping that.  This deep in enemy territory, personal comfort took the backseat to survival.  Any skilled Shrehari captain could creep up behind the
Stingray
in hyper space, masked by the frigate's own wake and take aim.  Which was exactly the kind of tactic Siobhan intended to use on the convoy.  A blind cat and mouse game at unimaginable speeds, in parallel universe bubbles where the normal laws of physics didn't work.

Lieutenant Devall had the watch and all was quiet.  Siobhan quickly drew her head back into her ready room, lest Devall call the bridge to attention, and took the other hatch to the passage.  The ship was eerily quiet, except for the thrumming of the jump drives, a sound that soothed Siobhan's taut nerves.  She met no one on her way to her quarters, two decks below.

She was about to enter her cabin when, on an impulse, she turned around and stared at the door to Pushkin's quarters across the way.  Siobhan had never entered them, as indeed she had never entered any of her officers' cabins.  Without quite knowing why, she touched the call plate by the door and waited.  A few seconds later, the door open to a gruff voice.

When Pushkin caught sight of his Captain, he tossed his reader aside and rose.  The First Officer still wore his battledress but had unfastened the tunic to let it hang loosely.  His emergency bag sat squarely on the small desk by the bed, ready for action.

"Am I disturbing you, Mister Pushkin?"

"No, sir.  What can I do for you?" His tone was polite, though his eyes spoke of surprise this unexpected invasion of his privacy.

"May I come in?"

He waved his arm, clearly resigned at the interruption.  "Please, sir.  This ship, including my cabin, is yours."

She considered him for a fraction of a second, then shook her head as she took a step back into the passage.  "I'm sorry for interrupting you.  Maybe some other time."

Startling both Siobhan and himself, Pushkin held up a hand.  "My apologies, sir.  Come in.  This time I mean it."  And he did, but for reasons he couldn't explain.  Siobhan Dunmoore had in turn, puzzled him, infuriated him, confounded him and made him re-assess his most basic assumptions. In short, he no longer knew where he stood with her, and with his career.  He did not much like the feeling.

Siobhan cocked her head to one side, meeting his dark eyes, but she entered the cabin and let the hatch close behind her.  It was small, smaller that Siobhan's but larger than the standard officers' quarters.

Pushkin's decoration tastes were as spartan as Siobhan's, which, on second thought did not surprise her.  The man himself was spare and withdrawn.  An officer's sword hung on the wall, a few printed books occupied a shelf and an exquisite bonsai maple grew in a simple clay pot on the desk. Those, along with a trio of holopics were the only personal touches.  Two of the pictures showed smiling groups of people, one obviously Pushkin's family, while the other was his Academy graduation class.

The third hologram held her eyes and she examined it with profound interest.  It showed an ancient, grey wooden building, a pagoda-like structure whose eaves jutted out to form stylized sea-serpent heads, like those found on Viking ships.  A modest cross adorned one of the many roofs. It was surrounded by a low fieldstone fence and a meadow covered with small yellow flowers.  In the background an immense blue sky seemed to go on forever.  The building's simplicity and surroundings enchanted Siobhan and she smiled.

"It's the church in my ancestral village back on Earth, sir," Pushkin softly explained, surprised by Dunmoore's delighted reaction and interest.  "It's gone now but legend has it that it was built by the Vikings who settled on the Volga more than a thousand years ago."

"You're a Christian?"  She turned to face Pushkin, suddenly reminded that she knew almost nothing of the real man behind the bland personal file.  He probably knew more about her.

"Yes, sir.  But I guess I don't practice it much any more.  My mother always insisted on retaining the old traditions and upholding our family's faith."  He shrugged absently, as if it was all in the past, long forgotten.  "When she died, I simply gave up caring about God."

Siobhan glanced at the holo again, intrigued by Pushkin's reason for keeping it so prominently displayed, and by the unexpected, intimate turn of the conversation.  She'd had no particular reason for visiting him.  Now, it seemed a reason was emerging anyway: a chance to learn more about her closed, brooding First Officer.  She decided to make the most of it, opening herself as he had opened himself.

"I don't follow any particular religion myself or have any particular beliefs.  My family never have. I guess my father's only faith was money and fame." 
Now why did I tell him this?
  "My mother, if she believed in anything, never had the time to teach us."  She fell silent and shrugged.  Pushkin wordlessly offered her a seat.

"It's funny though," she finally continued in a thoughtful tone, "but when I look out the porthole at the immensity and deadly beauty of the universe, of the stars, I can't help think that there must be a Higher Power somewhere who created it all.  I can't explain it otherwise."

Pushkin chuckled.  "You know, sir, I think you've just defined religion in its purest sense.  Awe at what we can't explain."

Siobhan smiled.  "Maybe I have.  But maybe sometimes it would be better if I did believe in a particular philosophy.  I might help me face life more easily."

Pushkin considered her reply.  "It might.  Or it might give you an out, something to follow blindly when another, more considered if less comfortable response would be better.  Religion is a double-edged sword."

Siobhan sighed.  "Quite.  And so is command.  We'll be fighting the Shreharis in less than a day."

"And it's about high time."  His voice had an unusual undertone of relief.

She cocked an eyebrow.  "I had the feeling you were dubious about this battle run."

Pushkin smiled tightly.  "Not about the run, sir.  But about the crew's ability to get it right.  They haven't seen the whites of the enemy's eyes in a long time.  And they've lost their faith.  In themselves and in the ship."

"Have you?"

He grimaced, mentally taking a step towards the dark abyss that had beckoned him since Siobhan had entered his life.  Towards the honesty his duties demanded, the honesty he'd been unable to give her so far.

"I'm not sure any more."  His eyes slid away to the small holo of the church.  "I thought so at one time.  Now?  I just don't know what kind of an officer I am any more, nor do I know what kind of a ship this is.  I guess we'll find out soon enough."

"It may be too late by then," Siobhan replied in a whisper.  "A crew that doesn't believe in itself or its ship cannot fight and survive for long.  You're right though, you don't know what you are any more, and neither do most of the people aboard.  It shows.  And if you don't know, you can't believe."

He didn't reply, didn't meet her gaze.  His eyes remained fixed on the holo of the church and the silence deepened, underscored only by the low hum of the ship driving headlong towards an Imperial convoy.

When he looked back at Siobhan, she read pain and self-loathing in his eyes.  The intensity of his gaze struck her like something physical, but she successfully repressed the urge to speak.

"You're right too, Captain."  His voice was hoarse, but his tone hard.  "We, except a few select bastards, have lost our faith, thanks to that bitch Forenza."  The depth of feeling in his words twisted Siobhan's guts.  He laughed harshly, an ugly, tortured sound.  "You wouldn't bloody believe what this ship was like before, thank God, the Admiralty had the courage to relieve her."

"I would," Siobhan quietly replied.  "You see, I nearly lost my chance at a career thanks to Helen Forenza.  And Leading Spacer Rownes has been telling me something of what life was like under her."

He stared at Siobhan for several heartbeats.  Then looked away. "Whatever you think, whatever Rownes told you, it was a lot worse.  And there was nothing I or anyone else could do. The hell-bitch had us all under her power and we sacrificed our integrity and our honor just to survive, in the hopes that we could get away from this ship of the damned.  God Almighty," he ran his trembling hand through his short hair, "I - I lost all the courage I though I had.  I hated myself for letting her go on, letting her get away with it all.  But," he stared at Siobhan again, a wildness replacing the self-loathing in his eyes, "I desperately wanted to command my own ship one day, and crossing Forenza would have extinguished that hope forever.  She broke more careers than the Disciplinary Board, for trivialities.  I tried to keep things together as best I could, without hanging myself, but it wasn't enough. And I simply didn't have the guts to do more.  There are many aboard this ship who hold me in contempt, and they're right to do so. 
I
hold myself in contempt."

"When faced with Forenza's kind of evil," Siobhan said, once Pushkin had fallen silent,  "all bets are off.  I can't blame you for seeking to preserve yourself, and there's at least one solid crewmember who thinks you did your best."

"Rownes?"

Siobhan nodded.  "What I said when I came aboard still holds.  Everyone gets a clean slate. Otherwise I'd only be compounding Forenza's unfairness.  So far, I have no complaints, First Officer.  You know your job, and you do it well.  Although," she smiled sadly, "you had to relearn some of it."

"Yeah."  He rubbed his face with both hands and then looked at her.  "Listen, Captain, the shit isn't over yet.  Forenza's hand still hangs over us."

Meaning you're still scared enough of her to keep quiet about something.
  "I figured that.  With the kind of friends she has, she can make sure nothing about her indiscretions is ever heard about."

"Yeah, right again.  And not only Forenza.  Admiral Kaleri and she are asshole buddies.  The Admiral took good care of Forenza and is still watching her back now that she's facing the Board."

"Why?"

A guarded look covered Pushkin's open gaze.  "I'm not sure, sir.  At least, I don't have any proof, only theories.  But it's unhealthy to speak of them."

"Unhealthy like Vasser, Melchor and Byrn found out?"

Pushkin slowly nodded.  "That's what I think.  They crossed some invisible line, speculated about things they should have left alone, and paid for it with their lives.  But they're not the only ones who paid."  When Siobhan raised her eyebrows in question, he continued.  "We had four putative suicides on this ship in the year preceding Forenza's departure.  One Ensign and three ratings."

"Putative?"  Siobhan frowned, remembering Rownes' words on the same subject.

"I don't know, sir.  Really.  She used them for her own ends, that much was generally known, but they had no reason to kill themselves.  Maybe it's my paranoia, sir.  God knows it was rampant before you got here.  And still is, to some extent."

"A great extent, I think."

"Yes,"  Pushkin shook his head ruefully.  "When you took command, we didn't know what we were in for.  Forenza had warned us to forget the past completely before she left, and Admiral Kaleri reinforced that message, not directly mind you, but clearly enough.  I even thought for a while that you were Fleet Security, come to find out what
really
happened, and dump the rest of us right into it."

Not only you, Gregor.  Hell, that would explain everybody's caution and reticence. 
Siobhan frowned as something in his words tugged at a fleeting memory.  He looked at her questioningly and she shook her head.  "Just a thought about something I heard back at Starbase 31.  I can't pin it down right now.  Go on."

"Listen, Captain, I freely admit I'm scared, too bloody scared to tell you what I think, what I pieced together.  So are the others.  I think we trust you by now.  At least I do.  You've made us re-learn what trust, honor and all the other qualities of a good officer are.  But I don't think you can protect us, least of all from whoever is still watching us aboard this bloody ship."

"Who is doing the watching, Gregor?"

He flinched at the sound of his first name.

"I don't know."

"Someone hinted that the SSB had watchers aboard."

His head came up so fast Siobhan almost expected to hear his vertebrae crack.

"Good Lord, Captain," he said in an anguished tone, "you place yourself in danger by even mentioning them."

Siobhan shrugged.  "I've always believed that the best defence was a good offence.  If I can find out who is a danger to this ship, and I must because it's my duty as Captain, then I can neutralize them.  The SSB aren't the bogey men we make them out to be, especially not on a Navy ship."